Her Compound

Chapter 2

After we all looked at each other for a little while longer, we reluctantly gave in to our curiosity and followed the stranger out of the white room and out into the hallway. The hallway was long and wide with light grey walls and floors that felt cool against my bare feet as we turned to the right and stayed to the right side of the hallway, following closely behind the boy.

"We first need to get the rest of you," the boy said as we came to a halt in front of another door; one similar to the one we had come from.

Matteo took a step closer to him. "What do you mean by the rest of us?"

I nodded slightly and looked at the boy, wanting to know the answer as well.

The boy rested his hand on the knob of the door as he reached with his other hand to the switch on the wall and flicked it on. "There are twenty of you all in total. I will be explaining everything in more detail as soon as I collect everyone and bring them to the training room."

He then looked over his shoulder and down the hall. I followed his gaze to see two women in dark clothes talking to each other as they walked closer to us and passed, giving the boy a smile in the process. The boy returned the gesture with a nod and looked back at us.

"Wait right here while I retrieve the five that's in here, won't you?"

He then opened the door without waiting for a response and disappeared on the other side leaving us outside and completely dumbfounded.

I turned to Willow at the same time she turned to me. "What is going on? What is this place?"

She looked just as confused as I had felt. "I don't know. He seems genuinely nice... but there's something off. I don't trust him."

I nodded. "And the training room," my brows tugged together, "what are they going to train us for?"

Matteo leaned forward as he peeked into the room before straightening back up and looking down the hall and back at us. "He seems to trust us a whole lot."

Logan took a small step back. "What if we just ran down the hallway? Tried to escape?"

I went to open my mouth to tell him that it was a ridiculous idea but someone beat me to it before I could say anything.

"I wouldn't attempt to do that," the boy said as he walked out of the room. He stopped next to the door and watched the other five teens exit the room before looking back at Logan. "We don't want to hurt any of you, but if you try anything that would result in hurting any of us, we will have to deal with you the way we see fit."

I watched as the five other teens joined us, two girls and three boys. They all looked like they didn't know what to do as they just walked to the left of us and stood there, inspecting the five of us.

A different sort of expression went on the boy's face as he looked at us now. "I'm sorry," he said, his eyes falling to the smooth grey floor. "I know what sort of thing you all had to go through and I'm sorry you had to go through all of that. But just know, it was for a good reason." The expression left his face and he smiled his small smile again. "We are not your enemy."

* * *

That was the last thing he said to us before we collected the other ten teens from their two rooms and followed the boy down the hallway, taking a right at the end and passing a few other smiling people along the way. Confusion had rippled through my entire being throughout the silent walk, but I pushed it down the best I could, telling myself that the boy was going to explain everything and answer all of my questions as soon as we came to the training room.

It was his words that confused me the most though. What had he meant by 'we are not your enemy'?

If they aren't our enemy... then who is?

We then came to a part in the hallway where a group of people wrapped in dark shades of fabric were conjugated in front of the double doors where a sign saying 'Training Room' was placed just above the door frame. The group of people looked up from the paper they were looking at and watched us grow closer to them.

"Hey, Zee!" One of the men shouted out to the very light blond boy who was leading us closer to them. "It says here you have the room for the next hour or so," he said, brandishing the paper to the boy who stopped in front of them.

We all came to stop behind them and looked at the small group consisting of three boys and two girls. They all looked to be around nineteen or twenty and each and everyone of them looked like they spent quite a long time exercising.

"Yeah," the boy responded. He gestured over his shoulder at the twenty of us. "I got another group."

The man's hooded brown eyes widened slightly as they scanned all of us. "I can see that." He then looked back at the boy. "When do you think you'll be done? Cuz we all know damn well that it doesn't usually take that long to talk to the kids, and we have a bet to complete."

The boy rolled his eyes and pushed past the group of people, us following closely behind him. He opened one of the double doors and gestured into the room which we entered quickly, wanting to get out of sight of the group.

As soon as we entered I turned back around to see the boy lean against the edge of the door and look at the brown haired man. "We'll be done when we're done," he replied to the man's question. He then raised one of his light eyebrows. "Unless you want to take it up with Joan."

"Whatever." The man rolled his eyes and then playfully punched the boy in the shoulder. "I'll see you later."

"You better," the boy let out a small laugh, "you need to tell me about that bet."

The man chuckled and said a quick goodbye to the boy before he left with the rest of his friends down the hall. The boy closed the door and walked past us, stopping in the open area of the large room.

"Welcome to the Training Room," the boy said, gesturing to the large space.

Training 'room' was probably an understatement. The room looked to be as big as Ace's whole place. The room was tall with exercise equipment on one side, like punching bags, weights, and treadmills, and a target range on the other. The one far wall was completely covered in different sized weapons and other things, along with the long table that ran from one wall to the other.

The boy gave us a moment to take in the room before speaking up again. "This is where you will be spending most of your time, training and getting in shape to fight."

"Fight?" A short blond-haired girl questioned with a raised eyebrow. She blushed a bright red as she realized she said it out loud and she tentatively raised her hand, probably thinking it was too late to take it back. "Fight what exactly?"

The boy smiled. "I was just getting to that... but first..."

The boy reached back and took a weird circular device out of his back pocket. The device had an almost squashed volcano shape, and it was no bigger than the palm of the boy's hand.

He ran his free hand through his hair and flipped the device over in his other. "You can all call me Zack, and before I answer all of your questions," he held the device up in the air, "I will give you a short walk through of the map of the compound."