LUCAS the BETRAYED [[The Red Queen Fan Fiction]]

These waters are filled with sharks and I'm a bleeding heart

After the fiasco with Charlotte in the kitchen I'm too afraid to search for her again. Two days later I join the rest of my cousins for our morning training.

"Hey! About time you joined the fun." Thames nudges me in the side. My uncle nods as he passes by but says nothing more.

The physical training is exactly like I remember. Pushups. Burpees. Running. Pullups while we hold the bar up...it all seems so easy now. Halfway through training we take a break and wait for scarecrow targets to be set up.

"What's. Wrong. With you?" Thames asks between labored breaths. I shrug, my breath is even. After 5 years on the front lines our family's training program leaves me unphased, with no sign of sweat on my body. My cousins kneel over, each one drips with sweat. Evangeline stands tall and glares at me through squinted eyes. Beads of sweat pool on her brow and her shoulders raise with heavy breaths.

"Ready? Mark!" My uncle shouts. We line up in our regular spots, by order of birthright. I squeeze into line, interrupting their usual order, and force everyone after me to awkwardly move down one lane. No one protests, but the air bites with animosity. Samos' are not welcoming to outsiders, and since I'm also family I'm the worst kind of outsider. A deep frown sets on my face. Not because I care what they think, but because of the scarecrow that waits at the end of the lane. After all this time? My uncle still insists on tying a red ribbon on the target's arms.

"Fire." My uncle says no louder than a conversational tone, yet my family attacks in uniform all the way down the courtyard. I feel the metal surge as each Samos pulls and pushes, thrusting their piece down the lane and into the straw target. I hesitate. Like scenes from a picture show, I remember the faces of my friends from the front lines. All of them, Reds. All of them, fought by my side.

The yard falls silent. Everyone fired, everyone hit their mark, except me.

"Lucas..." My mother whispers from the walkway, remorse fills her eyes when our gaze meets. "Wait—" she says and reaches for my uncle's shirt as he steps off the platform and marches across the grass with a firm scowl. He's probably upset to get dirt on his shoes.

He stops in front of me. When I was little his shadow would tower over me, covering me with darkness. But now, the terror in front of me is just an old man, a man several inches shorter than me. Though he wishes to use his closeness to intimidate me, he's the one forced to look up.

"What's wrong with you, boy?" He sneers. "Did you survive the front lines because you are so weak they couldn't let you fight with Reds? Kitchen duty, perhaps?"

I look at the ground. Exhale. I could speak up, but nothing I say would matter. I have to show him. I look up and match his glare with my own.

With a sharp inhale I whip my right arm out straight and hold it by my side. Every piece of metal that once impaled the Red scarecrows screams through the air towards us, stopping to hover above our heads. I ball my hand into a fist. The metal hisses as spears, daggers, needles, and swords crunch together, forming a dense ball no bigger than my hand. I relax. The ball drops to the ground between us.

"It wasn't kitchen duty," I say and walk away. My uncle doesn't stop me. Although there's plenty of space to walk behind my cousins, they move out of my way like a sphere of pressurized air compels them.

From then on I corner myself in my parents room, preferring to train alone or sit in their windowsill and imagine my own reality. Memories of "the good days" becomes scenes of shouting men and doing what it takes to survive. Would I rather stay with my family or on the front lines? Tough choice.