Chapter Two
After an hour of meditation, which Wyatt had thought necessary to combat against the anger that I still held for Nathan, I'd been dismissed for dinner and bed. I did exactly that, despite the layer of sweat coating my skin I headed inside to the cafeteria.
Wyatt had found an old abandoned prison, though many of the buildings were unusable, over the years he'd managed to clean up a sleeping area, taking the prison beds into one room for the men, the other for the females, as well as fixing the showers. Wards had been set up around the perimeter, and other useable rooms were used for storage. All training, whether it was raining or not, was done outside.
I entered the cafeteria, out of the twenty-five students that trained here, only around fifteen were eating, others either in bed, training alone or patrolling. I ignored the students that sat here just like they ignored me. The people in this room were mainly here because they had to be. They were either rogues who were furthering their training, or guardians with nowhere to go. To be quite honest, I didn't try to get to know why they were here. I didn't want to. I was here for a specific reason and I wasn't going to get caught up in friendships again. The people here knew me as Belle, the skilled guardian gone rogue after her charge died. Wyatt believed that it was too dangerous to let people know who I was. He took great measures to do so.
New ID, new birth certificate, new age, passport, new hairstyle and we'd had some of the tattoos on the back of my neck removed. When he said that he was deleting my identity, he meant it. I'd kept tally though, from my time, of how many Strigoi I'd slain by marks on my stake. In a way I couldn't blame him for doing this. In the last five months I've grown stronger and more skilled than I ever was before. He's taught me to control my anger, to use it in a way that would benefit me rather than distract me. Without the complete distraction of wondering how the others were, wondering if they're alive while trying to keep the block up with the bond, I'd been much more focused.
It took a while to get back into a healthy eating pattern, but with Wyatt enforcing breakfast, lunch and dinner, it had quickly become routine again. In fact, I was eating better than I was before, the only food available being slabs of meat and rabbit food. It gave us the boost we needed without the processed crap.
Training every single day except Sunday was grueling at first. He trained like a drill sergeant, starting with laps to 'warm us up' then going into one hundred burpies before finally going into sets of punches and kicks. At first I was lucky to throw up less than three times a day before finally my body grew used to the exercise again. It took me a month before I went a day without vomiting but I had never felt better when I got through it. I felt stronger and more capable that I'd ever felt before, and that gave me back the confidence I'd lacked all those years ago when I was rejected by Dimitri and then tortured by Nathan.
.
I took my food and sat at a table by myself, silently picking at my food as quiet murmurs filled the room. Most of the people here had fought together or been paired with each other in training, thus creating a bond that I didn't share with the rest of them. For some reason, though I was thankful, Wyatt had kept me separate to the rest of the students here.
"You know, you're actually meant to eat the food, or are you starving yourself again?" I glanced up with a masked expression of rage that he wouldn't be able to see through.
"Thanks for the tip," I said back calmly. Sean, the one I had pounded on during training, was one man that especially hated me when I got here. He had a few inches taller than me, chiseled cheek bones that—if I didn't hate him—I'd grudgingly admit were amazing, with blue eyes, fair skin and lean muscle. I was bitchily happy that I'd managed a couple bruises on his stupid cheeks and jaw. He loved nothing more than his own reflection and I took great pleasure in ruining that for him.
"Belle, Sean, Mike, Layla, Leon and Beau; you're all free tomorrow." I let a brief grin lift the corners of my mouth, nodding thankfully at Wyatt before he exited. Tomorrow was Sunday, and every month a group of people get a free day where they get to travel to the closest town, with whatever amount of money they have left on them, and do what they want, so long as they're back for training by Monday lunch. I tended to spend this time searching for information on Nathan and the Strigoi, despite the fact that we were meant to keep together. I'd been paired with Sean once before and hadn't been able to get any searching done as he'd refused to take his eyes off of me. That was the weekend I'd begun to hate him. My first outing, after I'd finally finished doing a day's training without throwing up.
"Guess you're stuck with me again tomorrow," he gave me a sardonic grin before picking his tray of food back up and going to sit with Beau, Leon and Mike. I noticed most of them looking back at me with disdain, annoyed at having to spend their day off with me. I rolled my eyes, standing up and dumping the food in the bin before placing my tray on the stack and leaving in a calm huff.
Instead of heading to the showers, like I probably needed, I grabbed the phone I'd gotten on my first outing, along with the headphones I'd (thankfully) had stashed on me when Wyatt set my duffle alight. I headed out to the large track, placed my headphones in to listen to my running track of Rise Against and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. I found that listening to the old songs of my angst-y childhood that Lissa and I used to obsess over helped me run, helped me get some of the days anger out.
"Belle!" I briefly heard. I wasn't sure how long I'd been running, but it had been a while for the twenty songs to finish and begin again. "Belle!" I stopped as I crashed into a body, stumbling back from the impact and blinking, refocusing my eyes onto the present.
Wyatt huffed in annoyance, pulling the headphones from my ears before I noticed Sean standing ways away, arms crossed and glaring at me.
"Sean's private lesson is starting, I need you off the track." Wyatt did this thing with each student where we all had a private training session, so that he could focus solely on us to fix any moves we weren't doing correctly. Sometimes he doubled as a shrink and spoke to us instead. Wyatt was there for us all, a make shift Yoda, if you will.
"Right," I puffed, trying to control my breathing. "I'll just," I pointed to the showers, watching his lips twitch as I pushed past Sean, despite the fact that there was complete open space around him to walk around. I wasn't lying when I said I hated him. He's been giving me hell since the very beginning and I almost refused to give it back. In a way I didn't see the point, taking comfort in the fact that he was insulting a girl that wasn't really me; a girl that had been created for me. In the same way, a part of me had been convinced that I was Belle. That this wasn't just a name and identity that he's given me because I put all the finishing touches in this persona myself.
After finishing in the showers, the cool water allowing me to relax the muscles in my back, I headed back to the girls sleeping quarters.
Lined on each side of the long rectangular room was eight beds pushed against the wall. After constantly tripping on the chests at the end of each bed in the middle of the night, I'd moved mine beside it as I'd chosen the bed against the wall, I didn't have a neighbor bugging me to move it. This way it also doubled as a place to put any of my pocket items at night, for example my phone.
I lay down on the stiff bed, arms resting over my stomach as I shut my eyes, trying not to alert anyone that I was using the bond, for example Adrian—who can see it when it's being used—as I slipped into Lissa's head. It seemed that it's been the same as almost every other night I've checked in. At this point in time, she was hunched over a mountain of paper work. Some of it was related to the Moroi learning magic, the other half, tucked into a neat folder that was open, had my name scribbled on the top. I could see the notes that Nathan had been sending me tucked in there, along with some receipts and other things. I guessed that she was trying to find a paper trail to Nathan; doing exactly what I was trying to do. Only I had a feeling that it was more for a vengeful reason.
"Lissa, babe, come to bed," I saw through Lissa's eyes as she didn't meet her boyfriends' gaze.
"In a minute, just let me finish signing these." She responded, distractedly.
"No, now, it's almost one in the morning," and he walked over, taking the pen out of her hand and closing the lid before pulling her up by her hands as she protested.
"Just come to bed. Running yourself into the ground isn't going to help her. It's not what She would have wanted." Pain hit me through the bond, but Lissa bobbed her head along to what he said, following her boyfriend up and through to their bedroom.
I pulled out of her head, sighing and rolling onto my side, stake in hand and pressed under the pillow as I allowed my back to face the room. I allowed myself the pleasure of falling asleep, exhausted after the long day.
.
"Belle, get up, we have to get ready." Somebody kicked the end of my bed. I sat up with a start, stake in hand before sighing when it was only Layla, the short blonde shoving her hair up into a bun on top of her head. She raised an eyebrow before repeating her message. I dragged a hand down my face before nodding my thanks for the wakeup call.
I grabbed my clothes and toiletries out of the brown chest before following Belle to the showers. Unlike last night, I allowed the steaming hot water to erase the nightmares that haunted me constantly. I doubted they'd ever stop, not until I did.
With only one pair of shorts, one pair of jeans and two different shirts, the rest being training gear, our weekend clothes were limited. The first time I went out, with my duffle bag having been lit on fire, I'd had to go in some of the clothes one of the other girls had left behind. They were still unsure as to whether she was killed of just left without telling anyone. Nobody was really inclined to find out anyway.
I'd pulled my black, high-wasted, shorts and the tight black crop top on, along with the tan ankle boots I owned. This was essentially the clothes that Wyatt had found me in, however the shorts I'd bought a while back. I grabbed my black leather jacket, this one I'd stolen from some jackass that tried to mug me on my second outing. He'd kept the cash of his mugged victims in an inside pocket and I thanked him for the donation.
I stashed my weapons in the places I could, a stake in my jacket and a tiny pocket knife in my boot. The pocket knife wouldn't do anything to a Strigoi, but stab it in one of their eyes and they'll feel it.
"Ready to go?" Layla had just finished dressing. Her taste was a bit different to mine. Just like Wyatt, she had this thing for thick sweaters and jeans, even in the summer. I wondered if our roles should be reversed. Layla had flawless skin while mine was marred with the scars given to me by Nathan. In a different world where beautiful people would believe in themselves and the marred ones covered up, she'd be wearing my outfit and I'd been wearing hers. However, our own sense of beauty was always messed up, right?
Don't get me wrong, I knew that I was still good-looking. Scars were nothing but a story of your past, however, it also showed a sign of baggage that most just didn't want to deal with. I wondered if that was partly the reason nobody here spoke to me.
"Yeah, just let me put my things back, I'll meet you at the car." She nodded, giving a brief smile as I headed back to our rooms, placing my things in the chest before grabbing my phone, headphones and wallet with my fake ID.
I looked at the photo briefly. It was the photo of me after Wyatt had changed me and my hair. With my hair having been at chin length, there was not much he could do with it but cut and colour. So it had turned into an angled bob that wouldn't get in the way and dyed the same colour Rihanna had in 2010. The upkeep was annoying, but I liked it overall.
"Took you long enough," Sean grunted as I made it to the car, despite the fact that we were still waiting for Leon and Beau.
"If I actually cared I'd bother to insult you," I said, face void of expression as I patted the side of his face, stepping past him and getting into the front seat. It seemed that out of all of us, I was the only one with an actual license, despite, technically, being the youngest. I suppose if you've grown up in an academy it was a bit hard to get it, however I took that two year break that gave me the time to.
There were only three cars at the Institution, one was Wyatt's and the other two were reserved for travel like this, or emergencies. I rolled my eyes as Sean got into the passenger seat, arms stiff as he crossed them over his chest. As the rest filed in, I plugged my phone in to the carjack, allowing my music to flow through the car.
"Bon Jovi? Bryan Adams, are you kidding me?" he groaned, having picked up my phone to scroll through the playlist. He then gave me the deepest of 'are-you-fucking-kidding-me' looks as he showed me the songs, "The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus? Now I know that you're joking." I rolled my eyes, grabbed the phone back off of him.
"The driver chooses the music and shotgun shut his cakehole," I quoted Dean Winchester, noticing Sean raise one eyebrow in almost reluctant acceptance.
"Quoting Supernatural is a low I didn't think you'd stoop to," he said, but didn't say anything more about my choice in music, even bobbing his head to a couple of songs on the hour long journey to the city we were to go to.
It wasn't very big, but still quite populated, with a cinemas and a shopping strip. By the time we arrived it was eleven, and the guys were thinking about seeing a movie.
"What do you say?" Mike looked at me, beefy arms pulled behind his back. He was huge, like…Dwayne Johnson 'The Rock' huge. He was quite intimidating, but like most of the people here I'd already scoped out their weaknesses. His, quite obviously, was his size and lack of speed when it came to a fight. Not to mention he was too merciful. He asked question before he fought, liked to have noble reasons when he did so. While it was honorable, it was also pointless to me.
"A movie? I think I'd rather shop for a bit, saw a book store that I'd like to hit." I excused, mainly just wanting to go around and hit the library, to look up to see if any Royal family deaths had happened just yet. When they did, when they connected into the Strigoi, it would be time to prepare to fight back. I wasn't sure how just yet, but I hoped I'd know when the time came.
"We'll go do that after, how about you come with us." Sean said, staring down his stupid nose at me. I pursed my lips, biting my tongue quite literally before sighing.
"Fine, we'll go see a movie." He hmphed in success and I refrained from punching him in the face. Stupid prick.
After an excruciatingly long movie that involved more killing and death than I wanted to see, after all I'd seen it a good portion of my life, we moved onto different things. Layla really wanted to go shopping before they shut.
"Didn't you want to go to the book store?" Sean asked as Layla begged them.
"You guys go, I can handle myself." I tried not to snap at him. Sean scoffed, turned to the others and told them that we'd meet them back at the car when the shops shut before turning back to me, a perfect eyebrow raised in challenge.
"Well, let's go." I didn't mean to, I really didn't, but I may have stomped my feet just a bit harder than normal as I headed to the library.
"Thought you said bookstore?" he muttered as we entered, him looking completely out of place. He shuffled, shoving his hands into the back of his blue jeans before removing them, pulling the front of his plaid shirt to fix it, before repeating the process multiple times as I headed to the back computers.
"Yeah, well, I changed my mind," I growled, grabbing his hands in mine as he went to tug at his shirt again, "stop it! Just sit down and be quiet or something." I snapped, for the first time showing actual annoyance. He seemed to have taken that in stride, a smirk widening his features as he sat beside me.
I logged onto the computer, immediately heading onto Google. I'd been so used to this by now that I knew what to type in, however I had never gotten any results.
2013: Conta family deaths.
However, for the first time since I started researching, it came up with many different results. It must have been the look on my face, the fury felt anew, that made Sean sit forward, the smugness before wiped clean when he looked at the research. He looked between me and the computer screen before befuddlement became his main emotion.
"What are you doing?" I didn't answer, reading every article I could fine, to find some sort of lie before I settled on one thing; out of the entire family, there'd been one lone survivor. The family hadn't been huge, 40 people at most. However, it was one ten year old kid, Lily, which had managed to survive the carnage by running to their neighbor's house in the middle of the night while the rest of her family was being killed.
I shook my head before typing in the next name, my throat choking up as I changed the search to 2013: Ozera family deaths. Thankfully, other than a few obituaries from distant relatives of completely normal old age deaths, and a few articles about Christian's missing parents, there was nothing new to find. I let out a sigh of relief, mainly for Christian, knowing that despite the tough face he would be upset to know the rest of his family would be gone, even if they had turned their backs on him.
I pulled out the little slip of paper in my pocket, crossing out the Conta family name before writing on the back the small piece of information I'd found. Out of both families, there was only one survivor each. Out of the Badica family, only a seven year old boy names James had been found unscathed. I tried to piece together the reason why only one kid from each family was surviving, but couldn't think of anything. Not to mention, with Lissa still being hunted and Christian's family being next, I worried for their safety. I wondered if it was time to get back into contact with them before shaking my head.
I wasn't yet ready. I needed to find all the information I could about this before I did anything stupid and brash.
I logged out and deleted the computer history despite the fact that I was sure they did that themselves before making sure I had the slip of paper and walked out of the library, Sean hurrying to follow.
"What was that about?" he snapped, walking behind me and pointing in the direction of the library.
"Well, it was a whole load of none of your business," I bit out between clenched teeth without glancing in his direction. I headed into the book shop, him continuously asking questions as I browsed, my stubborn determination to not get into trouble with Wyatt being the only thing that stopped me from punching him. He was quiet as I paid for the books I'd bought, reading material I desperately needed to keep sane, before continuing back to the car.
I was shocked as Sean gripped me, swinging me into an alleyway before shoving me against a wall. The rough, cold texture of the brick wall triggered the flashback of leaning against the cave wall during my time of capture. Triggered the flashback of big brown eyes and a dimpled smile that I'd never get to see again.
"Get. Your. Hand. Off of. Me." I bit out, eyes flashing dangerously, which he stupidly ignored.
"I want answers. Why are you looking up the deaths of the royal Moroi?" his eyes searched my face, hands clasping the front of my leather jacket as he used his body weight to pin me against the wall. Besides me, Sean was one of the best fighters at the institution, probably one of the reasons we didn't get along, with the competitive tension between us.
"That's none of your business," I tried to close my eyes and count to ten, but the anger was getting harder to control.
"Are you in on it? Are you helping them kill Moroi?" that was the peak of my anger. I knocked his hands off, spinning our position so that I was now pushing him against the wall. I pulled my fist back, but instead of letting my knuckles collide with his face, I let an open palm slam the wall beside him. He flinched slightly, allowing me back the control that I'd lost.
"I don't care what you insult me with but never, never assume that I'm on the side of Strigoi. I will and have given up everything that had ever been important to me just to get rid of them!" I snapped, both of us stood, glaring at each other, our breaths coming out in huffs.
"Uh…are we interrupting something?" came a voice from the entrance of the alley. I stepped away from Sean, however the anger and distrust that I'd seen in his eyes had evaporated slightly. With a stiff nod to me, to acknowledge that he'd believed me, he turned and headed towards where the others stood, hands full with a few bags, shuffling awkwardly.
Neither of us bothered to respond as we headed to the car. As per tradition, we placed any bags we had in the back of the car before heading to Murphy's, an old-ish bar. It was the type that college kids would frequent for their choices of beer and peanuts, to catch up and watch football on the TV in the corner. For us it was just a good place to have a couple of drinks before heading home.
Tonight it didn't exactly happen like that, because after a few rounds of drinks, and the promise to leave the minute the slight buzz wore off, three Strigoi entered the bar, heading for a booth on the opposite side. Everyone, bah me, stiffened. Sean looked at me in confusion as I smirked. It was time to get the information I needed.