Chapter 3

After Sam returns she has a limp. She won't tell anyone what's happened.

Around a two and a half months later Ruby shows up. When she shows up in our cabin after the last rotation we are all shocked. Once the PSF has finished counting us and adds Ruby to the tally we all rush to her. Ellie is crouched down in front of Ruby, who is sitting on her bunk

"Oh my God." She keeps saying it over and over.

She reached up and gently hold Ruby's face between her hands like she needs to touch her, to make sure she's here. I am standing still, just watching Ruby. In my chest I can feel the bricks of my tower of hold being placed down once more. I try to knock them down but when Ruby tells up she escaped with the help of a nurse, my heart lays more bricks, faster and quicker.

She got out, its possible. NO! I can't do this to my self! I quickly walk over to my bunk, climb up and start to sob quietly.

I sob for Ruby, I sob for Ashly, I sob for myself, and all the kids stuck in this miniature hell. I can't build another tower. I just can't. I don't want to fall. What happened to Ruby was a fluke, a one off. I tell myself this, but I know it's not true. I know It's possible, but I won't let myself hope that I will leave this place someday, that isn't as a dead body. Ashly is dead and gone, I know it in my bones.

Ellie askes Ruby if Ashly got out. Ruby says she doesn't know, but my stomach tells me she does. And that Ashly is dead. I can't just feel it.

Before I chicken out and my tower is completely dust I ask Ruby a question.

"What was it like?" I ask, "Outside?"

A small laugh escapes from her lips as she looks up at me. "Strange and so . . . load. Terrifying, violent . . . but open, wide open and beautiful." Her eyes move from each face in our cabin. "Almost ready." She finishes.

The question is on the tip of my tong, but Ellie beats me.

"For what?"

"For us"

One brick is laid on the dust of my fallen tower.

-time skip-

It's the next day and were working in the garden. Working in the garden is the only thing here that I remotely like. When I was a kid me and Alina used to grow stuff in the garden. We used to have our own patch and grow vegetables and flowers.

The sound of whispering interrupts my musing. I quickly glance behind my and see Ruby, Sam and Vanessa whispering. I get back to my weeding, ignoring their chatting.

Their chatting abruptly stops and is replaced by Tildon's snarling voice "-We work silently or we don't at all."

I turn and look behind me, and Tildon has his hand in Sam ponytail. Ruby is staring at him with a frown on her face. Then suddenly a dark patch starts to form in the front of his pants. He wet his pants!

I suppress back a laugh, snorting quietly into my hand. Tildon starts muttering shit when a PSF asks for his status. He says shit again, he looks around, noticing all the girls are glancing at him and each other. He quickly starts to walk off but trips instead. I supress a laugh again, this is the funniest thing I see in years. I quickly shift my attention beck to the weeds refusing to watch as he picks himself up and walk briskly towards the control tower.

-time skip-

It's two days later and I'm lying in my bunk thinking about what it must have been like for Ruby in the outside world, when Ellie's voice interrupts my thoughts.

"Ruby? It's your turn."

Normally Ruby passes the story onto Sam, so she surprises me when she says something

"The girl . . ." she begins.

I don't normally pay that much attention to the stories, but the fact Ruby has something to say has my interest piqued.

"The girl cut herself loose from the rope and knocked. The bandit off the horse in front of her. She took the reins and turned the horse around the road, heading back in the direction they had come from- back towards the castle."

The girls started to mummer, I slide down from my bunk and sit down next to the girl in the bunk below mine, so I can actually see Ruby.

"She used the darkness. She left he horse in the nearby forest and crept towards a passage she new was hidden in the far stone wall. The fighting had stopped once the knights int black had taken the castle. Thy locked the white knights out, and they were unable to help the families trapped inside. But no one noticed a small, plain girl coming in through the back door. She looked like a helpless servant girl, bringing in a basket of food into the kitchen. For day she stayed in the castle, watching. Waiting for the right moment. And then it came. She slipped back outside and made her way through the shadows of night unlocking the gate for the white knight to come poring back in."

What Ruby said intrigues me. A strange thought crossed my mind, is she talking about herself? Is she planning an escape? I trying to crush this thought, this slither or hope. But I couldn't, it was to strong and my tower was slowly building its self-up again.

Sam's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Why would she come back? Why wouldn't she just escape-hide? Sam asked Ruby quietly.

Ruby blew out a soft breath, as if in relief.

"Because," Ruby continued, "in the end, she couldn't leave her family behind."

Every word Ruby said was another brick on my tower. Her words making me surer she's up to something. Something big.