I walk quickly to the lift, more excited than most people going to see the doctor would be, but it's been a week, so it's time for my sling to come off. The doors of the lift slide shut around me, and I press the button for the infirmary. The doors open after a few seconds, and I step out, breathing in the unnaturally clean air. I've been down here every day to change my dressing, but that's it.

"Laura?" I call softly, smiling as she appears from around a corner.

"Ready to get that sling off?" she asks brightly.

I nod enthusiastically. "It's been a long week with only one arm."

"Come on, then. I just need one more X-ray to make sure everything's healed properly, then you can go, with both arms," she adds with a grin.

She leads me into the X-ray room and I awkwardly manage to get myself lying face down on the bench. I see a couple of flashes, and then hear a door open, and hear Laura's voice.

"OK, let's go out and check the results."

I swing myself off the bench and follow Laura out to a bank of computer screens. She points out one of them to me, and I look at it closely.

"I don't know what I'm looking for," I admit, stepping back.

She presses a couple of buttons and a screen next to the first one pops to life and another X-ray appears.

"These are both of mine, aren't they?"

"Yes. The one on the left is from last week, and the other is from today. This white part here," she says, pointing it out on the left screen, "is your shoulder blade, and that little black line is the break."

I look at the screens again, my eyes flicking between both. "There's nothing on that one," I say, pointing to the right-hand screen.

"That's right," she says, smiling at me. "The break has healed, and we can take the sling off now. Unless, of course, you'd like to keep it on?"

"No," I say quickly, shaking my head. "Definitely not."

She laughs lightly. "I'll take it off and get rid of the dressing, and just see if it's still sore and whether or not you need painkillers."

"Sounds fantastic."

She steps behind me and loosens the straps, pulling the sling up over my head. I roll my shoulder and wince as it makes a loud crack after being strapped up for a week. I straighten my arm out and my elbow cracks, as does my wrist when I stretch it.

I feel Laura's gloved fingers on my back, gently tugging on the corner of the dressing.

"You want me to rip it?" she asks, peering around my shoulder.

"The sooner you do it, the sooner I can get back to training."

I've been going to training as normal, but there's only so much you can do with one arm, and I haven't been able to wear my training suit, either, because of the sling. I've been training with Rogue as well, but we haven't been able to advance on what I did in her room, despite her efforts to motivate me. The sudden rip jerks me back from my thoughts, and I curse under my breath.

"Mind somewhere else?" Laura asks as she tosses the dressing in the bin.

"Yep, sure wasn't ready for that," I say tightly.

"You'll live, you little trooper," she says, patting me on the back. "I just need to see how sore this is, and whether you need any painkillers. It'll only take a second."

Her warm fingers are on my back again, gently probing and pressing down on my skin, and I cry out after a few seconds, even though she isn't pressing too hard.

"Sorry," she says. "Is that still sore now?"

"Yeah, it's still sore, just kind of aching now."

"Well there's a pretty impressive bruise there right now," she muses, taking off her gloves. "You'll need some painkillers, at least for today. You should be alright tomorrow, but I reckon you'll need some sleeping pills, just in case you roll on it during the night. I can't allow you to keep medication in your room, and that's the rule for all students, but I'll get Kitty to bring it up for you."

"Thanks," I say, taking a step back from her bare hands. I don't want to accidentally hurt anyone, and I have a bit of an aversion to being around other people now. "I should probably head up to dinner now."

"Alright then, hopefully I don't have to see you down here again for a while," she says. "Get going now, before all the food's gone."

"Bye, Laura," I call as I leave, heading for the lift. When I get near the dining room, I can hear the sound of shuffling feet, voices calling to each other, and cutlery on plates. Morgan and her friends come down the stairs then, lining up for food behind me.

"Finally got the sling off?" Jessie asks brightly, appearing out of nowhere to stand next to me. Nothing ever seems to faze her, and she always has a smile on her face. She's definitely the bubbliest out of the eight of us; me, Morgan and six of her closest friends. She has the ability to create areas of high air pressure and direct them at whatever she chooses, effectively knocking them down, depending on how strong it is, and how much they can resist it. Lately she's been working on improving her accuracy, directing it at smaller, more distant targets. While I was in the sling I was setting up targets for her, and then moving before she could accidentally hit me.

"Yeah, it feels good to have it free again. I'm looking forward to getting back into training; it's been pretty boring without it."

"I'm looking forward to not having to help you dress yourself," Morgan says a little bitterly, but she has a small smile on her face. "That was weird."

"I'll agree with you there," I say, nodding as the line moves forward.

Once we've got our food and sat down, we start talking about classes, training and boys, then decide to meet up in Jessie and Bec's room to watch a movie before bed. We take our plates back to the kitchen and head to our rooms to grab our pyjamas, before going to the showers.

I've never been in Jessie and Bec's room before, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised by their décor, considering what I know about them. Both of them have impressive movie and CD collections, and all four walls are plastered with movie posters and album artwork. I stand gazing at the walls for a few seconds until I see Jessie walking towards me out of the corner of my eye. I snap out of my daze and turn to her.

"Impressive," I say in admiration.

"You like it?" she asks, leading me to one of the beds, I'm assuming hers.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," I say as we sit down.

She hands me a stack of DVDs. "Pick out some you like," she says, taking a stack for herself. "We'll put all the ones we want together and pick from there."

I shuffle through the cases and pick out three that I like: The Blind Side, Red Dog, and Inception. The others are piling the ones they've chosen in the middle of the sort-of circle that we've made between sitting on the beds and on the floor, and I do the same.

"OK, Darcy, any types of movies you don't watch?" Bec asks.

"I can't deal with horror movies," I say, shaking my head. "They get in my head and freak me out big time."

"Alright then, no horror. Anybody got a problem with," she says as she peruses the pile, "Pitch Perfect?"

Nobody does, so we put it on, and we're all singing along to the final number, probably a little too enthusiastically, when we hear a knock at the door. We pause the movie and turn as Rogue walks in.

"Time for bed, girls," she says, lingering in the doorway.

"Can we watch the last couple of minutes first?" Jessie asks, her brown eyes growing wide.

Rogue frowns, but then shakes her head, laughing. "Fine, but back to your own rooms as soon as it finishes. I'll be checking."

She leaves then, and we watch the rest of the movie. When it finishes, we all leave, running into Rogue as we do.

"Straight back to your rooms, girls," she says. "I'll come round to check on you a bit later."

Morgan and I dash back to our room and flop on our beds, fighting to stay awake. A knock at our door sends us sitting bolt upright, but I laugh when I realise who it is.

"Relax, Morgan," I say with a laugh, getting up to open the door. "It's just Kitty."

"Oh," she says, looking a little sheepish. "I thought it might have been Rogue."

"You have a problem with her or something?" I ask, hesitating mid-step.

"No, not really, she's just not my kind of person, if you know what I mean. I don't have anything against her, but we just have… conflicting personalities."

I nod. "I know what you mean."

I open the door and am greeted by Kitty's warm, comforting smile.

"Hey, how's your shoulder?" she asks as I step aside to let her in.

"Alright, it's been aching a bit, but apart from that it's good."

"It hasn't been hurting when you move it or anything?"

"No."

"That's good. Now, I've got some sleeping pills for you."

She holds out two white tablets and a glass of water, which I gladly take. The tablets taste weird, but, then again, all medicine does.

"I'd suggest getting to bed before you fall asleep," Kitty says. "They work pretty quickly."

"Thanks, Kitty," I say, already feeling a little woozy.

"It's my job," she says. "I'll probably see you tomorrow, kid. Night, Morgan."

"Night," Morgan says as I stumble back to my bed.

"Darcy," Kitty says just before she leaves. "Don't hit your head on anything."

I manage to get into bed before I start feeling too tired, but it's working pretty quickly. I decide to ask Morgan something though, something I already know the answer to. But I have a feeling she doesn't want me to know the real answer.

"Morgan, why are you so close to Kitty?"

I can see her stiffen underneath her blanket. She slowly turns her head towards me. "Why do you ask?" she asks stiffly.

"Just-just curious," I say innocently, or, at least, as innocently as I can manage right now.

"Well," she begins, stumbling over her words. "It's difficult, I mean, um…"

"I know," I whisper.

"What? What do you know? How? Darcy?" She sounds kind of panicked by my knowledge, but the drugs have gotten to me already.

"Oh, Jesus," I mumble as I lose my balance, falling back onto my pillow.

"Darcy, what do you know?" she says, kneeling by my bed.

"I- whoa," I groan, suddenly feeling tired.

"Darcy!" Morgan says, shaking me through the blanket.

My eyelids slide shut without a conscious thought, and Morgan's protests grow muffled until I can hear nothing but my heart beating in my ears.

My eyes slip open after what seems like seconds, and the bright light disorients me. I sit up, rubbing my eyes and yawning, when I notice Morgan standing in the doorway holding a brown paper bag.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," she mutters. "You missed breakfast, so I brought you some toast. If you don't like jam, too bad. Class starts in twenty minutes, so hurry up."

"You could have at least woken me up," I mumble as I swing out of bed, heading for my wardrobe.

"What were you saying last night?" Morgan asks me as I get changed.

"Which part?" I ask in return as I pull on a pair of faded skinny jeans. "It's a little hazy."

"The part where you said you knew why I'm so close to Kitty," she says with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, shit," I mumble, turning away from her accusing stare.

"What do you know?" she demands, standing right in front of me.

"That Kitty's your foster sister," I say nervously, wringing my hands.

"Do you know why I had to go and live with their family?" she asks, taking another step forward.

"Be-because you had a rough time at home," I stammer, looking away from her threatening stare.

"Is that all you know?" she asks.

"Yes, I swear. Just please don't hurt me again."

"I won't. Not now, at least. Who told you?" she says, taking half a step back.

"Kitty told me when I was in the infirmary just after I woke up after surgery."

She nods slightly to herself. "Hurry up," she says finally, moving back to her side of the room to gather her things.

I finish changing quickly, pulling on a black and white baseball top, and grab my stuff, following Morgan out of the room, eating the toast she brought as I go.

Our classes go quickly, and by the time lunch comes around, Morgan's pretty much forgotten the morning's incident in our room. We finish our lunch and take our plates up to be washed, and then dash through the halls to training. We burst through the gym doors and skitter to a stop as Storm raises an eyebrow at us. We stand still and hang our heads, all of us knowing we're in a little bit of trouble.

"Girls, I thought you all knew there's no running in the halls," she says, tapping her foot on the wooden floor.

"Sorry, Storm," we all say in a monotonous unity.

"Why were you running, then?" she asks.

"Excited about training?" Bec suggests.

"Don't do it again," Storm says. "You remember what happened last time a bunch of you kids went stampeding through the halls."

"We ran into one of the little kids and they broke their wrist," Bec says glumly.

"Exactly. We don't want that happening again," Storm says. "Go get changed into your gym gear; we're having a competition."

As we head into the change rooms I nudge Morgan. "What does she mean by 'a competition'?"

Morgan smirks. "You'll see."