WHITE DWARF • THE 100

22

RED HAZE

Astrid didn't speak much to Cassie when she entered the Pit. She tossed Cassie the roll of wrapping, wordlessly telling her that she needed to bind her hands up. Cassie obliged, the only sound filling the room being the unwinding of the padding. She felt her mouth move silently, words begging to fill the empty space. 

She never spoke. 

After she had left the training session early the other day, nothing else had been said about it. Cassie had sometimes seen Astrid in the hallways, sending her a small smile, getting nothing in return. She wanted to be okay with that - she was the one who was telling herself that she needed to distance herself from Astrid and Aidan. That she didn't fit in. At the same time, she felt her heart sink. She hadn't even given the pair the benefit of the doubt. They'd been friendly enough with her, it was unrealistic to expect them to tell her everything about their lives when they knew next to nothing about her. 

Cassie had never been that great at making friends. 

Tying her wrapping up, she lifted her eyes from the floor. They instantly found Astrid's figure, her back to Cassie as she set up a dummy in the middle of the room. From the distance she was at, she could see the muscles straining under her shirt. 

Clearing her throat, Cassie mustered her courage. "I'm sorry." 

Astrid didn't respond. She merely straightened the dummy, nodded to herself, and turned around to face Cassie. She had to hold back a whimper - she looked furious. Her face was contorted with an inhumane fury. It was just like the one that she had when she was beating Fabian to the ground. Cassie realised that maybe she hadn't been checking the dummy, but maybe had been hiding. 

From her. 

"Sorry?" Astrid scoffed. "We're putting our necks on the line for you. You nearly exposed our entire operation and instead of grovelling you're making demands with us? That's not going to be how this works. You will do what we say, when we say, how we say. Got it?" 

Anger rolled off of her in waves. Cassie could feel herself drowning under the sheer force of it. She struggled for air, battling at it, to no avail. 

She drank the anger in. 

"You don't even care about anything. All you want is my half of the winnings so you live your life in ignorance to what is really happening in the Ark. People are suffering! Each day people go without food, without medicine, and you just live your best life! Well guess what, you look down at the privileged when in reality you are one." By the end of her little speech, her voice was bouncing back at her. She sounded infuriated, rippling with the very thing she resented. 

Astrid froze at the words. Cassie didn't let fear grip her heart, forcing her back to keep straight. She stared directly into Astrid's eyes as she turned her icy focus on Cassie. "The fuck did you just say?" 

"Do you want me to repeat it for you?" Cassie spat back with an equal amount of coolness. "You're a spoilt brat, just like them." 

"And what are you going to do about it?" 

Those words flipped a switch within her. She no longer saw Astrid in front of her, the one who was risking everything she had to train her. She didn't see the blue eyes or half shaved hair, or the perfectly sculpted muscles. No, Cassie saw the eyes of her oppressors. She saw the guards towering over her, hurling threats at her back when she had accidentally bumped into them. She was only eight years old. She saw the constant rejection spread over Ryan's face as he tried to convince the council, or anyone who would listen, that Callum deserved the medication he needed to survive. That he deserved to be alive and experience the love those wanted to express to him.