Her Compound

Chapter 20

"Another group? Already?!"

I nodded and swallowed the mouthful of sandwich that I had in my mouth. "Yeah, coming later today."

Willow shook her head and glanced around the busy cafeteria before looking back at me with the look of complete shock still on her face. "But it's only been a few days! How could they be coming now?"

"Well we had only been at Ace's place for a few days," I said while taking another bite of food and thinking back to the time we had spent with the monster.

Matteo nodded his head at what I had said as he looked down at his half eaten sandwich. "We've already been here, what, three? Four days? Not to mention we have no idea how long we'd been knocked out prior to waking up here."

I nodded and looked over both of their shoulders to where Zack was arguing with Alex on the other side of the room. A scowl was on Zack's face as he stared at his friend and I watched Alex shrug his shoulders before I looked away and back down at the piece of meat in my sandwich.

I wanted to know exactly what they were talking about, but my only guess was that it was something to do with the newcomers, and the chances of Zack telling me were quite low.

I took another bite out of my sandwich.

* * *

The warm water felt nice on my skin, especially for the soreness that ran across my muscles. As I washed my body, lathering the soap across my skin, I looked down at my knuckles that were quite red and peeling in some areas.

We had just spent the last couple hours punching and kicking the punching bags, all while Zack avoided any talk of the newbies. After a while of trying to get him to talk or at least tell me what he and Alex were talking about at lunch, I kinda just gave up and stopped discussing it. I wasn't getting anywhere and I didn't want to keep pushing the subject any further.

The water then turned off and I quickly dried myself with the towel I had grabbed before wrapping it around my body and stepping out of the shower. My bare feet met with the tiled floor and I walked over to the bench where a clean set of clothes were placed.

I quickly got changed in the empty washroom and then threw my towel into the laundry bin before putting my watch back on, picking up my basket, and walking out of the room. While passing a few people who were heading to dinner, I quickly placed my basket into my room and then made my way to the cafeteria, following slowly behind a group of older teens.

I never really realized how much trust Zack had in me. He'd never let anyone else in our group shower alone and then come to the cafeteria when they were done.

As I entered the busy room, I immediately followed behind the group of teens to the end of the line and waited patiently behind them. My eyes scanned the cafeteria and landed on Zack who was sitting in front of Willow and Matteo who looked like they were... laughing?

I blinked fast, hoping to clear whatever film was over my eyes, but it remained the same. They were all laughing.

"Hey."

I looked up at the boy who was waiting behind me and muttered a quick apology before picking up a plate and filling it with a bunch of food and making my way to the empty spot next to Zack.

"What's so funny?" I asked, placing my plate down and sitting next to him.

Once Willow was able to control her laughter, she looked up at me. "Zack was telling us a story about a boy, that he had to train, that got his foot caught on the climbing rope and he was just hanging there until someone had to save him."

I raised my eyebrows as I looked at Zack. "What?"

"I know," Willow exclaimed. "That was my reaction too."

We all broke out into laughter and a warm feeling spread through me as I put a mouthful of peas into my mouth and watched each of them, smiling, joking, and having fun for the first time in a while.

Then about half an hour to forty-five minutes later, Zack stood up and told everyone that it was time to go back to our rooms, but there was something off about the way that he had abruptly stood up. I couldn't quite put my finger on it throughout the walk while we dropped everyone off at their rooms.

It was just us four now, walking to room D4.

Confusion for why Zack was acting so strange flooded through me, but I tried pushing the feeling down as we came to our room and he opened the door.

Perhaps it was something to do with Alex at lunch?

I barely even made it a step into our room when I had to stop in my tracks. The confusion that I felt leading up to this moment completely vanished as my eyes widened and eyebrows raised while I stared at what was inside. I could feel my chest tightening causing it harder to breathe and my hands shook slightly at my sides. I wanted to just walk down the hall and back to the cafeteria again, but my feet wouldn't do as my mind said.

I then felt a hand gently get placed onto my lower back, pushing me into the room, and I knew there was no going back. There was no escaping this.

I grew closer to the boy.