irate
Adjective
Feeling or characterized by great anger.
I felt numb after that day. My father wasn’t dead. He wasn’t the man who lived in my memory. He was the enemy, and that was how I would treat him. He killed one of my best friends, and he would pay. I would make sure of it.
We weren’t sure what we should do now. We had the codes. At least Amanda and I had them. We didn’t know what else my father would do to try and get them back, and we’d been hiding in the sewers for two days. I wasn’t feeling anything but nausea. There was no anger, no sadness, no sorrow, nothing. I could feel the others eyes on me at all times. Especially Jaden and Alyssa. Alyssa had known me the longest, and she probably knew exactly what was going through my mind. She knew what I wanted to do, and she wanted to make sure I wouldn’t do anything stupid. To be honest, I didn’t care if it was stupid, as long as I started doing something.
And Jaden… I wasn’t sure why he kept watching me. We hadn’t known each other all that long, and he didn’t really watch the others, at least not the way he watched me. I just sat in the corner of our makeshift room, trying to come up with a nonexistent plan. All I knew was that I needed to do SOMETHING. Sitting here wasn’t working. Leah was dead, and it was my fault, and I needed to avenge her somehow. But every time I got up to leave the room we had, someone would block the door. Finally I just got sick of it.
“The next person who gets in my way is going to lose a hand, I swear.” I growled at Evelyn, who was blocking me this time. She sighed and crossed her arms.
“You’re going to do something stupid, Shay.” Alyssa said across the room, reading one of the few books we had from candlelight.
“Yeah, well if I am, then it’s my decision, isn’t it?” I asked, looking at each of them.
“I’m not going to lose you because you want to play the hero! Besides, you’re still injured, and probably feverish. ” Jaden answered, looking angry. I glared at him. How could he even say that?
“Playing, the hero?! My own FATHER had my friend killed! What the hell do you expect me to do, just sit here?”
“I expect you to know when getting yourself killed will help the cause, and when it’ll just get you killed, and lose us a good team member,” Amanda said coldly. I saw all three of my friends glare at her, and even Tara, who wasn’t really friends with anyone, look up from the laptop. I had been able to rig the computer up to work anywhere, even underground. They needed me. That was the only reason Amanda wasn’t letting me go. She didn’t care about me, and I didn’t care about her, but she needed me, which meant I wasn’t going anywhere.
None of the others understood how Amanda could be so cold, but I did. The government had destroyed her family, just as I had thought it had destroyed mine, and she wanted to take them down. No one but me knew the extent of her fury but me. They all thought she just wanted to make sure they couldn’t use the nuclear codes, but it was so much more than that.
The government took our rights away, and Amanda had nothing to lose, and she was brilliant. Brilliant enough to get all of us to follow her. A ex-soldier to teach us how to fight, a government worker to spy for us, a hacker, someone good with using all kinds of weapons, and someone who can make explosives out of anything. And Amanda put all of it together. I was scared of what she would do sometimes, but I had nowhere else to go.
I really didn’t know what she planned to do now, and that scared me even more. She was willing to blow up innocent people to get me back because I knew my way around any computer. And she let Leah get killed to save her precious hacker. I hated myself for it, but I kind of hated her too.
Jaden was right though. My burn hurt like hell, so I sighed and flopped down on the smelly ground. That was another thing. It SMELLED down there. And we all did too. No showers. Tara was the only non-recognizable person in the group, so she went to get food every other day, and she got to shower. My brain wasn’t being very reasonable, so I felt like hating her too, for being able to be clean.
Jaden came over with the tiny bottle of burn ointment we had left. I was the only one who had been burned, but who knew what would happen in the future? “Jaden I’m fine. We need to save it.” He rolled his eyes at my weak attempt to hide my grimace.
He dabbed some on my arm, and I couldn’t help the gasp of relief that came out of my mouth. “Shay?” he asked quietly. I looked at him, waiting for the question. “What did they do to you?” I shook my head quickly. I was trying my best to block it out. “Shay, please,” he whispered.
“I can’t Jaden. I just can’t okay? They wanted information, and I wouldn’t give it to them. They didn’t exactly like that. So even though they knew I wouldn’t give in, they just kept going.” Jadens hands clenched in anger, and I thought for a second he was going to do what I had wanted to do and go after my father. I put my hand on his and unclenched it, and then he wrapped it around mine.
“I’m going to keep you safe from now on, okay?” We were both talking quietly still, and I felt a little strange.
“Why do you care about me so much? If I need to sacrifice myself, I will. End of discussion.”
“No,” he said firmly. The look in his eyes made me realize he was completely serious. There was no way I was going to die on his watch. He raised his free hand and tucked a strand of digusting and smelly hair behind my ear. “Shay…”
Tara spoke up from the other side of the room. She was staring at her screen. “Shay. Amanda. We’ve got incoming.” I got up and ran over. There was a radar screen on the laptop, and she was right. People headed straight towards us. We would have to run.
“Come on guys, let’s go. Time to move.” Everyone grabbed as many weapons as they could hide. A gun went into one of my boots and a dagger in the other. Another dagger went in a slip against my thigh, and one on a necklace around my neck. One last gun on my hip and I was ready to go. Tara hefted her laptop, and we were out of there. We really did have to run. We could hear dogs behind us.
“Why didn’t you give us more of a warning?” Evelyn puffed.
“I didn’t see them until just a minute ago!” Tara snapped.
“Yeah she was too busy watching Jaden and Shay.” Alyssa said, smirking at me. I swear that girl has problems.
“What the hell are you talking about, Robinson?” I asked, confused and annoyed. Was this really the time?
“Oh nothing. Just run!”
We didn’t know if we would even make it outside of the city. I was slowing them down, I still had a fever and had been tortured for two days. But we were still pretty fast, and we hoped we could make it. At least… most of us did……
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