I slowly open my eyes, blinking from the afternoon light streaming in through the window. The first thing I notice is that my restraints are gone, and there aren't any tubes sticking out of my arm, or any machines next to the bed. I gently stretch myself out, hearing my joints crack as I do. I look beside my bed and see Clove still sitting in the chair, awake, and I notice that her cast is gone. She looks at me as she hears the crack of my joints, and smiles.
"Feeling good Sas?" She asks me gently.
"A lot better," I reply, "What about you? Your wrist OK?"
"Yeah, it's perfectly fine now, it just has a bandage on it. I can start training again next week."
"That's good." I say, smiling. She smiles back at me warmly. I think about what life would be like if we were kicked out of the house. We have no other family, nowhere else to go. I feel tears well up in my eyes, until they begin to cascade over my lashes. Clove puts a hand on the small of my back and lifts me into a sitting position. She comes and sits on the bed next to me and I rest my head on her shoulder, with tears streaming silently down my cheeks. She has one hand around my body, and the other one is stroking my hair gently. She knows why I'm crying. I'm crying because if we get kicked out, we have nowhere to go. No other family, and I doubt we have any friends that would take us. If we get kicked out, we're on our own. I just hope it doesn't come to that. If it does, we will have no money, no food, and no shelter, and we will, eventually, die.
"Sas," She says softly, "We're going to be OK. We can leave them if we want to."
"But we won't have anywhere to go." I say, even quieter than her.
"There's one more floor at the Academy that I haven't shown you, because right now, I'm not allowed to. Up there, they have rooms where some people stay if they live too far away, or they want to get there really early. We can live there if we want to. They give us most of our food, and it hardly costs anything."
My tears keep making tracks down my face, and she can tell she hasn't said enough.
"Sas, we're going to be fine. As long as we're together, we'll get through this. If you want to, we can leave by next week and go and live there, but only if you want to."
"Are you sure?" I ask her, looking up at her calm face.
"Sas, I'm going to promise you one thing. And that one thing is that I'm going to protect you with my life. Personally, I don't think we're safe living with Mum and Dad, but I'll leave the choice up to you."
"I-I," I start, not knowing exactly what to say. But eventually I come up with an answer, "I want to leave too."
"OK then. They won't care if we do or not. How about we spend tonight at home for our last night, and on the way home we can stop in at the Academy and organise to start living there from tomorrow. Then we can go home, pack a rucksack each with the things we need like any knives, our uniforms, other clothes, personal things, then we'll leave, and go to the Academy, and set up our room. OK?"
"OK." I say nervously.
The doctor comes into the room again and tells us that we can go, so we leave, laughing at his pompous manner once again. I'm still wearing my training uniform, so Clove hands me my backpack and I put on my tracksuit. We bid farewell to the two women at the desk near the entrance and start walking. We walk in silence, Clove having one arm around my shoulders while tears manage to squeeze themselves out of my eyes. We stay like this for the whole 20 minute walk to the Academy, then she lets go when we arrive. We walk through the huge doors together and go over to the front desk where we see Syron sitting. For a moment he looks quizzical, but then beams at us.
"Saskia, what a pleasure to see you again!" He crows.
"Likewise Syron!" I say happily, and we shake hands.
"Clove!" He exclaims, "How are you?"
"I'm very well thankyou Syron." She says politely.
"There is one question I do wish to ask of you though. Why exactly are you here? Surely you can't begin you training again until next week?"
"Yes, that's right, but we aren't here to train. We wanted to ask about the boarding scheme." She says.
"But surely you don't live that far away from here?" He asks us.
"Yes, but we don't believe that it's safe to continue living with our parents anymore." She says curtly.
"Ah. I see," He says, "So you want to board here until your final Reaping Clove?"
"Yes, then I'll leave with Saskia and care for her."
"That sounds like a good plan." He says approvingly.
"But how much is this going to cost?" I ask timidly.
"Well," He says, "It will cost you about five silver pieces a week combined, which is rather cheap considering all the benefits of this scheme."
"So does that mean we'll need to get a job to be able to pay?" I ask him.
"Well you will need to find some means of earning the money to pay the fees." He replies curtly.
"That is cheap," Clove says slowly, "So we'll take it. We'll come about midday tomorrow."
I nod in agreement, and watch as Clove shakes hands with Syron and fills out a form. She finishes her part of the form and hands me the pen so I can fill out my part of the form. I carefully write my name and sign on a dotted line. Syron takes the sheet from me and I hand him the pen. He looks over the sheet and nods in approval. He pulls out two cards and two wrapped needles. He puts one of the cards on the top of the desk and unwraps one of the needles. Clove steps forwards and puts out her hand. He pricks the end of her finger with the needles and squeezes it to make a bead of blood appear, which he wipes on the card. She steps back after he lets go of her hand, and Clove pushes me forward. I back away quickly from the desk, having no wish to have my blood taken. But as soon as I start to back away, Clove has her hands in a biting grip on my shoulders, shoving me forwards. She roughly slams my the back of my hand on the desk, holding my index finger out so Syron can prick it. I struggle against her, but her thumb is resting on my wrist, and she pushes down with it hard, hitting a pressure point, rendering me helpless. Syron quickly brings the needle down on my finger. I feel it pierce my skin, moving down through my flesh. I flinch, but Clove just holds me in her iron grip. I can feel the needle being removed from my body, and relax. While Syron is getting the card, Clove squeezes my finger so I can get through this as quickly as possible. When Syron looks up, there's a bead of blood already formed on my finger, which Clove wipes on the card. Syron thanks us and dismisses us, so we walk out, and start our final walk home.
Clove holds me like she did on the way here, and we stay silent as we make this trip for, potentially, the last time. We soon get home, and find our parents in the kitchen with Felix. They glare at us coldly, but say nothing. We walk upstairs together, going to her room first. She sits on her bed and I sit down next to her, resting my head on her shoulder, crying. She lifts me onto her lap and holds me protectively and I cling to her, not wanting to be separated from the one person I know I truly love. We stay like this until the sun goes down, then she lifts me off her lap and goes to turn the light on. When she comes back over to me, she starts explaining what we're going to do tomorrow.
"Go upstairs, get some sleep, then tomorrow we'll pack our rucksacks, OK?" She says to me.
"But what about food?" I ask her.
"They won't let us eat any of theirs, so we'll just have to go without tonight."
"But I have some in the attic."
"Like what?" She asks me.
"A couple of bread rolls that aren't stale, a full bottle of water and a couple of fresh apples."
"Well bring it down and we'll eat, then go to sleep." She says.
I nod and climb up the ladder, going over to the box I keep my food in. I pull out the string bag with the food in it and go back down to Clove. We sit on her bed and eat everything, then hug each other tightly, and I go up to my room.
I change into my sleep clothes and snuggle under the blanket on my mat. I curl up into a ball holding my teddy, thinking about what will come tomorrow. I don't know what will happen, but I do know that we'll be happy. I smile at the thought of finally being able to sleep at night knowing that we won't be abused by our parents and Felix the next day. I think about all the blows they've laid on me over the years. I think about all the pain Clove has inflicted on me over the years. The pain from them was dull, but I could never forgive them for it. They kept hurting me, even after I told them to stop, and they would start for no reason. Whatever torture Clove inflicted on me was more complete and absolute, but she always stopped as soon as I started begging her, and she would always clean me up afterwards, but they would just leave me there. She could always be forgiven, but I could never forgive them. They made my life hell, but Clove made me stronger. She taught me to fight, and to never give up. She taught me that I'll get knocked down, I'll hurt, I won't be able to take it anymore, but if I keep going and push through the pain, I'll win. All they taught me was how to hate, and that there are evil people in my life. I snuggle closer to my teddy under the blankets and think about Clove. I love her, and trust her with my life. She's more than what people think of her as. They view her as a sadistic monster, and she can be towards me, but she's my sister.
And I love her.