To Be A Hero

Chapter 7: Reflection

A soft groan leaves my lips as I sit down on my bed, muscles aching from the run I just recently got back from. Now that I'm no longer thinking about Amelia or the sentient zoms or grenades, I can feel the ache and soreness of the run catching up to me.

Hunger claws at my stomach, but I ignore it for the moment. Dinner won't be ready for another two hours anyways, plus I don't feel like walking out in the drizzling rain, even though my hair is already wet from the shower.

Instead I pull a blanket over myself, trying to suppress a yawn and ultimately failing. My eyelids flutter, but I don't lay down, even though I desperately want to. It's too early for me to sleep, and if I end up sleeping through dinner I will be seriously pissed off. After a run like that, even though I only came close to dying like, twice, which is less that normal, my stomach still growls hungrily, my body craving some type of nourishment because of the many calories I've burned.

So instead of lying down and trying to get some rest, I pull the blanket tighter around me, fingers curling into fists over the fact that I can never seem to get warm enough for my liking. And this, unfortunately, is something I can't blame on Van Ark's treatments. I'm just naturally cold, only finding the warmth I need when I'm pressed up to a warm person-usually a specific warm person who isn't in the dorms because he's conducting a supply run.

My thoughts come to a halt when I feel eyes on me, so I blink, slowly turning my head towards the bunk on the opposite side of the room.

Summer Swan sits on her bed, watching me with wide, waiting eyes. I simply cock a brow in surprise. I haven't talked to Runner Seventeen in months. I mean, we could be considered friends, vague friends, but the only friends I really have here is Sam, Maxine, Jody and Owen.

Taking my questioning gaze as an invitation, Summer stands, walking over to me with a grace that almost made her seem weightless.

But unlike everyone else here with me in the dorms, I've been trained to read body language. I'm rusty, my skills having dulled since my time in America, but I know a nervous runner when I see one, and Summer is most definitely nervous.

She sits down on my bed, and I scoot down to give her some room. Sea green eyes bore into my brown ones.

"Why is she here?"

Ah, so that's what this is about.

"She's not here for you, if that's what you're wondering," I answer in a low voice.

"Who is she?"

"She's an A.M.T.B. agent."

"I know that."

"And a Torrencer."

"I figured." She casts a glance around the room, making sure no one is listening in on our conversation. "But why is she here?"

"Because word of me and my heroics spread worldwide, apparently," I mumble. "Nicole apparently had a hunch it was me who was Runner Five, and managed to come all the way down here to see if she was correct, and she was. Now with Abel speaking of a cure, she wants to know more of it. Only problem is she can't say anything to anyone since we've not made any significant progress. Veronica's still studying semi-sentient zombies."

"Does she... does she know who I am?"

I blink. For a second, I hear Summer's accent slip, going from the British one she uses in front of everyone else to her original Louisianan one. It's so subtle I almost miss it, but I've learned her accent sometimes slips through when she gets nervous or afraid.

I understand her fear of a Torrencer showing up. She's a runaway. Unlike me, she wasn't authorized to leave by the Torrencers and then had false papers made so the A.M.T.B. wouldn't question where she'd gone. She'd ran off, saying she was someone she wasn't before booking it to Abel once she'd made it to England.