Her Compound

Chapter 6

"Here, Zoe. This one's yours."

I walked towards Willow and picked up the basket that she had pointed to. Inside, I found a couple pairs of clothes, shoes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush, a watch, and some feminine products. After rummaging through the basket, I placed it back down where I had got it from and looked around the washroom, mentally letting out a relieved sigh in the process.

There was a very small walkway by the door so anyone that opened the door wouldn't be able to see inside and by the far wall - the longest wall - were individual showers with white curtains, all being separated by white tiled walls. This washroom looked a whole lot cleaner than Ace's had been, and had a lot more privacy, thankfully.

I walked over to the cabinet on the left side of the room, labeled 'towels', and opened it. A few girls followed me over and I passed each of them a towel before taking my own and heading to the shower on the far side of the room.

As soon as I stepped over the lip of the cubical, I closed the curtain behind me and placed my towel onto the far edge of the curb. I then stripped out of my dirty clothes and threw them to the corner before pressing the button on the wall and watching the cold water spurt out of the shower head.

A small gasp escaped my lips as the water touched my bare skin, but it soon turned into a sigh as I felt the water heat up and a shiver run up my spine. I picked up the bottle of shampoo from the indent in the wall and used it in my hair before washing all of the soap off and standing underneath the warm water until the shower turned itself off.

I could still hear some of the other girls showering as I dried myself down with the towel I grabbed. Once I was done, I wrapped the towel around myself and pulled the curtain aside. Then I scooped up my dirty clothes with my right hand and walked over to the large laundry basket beside the cabinet while my other hand clutched the two sides of the towel together in front of me.

"What do you think we'll be doing after this?" Willow asked from beside me as I pulled my dark shirt over my head a few moments later.

I shrugged and rooted around in the basket and grabbed the watch that looked similar to the one Zack wore. The face of it was a flat square and on it, in big white letters, was the time: 8:48.

"I'm not sure," I said, while raising the watch towards her. "Can you put this on me?"

She took the watch from me and secured it around my left wrist and then I did the same for her. Afterwards, I took my hairbrush from underneath the other set of clothes and yanked it through my long, brown hair, each tug sending a sharp pain into the top of my head.

"You know you're going to rip all of your hair out... right?" Willow asked me as she easily ran her brush through her dark, short-cropped hair.

I pulled the brush out of my hair and then glanced into my basket with an arched eyebrow and a half-smile. "Too bad they didn't put scissors in there. I could have cut my hair like yours and we could be twins."

Willow rolled her eyes and tossed her brush back into her own basket before holding her hand out for me to hand mine over. "Turn around."

I gave her my brush and did as she said. Willow brought the brush down to the middle of my back and brushed the ends of my hair out before working her way up. Once she was done and could run the brush through my hair without any knots stopping it, she grabbed one of the elastics from the handle of the brush and tossed the brush back into my basket.

She then separated my hair into three sections and braided it, securing it into place with the elastic at the bottom. After she tied the elastic around my hair, she let go of the braid and it thumped against my back. I turned around and thanked her before we both packed up our baskets for the last few minutes until nine o'clock would come around, other girls doing the same.

A creaking sound then came from the walkway and we all froze. Zack's voice then floated through the door, and I relaxed slightly.

"Time's up," he said. "Bring your baskets with you and meet me outside. On our way we'll stop off at each of your rooms and you can place them on your bed."

Another creak came from the walkway and then the sound of the door closing echoed around the room. I immediately collected the shoes and put them on before picking up my basket and following the rest of the girls out of the washroom.

Zack stood on the other side, looking the same as before; only he had recovered from the previous look of pure rage. He now looked at all of us with a wide smile as we trickled through the doors of our washrooms.

Matteo and Logan joined Willow and I in the middle of the pack, each of them carrying their own baskets. The smell of soap and detergent from our clean clothes suddenly hit me, which was way different than the smell of sweat and dirty bodies that I had gotten used to overtime.

Zack then did a quick head count, his eyes staying on my own for an extra moment before continuing along and counting the twentieth teen.

I ignored the prolonged stare that I had gotten from him before watching him glance down at his watch and look back up at all of us, gesturing down the hallway. "Let's drop off all of those and then go get some breakfast."