Fighting For Freedom

Chapter 7 Part III

Jessie

After I tell Amy it is okay for her to stay and listen, I look at Cameron staring into the fire, deep in thought. I try to get his attention by calling his name, but he doesn't hear me. After a couple of failed attempts to get his attention I scream, "CAMERON!" He finally turns and looks at me.

"What?"

"Will you answer some questions about our past, please? I need to know if I was always so clueless about social interaction or if it is just something I forgot."

He laughs, "Sure Jessie, I will try to answer your questions the best I can. I wouldn't necessarily say you are clueless, you have just never had to deal with people except other fighters and trainers."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, like I told you when you woke up, after our parents died, we were made slaves. You were only five at the time, so you were made to work in the fields harvesting but it didn't take long for you to start causing trouble by starting fights, so they decided to move you to the fighters' barracks and you began to train as a fighter. The only contact you had with people was with other fighters and trainers and the only thing you all talked about was fighting. The only person you interacted with about anything else was me."

"So, basically I didn't have any friends other than you and the only other people I interacted with was about fighting."

"Exactly, you could talk for hours about fighting and training because it was really all you knew. I hate to say this, but you also seemed to enjoy fighting and you were damn good at it. You seemed to hang out with the other guys because you saw the girls as competition."

"So, I am not an idiot, I have just never been in social situations like these before. I guess that is good, but that doesn't really help answer the questions that I have. It doesn't help me figure out what the feelings I'm having actually mean."

"What feelings, Jessie?"

"The other day, right before the fight turned into a full-blown brawl, I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach. It felt like there was a monster waiting to be released. Is this what happened before every fight?"

"Yes, you always called it your fight monster. It is basically just your anger. Anger is the one emotion that you know. Once you were in the ring, you released it on your opponent. The only problem was that you couldn't always control it and sometimes it came out when you weren't in the ring."

"I also have a couple of questions about how we escaped Africa. How were we able to leave without being caught by Malachi and his guys? Also, is there any chance that he will come looking for us? And do we know what exactly happened to him?"

"Well, like I told you when you first woke up, a friend of our parents had been looking for us, and when the fight was broken up, she helped me get you out of there. She had a car waiting to take us to the plane that got us out of Africa."

"How did she find us when Amy couldn't? And what was her name?"

"She was on a special task force that had been tracking Malachi and the fights for a few years. She was working undercover as a security guard when she recognized me and then when the fight introductions were made, she realized who you were. It took her awhile to get the rest of the task force in position to raid the fight. Once they were, they threw in some flash bang grenades, and that is when all hell broke loose. She came and scooped you up and I followed her to the locker room where a doctor got you stable enough to make it to the plane."