Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction intended for entertainment purposes only. The characters and world belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just like playing with them.
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Panthalassa: Low Tide
Chapter 2 – Fitness
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It was 8 am when they played the Beatles "Good Morning Good Morning" loudly from the speakers near each of the cabins. I did not appreciate their choice of song.
Sophila grumbled and slumped out of bed, mumbling about her duty that morning helping prepare breakfast, making sure to casually kick one of the posts on my bed on her way out. I made a mental note not to eat anything that looked like Sophila had anything to do with.
Tina woke and didn't seem to want to talk so early, which worked well for me, I too didn't like talking much to strangers in the morning.
All of the mag six were up and ready and awaiting the coach near the gymnasium. It wasn't much of a gym, but a cabin big enough for a largish basketball court.
Every morning we were going to do a little bit of exercising and group activities. Those helping with breakfast didn't have to do them, which made me wonder why Sophila was grumbling at all.
I was with Julie and Tina while we did the stretching, both of them shamelessly staring at the mag 6 boys. Well, I assumed they were only staring at the men, but all six were near each other. And I took the opportunity to take a better look at them.
There was Alice, wearing some very trendy if not retro leggings and loose t-shirt. She was helping the beautiful brunette touch her toes by pushing on her back. Something about the action seemed off to me, it looked like the brunette could probably do it easily without Alice's aid.
It couldn't be reiterated enough that they were a gorgeous group. Watching them warm up was kind of entrancing, and I felt a little chill go up my back when the tall blonde boy caught me watching him. Something about his gaze made me uneasy.
Except for the shorter boy and Alice none of them looked to be the right age to be still in high school.
After some very light exercising where most of the girls kept tripping because they were watching the mag six boys, the coach told us to stop and go get ready for breakfast.
I was retying my sneakers when the lace broke off in my hand. I muttered a curse under my breath and tried to retie it to the piece that broke off.
"Good Morning Eva!" A happy chime like voice called out near me.
Looking up I saw Alice coming over, she was dragging the tall blond boy with her and the brunette was timidly walking a step behind her.
"Morning Alice," I smiled to her before finishing tying my laces back together.
When I stood up I gave the threesome a nod.
"This is Jasper, and Bella," Alice said happily indicating the two she brought over to meet me.
The boy, Jasper, nodded towards me in way of greeting.
I couldn't name the feeling or the reason behind the feeling but for whatever reason, I did not want to shake his hand and was worried he'd offer it to me.
"Thank you for switching with Alice," Bella said kindly. Her voice was so soft and pure, I wondered if she sang too.
"Well," I paused I really didn't know what to say, I mean on one hand I wasn't exactly happy that I had changed cabins, but in the end it would be only two more nights with Sophila being spitting distance from me and I'd been through worse so I settled with a, "She's hard to say "no" to."
Bella and Jasper each broke out into chuckles at that, it was a harmonic and stunning sound. Alice put her hands on her hips in what looked like surprise and mock anger.
"Oh she's already on to you," Bella giggled a little as she playfully punched the shorter girls arm.
After that they were called over by their foster siblings to walk to breakfast together.
I didn't know what it was that was so captivating about the group. But in the morning light that was obscured by thick menacing clouds, I felt a little apprehensive about it.
Sure enough when Sophila handed my tray back, after she put my scrambled eggs on my plate there was something else on it. I assumed it was hair, and some sort of insect, so as soon as I left the food line I dumped her egg surprise in the rubbish bin.
I sat with Tina and couple other girls that introduced themselves as Becky, and Carry. Becky was so skinny I bet she could still wear children's sized clothing, where as Carry was average in every way I could imagine.
Jeff, the councilor informed us that the next two days events would have to be rearranged due to the fact it was supposed to storm that night.
All of the boys cheered when they said after breakfast group sessions we would be playing paintball in the woods. Those that didn't want to play paintball would be able to watch a movie in the activities cabin.
Morning sessions were depressing and I tuned them out the best I could.
It was a session about how to get into a good college or how to improve your study habits so that you could get into a college period. The mag six weren't in my group, but later Sophila made a point to gloat over the fact that two of the boys were in her group.
Apparently they were called the Whitlock's. All six of the children had come to Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock at different ages, and had been adopted into their family, but some of the adoptions were new and the State wanted to get a feel for how the kids were adjusting.
Again, my hate for people meddling in other peoples' business surfaced. All this information came to me though Sophila and her gossiping with Tina as they got ready to go watch the movie, rather than play paintball.
As I had no desire to be anywhere near Sophila for the length of a movie, I opted for the paintball.
I felt so out of my element when I stepped up to the group of boys all excitedly talking strategy with one another. Aside from myself there were 5 other girls. Alice and her adopted sisters, Carry and another girl who I hadn't really talked to. She was rather manish looking.
We were all sitting on the benches as the coach explained to us the safety precautions for the guns, and the rules, as well as the warnings. It would probably be a good bet to say that most of the boys were going to ignore about 95% of the rules of play.
We drew for teams, I was on team Green, and there were six teams of four for this little adventure.
Alice drew right after me, and took a really long time, most of the people in line behind her were grumbling. She turned happily to me and displayed her green button.
"Team Green all the way!" she said.
She was like a little bundle of happy energy and I wondered if she ever frowned, if she did I bet the world would probably stop spinning. I found myself smiling back at her.
The most handsome of the mag six boys slowly made his way over, and sighed heavily when he got closer. My eyes actually felt hot watching him approach us.
"Edward! Are you team Green too?" Alice asked excitedly. He sighed, gave me a small smile, before speaking.
"Yes, Alice." His response sounded annoyed. He turned to me again.
"I'm Edward by the way," he extended his hand to me; he was wearing the black gloves for the uniforms we were to be using. I shook his hand.
"Evangeline," I croaked, embarrassed, I cleared my throat and turned to find the right sized pullover pants. While the rest of Team Green was getting their gear on I tried to ignore the fact he was standing near me gearing up as well.
Our other teammate ended up being a nerdy chinless boy named Toby. He didn't look like he'd be too reliable to point the right end of the gun at an opponent much less run and duck. Toby was one of Cody's drugged up friends. I pitied his addiction, but not him.
I was finishing putting on the gloves provided when the lights flashed again, this time it hurt and I yelped.
Thoroughly confused I couldn't comprehend the last time the lights flashed with such frequency. I felt the breakfast backing up a bit as I stood there cupping my head. The lights behind my eyes only lasted for a second but their after image still burned.
"Are you alright?" Edward's silky voice asked from next to me.
I lowered my hands and realized I was crouching; obviously I had balled up from the sudden pain of my illness.
I cleared my throat to try and make the dry sick feeling go away. I looked up to see a new one of the mag six standing near Alice, the really tall, intimidating and bulky black haired one. He smiled kindly to me, and I found myself dumbly smiling back.
"F-fine, just…" I stuttered a bit and took Edwards hand when he offered it to me. Standing up I tried to form a believable reason as to why I suddenly flinched and fell over.
Deciding it didn't matter what I told them, they were after all strangers. "I think I'm getting a head ache. I'll go ask coach for some advil." I smiled again towards the hunk that was the last of the male members of the mag six and quickly made my exit. Toby was leaning against a tree not too far away, lazily looking at his paint ball gun.
When they gave us our ammo and the last rules of play I was standing near Alice. I kept glancing towards where I saw her foster brother standing.
"His name is Emmett," Alice said.
I glanced at her, and blinked. I was caught staring at him, and I wasn't sure if it bothered me.
"Sorry I didn't- I didn't mean to be rude before," I mumbled to her while we got into queue behind Edward and Toby to get our green pellets.
"Oh it's alright," she dismissed the apology with a casual wave of her hand. "Rose gets migraines so he understands that pain trumps politeness."
So now I had the names of all six. Rose… it was a perfect name for her. I looked to where she was standing with team red. She was on a team with Jasper and Bella, and some boy who was not hiding his glee at being on a team with her. Emmett was on team blue with three other boys. He did not look happy with the outcome of his team; he was by far the most physically fit of his squad.
Even though Edward was the tallest member of our team, he didn't seem very much like the kind of boy to do physical activities.
Now that I was standing so closely to both Alice and Edward I started to realize they both were much paler than I had originally thought. Then, almost like I had re-grown eyes I looked over the other Whitlock's again. There were all supremely pale, I drew up a few plausible reasons for why they all looked like they must be part albino and decided that it didn't matter.
.~.
I had never been so dirty or in so much pain willingly in all my life.
Alice had just pushed me down into a pile of old moldy leaves near the base of a bush, with much more force than I thought her little frame could carry, just as three red splotches of paint hit the tree above us. I had been tumbling and dodging around others for a good ten minutes, with Alice once in a while pushing or pulling me away from an attacker that I hadn't even seen.
The reason I was in so much pain is that there was a strobe light going off in my eyes.
My illness seemed to flare up horribly since I had gotten to this retreat. Alice was basically my eyes. I really wanted to quit, but I kept finding whenever I tried to form the words Alice would whip me around to avoid another stealth attack from within the trees.
My knees were raw under the knee pads, and my hands were stiff. I had yet to fire off a single shot. The game started off wildly, the boys on various teams pretty much abandoned the idea of regular play, and even after being hit they would continue to shoot. Toby actually went all Rambo from the moment go, and ran off into the woods only to get about 5 successive rounds from different teams to the abdomen.
Shortly after Edward disappeared with stealth that had me wondering if I'd imagined him standing next to Alice and me at the start of them game.
Alice grabbed my hand and we were up running through the woods. God she was fast.
We heard the five whistle blows, followed by someone over the bull horn ordering anyone who had been hit to leave the "field of play" or face cleaning duty. The time out lasted for a few minutes and I was winded so I bent over my knees to catch my breath.
This time when the lights flashed I was more or less expecting it. Despite the pain and disorientation from the brightness in my eyes I was becoming accustomed to it.
The noise of someone shuffling through the damp molding leaves and underbrush interrupted my moment of respite. I looked up to see Edward looking worse than I felt. He had dirt all over his face, and his bronze hair had a few leaves and nettles in it.
"It looks like it's just us, Rose, Bella, and Jasper," he explained.
"That's it? Everyone else is out?" I asked standing up straight.
"Yes, Bella got Emmett just before the whistle. Its team Red Vs. Team Green," he smiled at Alice and myself.
Suddenly I felt like I was a burden to their team. They both had obviously had experience running around in the woods with firearms. Maybe I could be bait then?
Alice giggled suddenly.
"I have a plan!" She grabbed my hand again, and I was sure it would be bruised by the end of the day.
I was left completely alone standing with my back to a large tree that somehow Edward had managed to climb up to take what Alice called 'sniper position one'. During the break before the whistle blew to resume the game, Alice had me walking around trees in odd patterns, until I ended up at the tree I'd started from. She and Edward explained that I would be the bait and that they would be the snipers.
Suddenly I didn't much like the idea of being bait. I didn't even hear as Rose approached, I saw her blonde hair as she speedily went from tree to tree. She knew where I was. And I had my gun trained on her.
I didn't know how it happened, but I was laying on the ground, face half buried.
The light was still fresh in my mind. I think my body must had reacted instinctively to the light and I dropped like a sack of potatoes, because not more than a half second after I fell three shots of red hit the tree just next to where I had been. I stayed down because I didn't know if I could even move.
After a small pause I rolled onto my back, and slid into a sitting position to aim my gun at anyone that would approach from the front. Rose was gone. I looked up and couldn't even see Edward.
A twig snapped and I looked up into eyes of soft amber. Bella had her gun pointed right at me, a slow smile spread across my face.
Before she could fire, somewhere up in the tree above me five shots rang out hitting Bella in the torso. She looked up sharply, glaring into the tree. Then sulked off to the others who'd been shot out.
Not long after Alice came bounding over her face ecstatic.
"We won! I got Jasper while Edward snipped Rose and Bella when they came for you! Good work!"
"Work?" I snorted, wiping the back of my hand down my face where I knew there was a lot of dirt. "I just sat there like a worm on the line. I didn't even fire a shot the whole game!" I chuckled a bit at the face Alice pulled on me. She looked impressed and content.
Edward slowly made his way down the tree, with Alice calling out helpful foot hold locations, while I rubbed my temples and watched.
I wasn't very good at not watching his ass as he climbed down, and the part of me that liked it kind of made me feel like a perv for leering at him like that.
When he finally got down he smiled at me and I felt like giggling stupidly, but I held it. Alice had taken her gloves off and gave me a light high five, I wasn't as enthused as she was, and my tender sore hand felt beaten raw.
We walked back to where the others were; coach Masters was happily awaiting us. Some of the other boys were trying to convince him to let us play again, he looked close to relenting, but when a few fat drops of rain started to fall he told us to get cleaned up and ready for lunch.
After my shower I slumped into my cabin, hoping for a quick nap before lunch. I took of my tennis shoes and sighed, looking at the state of them. Paintball in the woods had really done a number on them.
My socks were so dirty from the debris that had managed to sneak in through the various holes in the soles of the shoes, I simply threw them under my bed.
The cabin bed was much stiffer than the bed I had at the Conner's but I did manage to slip into a small nap, just before lunch.
When the lunch bell rang I got up and yawning and made my way to the door. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Hans Solo leaning where I had left it at the foot of my bed. All the strings had been cut. I gaped at it, like some mangled body of a close friend; I couldn't find my breath as it was stuck in my throat for a moment.
I knew who had done it; it was so obvious that it was almost stupid. And I was instantly enraged.
The logical side of my brain switched off and I flew out of my cabin, not even bothering with putting on new socks or shoes.
The rain was now a steady stream, not quite a downpour, and made a curtain obscuring things from far away. I found her just leaving the activities cabin going to the dining hall.
When my fist connected with her face I realized exactly how hurt my hand was from all the tugging Alice had done earlier. The sickening snap of fist meeting face didn't satisfy me.
"Bitch!" I yelled at her as she launched herself at me.
The two other girls who had been talking with Sophila stood there shocked as she and I tumbled out onto the muddy wet dirt.
I felt her fighting back, and to be honest it did hurt, but at the time I was so overwhelmed with my hatred for her that I kept hitting any part of her I could get to.
Water, mud, dirt, fists, knees, hair, it was all a blur to me as the rage just didn't seem to fade. Later, while I was nursing a bruised eye and bloody lip in the councilor's office, I thought back to the day I met Sophila.
.~.
I had been living with the Thorps for just over six months. They were by far the best family I had lived with. Mrs. Thorp was a dance teacher, and her husband worked for a cable company. They had two of their own children and would take in some foster kids now and again. They were kind, lively people that I had never had a problem talking to.
When I arrived at their house they had two other foster children. Eventually those kids were reunited with their parents, and I remained. I would garden with Mr. Thorp on his days off. I would walk their dogs, and help with dishes. It was the first house that actually felt like a home to me in three years.
Sophila arrived, all 145 lbs of her. And I thought, at first, we would get along. She was 13 and moody. Mrs. Thorp tried to do her best to be nice and help the angry teenager cope with her life away from her family.
Sophila must have realized that the Thorps were a really nice family and soon started to behave around them and their children. I was the only one to see what kind of girl she really was. Maybe it was just because I was jealous that Mrs. Thorp spent so much time with Sophila that I started to see things that weren't there. But things started to disappear around the Thorp house. Neither of the adults wanted to outright blame me or Sophila.
One day my social worker came to visit and asked me if there was anything I wanted to talk about. When I said no she looked sad, and I couldn't understand it.
My 14th birthday rolled around and after school I found a envelope on my bed, a birthday card and had $50 inside. It said it was from Sophila and that she hoped we would be able to work at getting along better. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried to be nice.
A complicated mess of a thing happened shortly after that. Mrs. Thorp found that her heirloom pearl necklace was missing, while I had an unexplained amount of money in my sock drawer. It was Sophila that claimed seeing me steal the necklace.
For all her faults, she was fairly good at acting and crying on cue. My case worker Mrs. Jordan was there when the whole tale was told. It was all a lie, but the adults completely believed Sophila and her blubbering tears.
As she told it, I stole Mrs. Thorps necklace and pawned it off to buy the MP3 player I now had. Which of course I had bought with the money Sophila had given me. The evidence apparently outweighed my telling of events and shortly after I was sent to live at another house across town.
For years I would wonder why she had gone out of her way to ruin one good thing in my life, and for years I hated her for it, but I stopped caring about her and her petty nature as I got into high school and realized that most people were petty and devious.
I held the ice pack to my eye and waited while Mrs. Jordan and Jeff talked to Sophila. They had already talked to me, and I had been a given a plate for lunch that I hadn't bothered to touch. The rain was still pouring heavily outside and I shifted the towel around myself.
"You two need to be separated," Mrs. Jordan said sternly as they came back into the room.
"I know you two have a history-" Sophila made to interrupt, the gash above her eye had stopped bleeding, but dark spots were becoming apparent all over her face. She too had a cut on her lip.
Mrs. Jordan talked over the interruption, "You will both be punished for your involvement in this matter, and Sophila you will pay Evangeline back for the strings you ruined. Sophila you are moving into cabin 1 and Carry will be moving into cabin 2."
"Mrs. Jordan I want to press charges! She attacked me!" Sophila was shaking in rage.
"Sophila, I can guarantee that wouldn't be a good idea. You vandalized her personal property; you also are on probation, for another two months. You press charges on her, she presses them on you, and it would be you that ends up in juvie, not her, she has no priors. Evangeline has agreed not to press charges as long as this matter ends here." A lot of things could be said about Mrs. Jordan, but I personally liked how she could cut through the bull shit when talking to TOTDs. Sophila looked ready to scream, and that's exactly what she did.
After the punishment was doled out, I waited outside cabin 2 under the edge of the roof that sheltered me from the steady rain; Mrs. Jordan was inside while Sophila packed away her things. I nodded in greeting when Carry came over, her backpack and duffle in hand.
The moment Sophila passed by and out of ear shot Carry started asking questions about the attack.
"Julie heard a rumor that said that you were sleeping around when you lived together before and Sophila called you out on it, that's why you don't get along," she said carefully, from her tone she seemed to know it was a lie. Sophila looked like the kind of girl who would just start shit to have something to do.
"Another one of her stories. She cut the strings on my guitar, and I-I just snapped. I've never done anything to her but she keeps… antagonizing me."
Carry nodded sympathetically, while taking off her muddy shoes. I stood in the doorway realizing how achy I was, and that I needed another shower to get all the mud off from our fight in the rain.
"I'm going to take a shower, can you hand me my toiletry bag please?" I asked tiredly.
Carry nodded, after realizing why I didn't get it myself.
I got back to cabin 2 not more than 20 minutes later. Carry had left for group crafts, which I was not allowed to go to as part of my punishment. In fact for the rest of the day the only thing I would get to do was help make dinner in four hours and sleep. With nothing else to occupy my time I went to my bed to think over the day, and muse about my possible new bad ass status here at the TOTD retreat.
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AN: How are you enjoying the story so far? Leave a review and let me know, or alternatively send me a private message.
