Survival of the Unfit

Chapter 7

April

A month went by. October blended into November, trees started to turn colors. It was weird that everything really didn’t turn orange, and the weather didn’t drop to freezing temperatures, but I liked the change. I really, really, really liked the change, to be clear. You don’t miss winter the first time you leave it.

I continued working at the bakery, trusted with decorating the cupcakes. No one from school knew I worked there; I had been very focused on keeping that a secret. I mean, it’s an average job. I liked working there a lot. The boss was nice and let me try out new icing decorations all the time, and let me take home the defects to eat. And it’s my me time, my own little personal hobby for the weekend no one was going to tease or kill me for.

In the meantime, Brandy had been training me day in and day out since the night at the park. We actually did go for afterschool salads and my diet became much cleaner. She had track training and I went weightlifting with her, either late at night or early in the morning because I was self-conscious and she wanted the gym as empty as could be (so I’d be comfortable). I went jogging with her too, a little more than a mile every day except for Sunday and early in the morning, to avoid the crowd. She said she liked me more than the track girls anyway.

All the actual physical activity was terrible at first, but it grew on me. I lost five pounds and then gained it back somehow, which she assured me was in muscle in those few weeks. And along with getting more fit in general, I honed my defensive skills and learned endless tips and tricks to get out of sticky situations from her. She had taken a self-defense class before and was teaching me absolutely everything she knew, and I started to feel much more comfortable driving to the store alone for little things. In the past week I learned how to use knives and throw them. I even learned how to use a handgun. Of course, all of this was done under my parents’ noses.

So by December I had transitioned from a nerdy, lanky New York country bumpkin into a fighting machine, still disguised as a nerdy, lanky girl though. My parents picked up on my eating habits and asked what had gotten into me, and I just said I was considering joining track with Brandy as an excuse. They were all for it, so I said there was some rule that I couldn’t this year because I had just moved to get out of that mess. All I wanted was to stay alive.

That’s all anyone really wants on Rushwood Isles: to live. We could all move. We could all expose the secret and get the island blown to bits by the government. But no one did, because everyone just wants to live a little. The mainland was boring. The threat of dying, the sheer and probable possibility of it at any point in time was a constant adrenaline rush everyone was high off of. There aren’t any drug problems either, another aspect that makes the island so “safe”, because everyone was a crazy, thrill-seeking bastard and bitch. And now, that included myself. April Swanson of New York minus the city, the new girl that didn’t know a revolver from a pistol coming in and can reload a magazine in under a second now.

As stupid as it sounded, it made me feel cool. Confident as well, since I knew I wouldn’t be going down without a fight, yet validated. It was like…oh, it’s so hard to explain. On one hand I was safe. I could defend myself. I could kill if I needed to. And on the other side of the argument, I had more to offer now. No one except Brandy knew I was an excellent defensive fighter, but people know I’ve built muscle simply by the shift in physical appearance. They could safely assume I’m strong and could want to take the skill for themselves, if they had the guts to try and kill me. As long as I kept it under wraps, Brandy advised, I’m still at the lowest risk there is.

Not to mention the South hasn’t had an incident in two years anyway, although there’s been some speculation and worry going around because of what’s going on in the North. Meaning, disappearances. And more than one.