Chapter 6
Waiting
To say the next few days were stressful would be an understatement. Alex had said that he would give me some sort of test but he hadn't actually come up with what it would be yet, so, I was forced to wait until he figured it out. Roman told me that whatever Alex came up with he was sure I would pass; I didn't believe him in the slightest.
The time waiting was spent training with Roman and talking. We had many written conversations on that pad of paper but as of now he didn't actually know much about me and I didn't know much about him.
Not knowing much about Roman never bothered me though. I almost felt it was better not knowing, I was simply able to think of him how I wanted.
The training Roman put me though was hard but I was getting a little better every day. I'd only been trained in hand to hand combat so far but Roman told me that eventually I would get some kind of a weapon specifically. We would need to wait until I was officially accepted into the gang first though, non-members were never issued weapons to use for more than sparing in the base.
Even though the waiting was stressful the days were actually pretty anticlimactic. The past month or so had been crazy stressful, I was always on the run that actually having somewhere to stay for more than a day was actually pretty strange. This was the first time in a long time that I had actually got any silence. Roman was off on some mission or something (probably stealing something) and I was left alone, sitting in my room.
That was when the voices returned, I knew they were only in my head but that didn't make me hate them any less. Normally the voices would just insult me, make me hate myself, but today they were different.
"You know if you don't pass their going to send you away, who am I kidding their going to send you off either way. Why would anyone want a burden like you to take care of?" They said, "You've always been useless and you always will be."
I did my best to ignore them, it was useless listening to them anyways, but they weren't going to go that easily. I could practically see the nameless faces shaking their blank heads as they continued to speak, "You've convinced yourself that he's going to make sure the others won't make you leave, you know he's lying, don't lie to yourself."
I wanted to scream at them, make them be quiet but of course I didn't. Staying here alone in my room wasn't doing anything for me so I decided I was going to leave.
Over the past few days I had gotten pretty good at finding my way around this underground labyrinth of a base. Roman had showed me just about all it had to offer and I was getting familiar.
I walked through the hallways with my head down and my hands in my pockets. I tended to draw a lot of attention to myself when I was walking through these halls. Most of the time you would think that being short would help you not get noticed, but it was the opposite for me. With my strange hair and eye colors and my shortness I was quite the sight.
I didn't know where I was going at first, I just let my legs take me wherever. Eventually I found myself standing in the entrance to the room Roman had been training me in for the past couple of days. It was a large room, an array of various weapons adorned one wall while the other three were covered in some sort of mats along with the floor. There were a few punching bags and such hanging but that was really it.
There were only a couple of other people in the room right then and those were all the regulars. They had all already gotten used to me.
On a normal day I would spar with Roman for a while but I didn't have a sparring partner today so I just stood by the door. I couldn't bring myself to go back to the silence of my room so I stuck around, just waiting for nothing.
I was starting to zone out when I saw someone new enter the room, it was a boy who looked older than me but younger than Roman. I was guessing he was around 15 or so. His hair was brown and he had brown eyes to match it. In a world as colorful as ours the plainness almost made him stand out more.
He looked around the room a bit before his gaze landed on me. "Hey pinky!" he called over to me, "Wanna spar?"
I considered it for a moment before deciding that I had nothing to lose by saying yes, so, I nodded. I stood up and the boy smiled, "Great," he said, "Let's go over here."
The boy lead me over to a mat in the corner and gave me a small grin, "Welp is hand to hand good with you?"
I nodded once again.
The boy gave a quick count down, "Three, two, one!"
Then we started, it was clear after only a few moments of sparring with the boy that I was extremely outmatched but I decided to give it a shot anyways.
The boys eyes almost seemed to twinkle as he threw blow after blow at me, I dodged most but occasionally one of his fists or feet would meet me.
While sparring with Roman on other days I had quickly learned that it was much easier for me to dodge then to actually land any blows. We had tried some weapons too but in the end I decided that some form of hand to hand was more for me.
I'd held out longer than I thought before the boy knocked me to the ground, marking him as the victor, but I didn't mind that he won. It was nice to do something.
The boy quickly helped me up and gave me another of him small grins, "See ya around pinky, maybe we can spar some other time," then he left.
I returned to my place by the door for a bit and watched other pairs spar or guys punch the punching bags but eventually I got bored and returned to my room.
I honestly had no idea how long I was gone, but when I returned Roman was back. He was sitting on a chair swinging his cane around when I first saw him. When he saw me he stopped swinging the cane and looked over to me, "Hey Neo," he called, "You might want to get ready, Alex is waiting for you."
A/N:
Oh gosh I'm sorry. My life has been a bit hectic for a while and I wasn't able to update when I wanted to. Thank you so much to the two amazing people who left some super awesome reviews last chapter.
I also should mention, though It may have sounded like it I am NOT giving up on this story! Thank you all so much!
Please review/favorite/follow and tell me what you thought! Also constructive criticism is welcome! If you've got any I would love to hear it!
By peoples!
-Anna-Mae1242