Reclaimed Life

Chapter Four: Recruited

I hadn't been in a real bed since I left home, so the cot felt like heaven when I laid down in it. Combine that with finally feeling somewhat safe, I crashed hard and fast. Only waking up when I heard crying. I walked out to where Caden was to see Blair crying over him. I didn't need to ask what happened. I walked over to them and looked down at Caden's face, his chest was un-moving. The small comfort was at least his eyes were closed and I didn't have to see the lifelessness in his dark brown eyes. 

I lost him. It was my fault, if I hadn't let him come along Caden would be alive. I couldn't even cry, the tears wouldn't come. I shouldn't cry. It was my fault. I pulled Blair into me, I had to comfort her right now. I needed to be strong for her, I couldn't break down and cry. 

The front door opened. The doctor came in with a man maybe a couple of years older than me. "Where were you?" Blair asked the doctor as I wiped the tears off my face.

"There was nothing to be done, the infection had spread too much, I at least thought he'd make it until tomorrow morning," she said.

"You knew that he'd die and you didn't tell us?" I asked.

"Was he alone?" she replied.

"No, I woke up," Blair replied.

"Well that's something, isn't it. Come with me dear, the men will discuss what they're doing next," the doctor said and then she and Blair left the room. 

"So who are you?" I asked.

"Corin Loera," he said as he held out his hand. Getting the actual chance to look at him, Corin was handsome. His hair was a golden color and just a little shorter than mine, his eyes were light blue but still a shade darker than Blair's. He was also a few inches taller than me, which was a feat in itself, I wasn't a short guy. He was broad like Caden, but his muscles weren't as defined as Caden's. 

"Loera? Like the girl that died?" I asked.

"My sister," he said.

"You're the one who went to war, the doctor mentioned it," I commented.

"Yep and got away too before they could kill me," he said. "Dr. Craven mentioned that you and your friends wanted to join the rebels."

"Are you one?" I asked.

"Since the day I left the war," he replied.

"Yeah, we wanted to join. I can't speak for Blair anymore, she may want to go home after losing Caden," I replied.

"They were close?" he asked.

"Engaged," I replied.

"Were you and him close?" 

"Attached at the hip since childhood."

He nodded. "I lost my brother a while ago too and then a friend too, losing people is never easy."

"No, it's not," I replied. 

"Well if you'd like to come you can the same with the girl, we're recruiting more people now since the whole arena business," he said.

"I want to help, so I'll go," I replied. "Give Blair some time, then you can ask her."

"You don't seem really sad about your friend's death," Corin commented.

"Just because I'm not weeping doesn't mean I'm not sad. I can't afford to break down right now," I replied and a small smile appeared on Corin's face.

"Our leaders are going to like that attitude," he said. A few minutes later both the doctor and Blair came out of the room and Corin asked her if she still wanted to become a rebel. I had fully expected her to say no, but that wasn't her answer. 

"I want to go. Caden would never forgive me if I left that one on his own, besides he got really into becoming a rebel. I couldn't let him down by going home now, besides there's no life for me back there not without him," she said.

"That settles it the two of you will come with me, the doctor will take care of Caden's body and Dr. Craven stop acting as a recruiter, we have enough people coming," Corin said.

"I'm not a recruiter they came in wanting to do this, I just connected them with the right people. So as soon as people stop coming to me I'll stop sending them to you," she said. I walked over to her and held out my hand which she shook.

"Thank you for doing what you could," I said quietly.

"I'll treat him with the respect he deserves, I swear it," she promised and I nodded. I put my arms around Blair's shoulders and she said goodbye to the doctor and we followed Corin out of the house, it was dark outside again, I'd slept through the day without realizing it and I was still kind of tired. As we walked my mind wandered to Caden and all the memories we shared, his smile and his laugh, the things he could create with extra scrap metal, everything about him and I was entirely overwhelmed by his absence. He wouldn't be there to annoy me with never shutting up about Blair or talk me out of doing something stupid. He was gone. The image of his lifeless body was burned in my brain.

We followed Corin throughout the town and walked into a little shack before going a lot of stairs and into a more open area. There were people moving all around.

"Welcome to the home base of the rebels, we've had an influx of volunteers so it's a little hectic in this area. We'll get you signed in, you'll be assigned a room and given a map. The map will only be marked with areas you're allowed to be in, if it's not marked don't you dare even think about going in. Since we do have so many people coming in there's two sometimes three people to a room. But you'll have a bed, some clothes, and you'll get food. You may not stay here for long our leaders are trying to get some other safe places open so we're not centralized anymore," Corin explained. 

"Signed in?" Blair asked.

"Name, age, what you can do, basic information for our purposes only. Don't worry though it's all in code and the only ones who know the key to the code is one of our leaders and the people writing it down, the code changes every once in a while," he explained and he took us to a table.

"Dwayne, got some new ones for you," Corin said.

"Hell Corin can't you ever come back without someone new?" the boy asked.

"Nah I love creating more work for you Dwayne," Corin said. Someone called his name and he walked away. Blair went first.

"Name?" Dwayne asked.

"Blair Abbot, nineteen," she replied.

He nodded. "Job before this?"

"Woodworker," she replied.

"Anything you'd like to add?"

"No," she said and I looked at her. "I can move things with my mind."

"Yeah we've seen a couple people with powers. In control or just starting?" he asked.

"Uh not full control I guess," she replied and he nodded. 

"You'll be put into training with some of the others," he said. "Okay you're next."

"Skylar Lucian, eighteen, blacksmith," I said. "And I can go into people's dreams."

"You read go into their minds like a Rainier?" Dwayne asked.

"Um no. Just their dreams. I can manipulate them, talk to the person having the dream, but that's it," I replied.

"Control or not?" he asked.

"Full control," I replied and he wrote it down just as Corin got back over to us. He looked at the two papers Dwayne had been writing on.

"Your name is Skylar?" he asked looking at me. Dwayne pulled out maps and started writing stuff down.

"Yeah, got a problem with it?" I asked and he smiled. 

"Not at all," he replied and read the rest of my paper. "Dwayne, scratch whatever you assigned him to, he's coming with me."

"Yeah sure," Dwayne said and tossed out one of the maps. 

"Skylar, with me please," Corin said.