Roughly a week and a half has passed since I joined Xia and Lucas. Luckily, Remi and Finn decided to stay too. Otherwise I probably would have died that second day. Xia was absolutely right; that first week? Terrible. She spent the entire time beating the shit out of me and calling it exercise.

  It went a little something like this for five days straight:

  ‘Drop and give me thirty,’ Xia would say each time. If I couldn’t complete thirty pushups, she’d kick me in the side. My ribs are still bruised from that.

  She’d do it at least five times a day too. I don’t think she treats Remi like that, though.

  I look at myself in the bathroom mirror, noticing every little change. My arms are more filled in, at least a tiny bit. I pull up my shirt–

  Yikes.

  The bruises are turning sickly yellow, with purple and green in the mix too. I poke one of them, and hiss. That was a dumb mistake.

  Wow. I can actually see my ribs too. I guess I haven’t been eating as much as I did, but damn. I didn’t know it would have this much effect.

  ‘Damn. What happened to you?’ Remi enters the bathroom as well.

  I hadn’t seen her in a couple of days. She’s changed as well. Despite being tiny, her eyes seem sharper, and I can clearly see the strength through her loose T-Shirt.

  ‘Xia’s gone really hard on me, thus the bruises,’ I gesture to my ribs.

  ‘You need to eat, dude,’ Remi fishes an open granola bar out of her pocket and shoves it into my mouth.

  ‘Aagh–’ I protest halfheartedly.

  ‘Where did that even come from? Were you saving that?’ I take a healthy step away from her, and spit the granola out into my hand.

  ‘Mhm! I haven’t seen you in a bit, so I was saving it for when I did,’ Remi explains simply, placing her hands on her hips like she’s proud of it.

  ‘So… you’ve been saving that granola bar for how many days?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘That bar. In your pocket. Open. For two days.’

  ‘Mhm!’ Remi smiles sweetly.

  I about vomit. No matter how much I love her, that is absolutely disgusting.

  I quickly throw the bar into the trashcan, and cover my mouth, just in case.

  ‘Honey, that’s gross,’ I shake my head, shuddering at the very thought. I spin around and walk out of the bathroom. I don’t need that in my life right now. I should probably get training anyway.

  Lucas appeared right outside the bathroom.

  ‘HI, Tomi!’ He smiles, clapping my shoulder. I tense a bit.

  ‘Hey…’ I nod in greeting, before carefully trying to escape his grip. It’s rock solid, though. I sigh internally. This is about to be a long conversation.

  ‘Soo, how’s life treatin’ ya?’ He starts leading me down the hallway.

  ‘I mean, I guess it’s okay,’ my voice trails off. There’s nothing really important down this hallway, at least I thought so.

  ‘Hm. Have you seen the puppy boy for a while? I swear he just gets hotter and hotter,’ he hums softly.

  I keep my mouth shut for now. Do I want to punch him in the face? Hell yes. I get the feeling he’s one of those types where he’s ridiculously strong though. Even with the strength-training I’ve done for a week, I’m still a twig.

  The silence is somewhat awkward as we walk the hallway. It’s probably not awkward for him, though. Fear fears him. That’s the vibe I get.

  ‘Alright~ we’re here,’ Lucas stops abruptly at a door.

  I nearly fall over, since the stop was so sudden.

  ‘Ack–who’s room is this?’ I break free from his grip finally and cross my arms.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he opens the door. Empty.

  ‘Aw. I guess he’s somewhere else,’ he pouts.

  ‘Wait, who?’ I raise an eyebrow. I have a feeling I know who he’s talking about, but I don’t want to say anything outright.

  ‘Well, your boyfriend of course!’ Lucas’ eyebrows wiggle.

  ‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ I roll my eyes. Of course he’s talking about Finn.

  ‘Then I’ll take him if you don’t want him,’ he shrugs.

  That’s it. I snap.

  I land a nearly flawless right hook to the side of Lucas’ jaw.

  ‘You have been nothing but annoying and stupid since I’ve met you. I’m done with it.’

  I walk away before he has any time to talk to me. I sigh heavily, letting it be heard. I’m probably going to regret that later, but I hope he understands now.

  For the past week, Lucas had been nothing but a nuisance. Sure, he’s sort of sweet when he wants to be. That’s about it for his positive side, though. It makes me want to simply disappear. I imagine this is what having a little sibling is like. My hands shake from the sheer anger coursing through my body.

  I stop for a moment and get to the side of the hallway, in case anyone walks by. I close my eyes and focus on something happy. Wait. What the hell even is “happy” at this point?

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I find out that my dead brother had something to do with some weird organization, said organization tried to kidnap me and brutally torture me, and I’ve been trained to the point of exhaustion for a week straight.

  I run my hands over my face. My jaw clenches instinctively, trying to hold back tears. I need a distraction. Anything.

  Should I go to the training room? My arms are sore to the point where they hardly want to move anymore, and it feels like my core just doesn’t exist. My legs shake underneath me. It’s a distraction, though.

  ?

  Now that the first week is over, Xia has finally given me access to the actual training room, not just a room with workout machines in it. This one has punching bags along the walls, with a mini-arena in the center. Wow. To the left corner, I spot a shelf with various little trinkets on it. I wonder what those do. Eh, I’ll just have to ask Xia later.

  I approach one of the punching bags–

  HOLY SHIT!

  The bag. Punched me. In the face. I recoil, holding my face in utter bewilderment. That isn’t supposed to happen. What the fuck.

  Just in time, Xia swings open the door to see me holding my face. My expression must be hilarious, because she just snorts.

  ‘Didn’t expect the bag to fight back, hm?’ She fights back a full laugh.

  ‘Uh–who would?’ I slowly bring my hand away from my face, and see a dark red stain on my hand. Shit. Am I bleeding? I put two fingers up to my upper lip, and brought them back. Sure enough, there’s a lot of blood on my fingertips.

  Xia grimaces at the blood.

  ‘Turn around, please? Blood makes me sort of squeamish,’ she pulls a napkin from her pocket and hands it to me, spinning two of her fingers around.

  I take the napkin and tilt my head down. I hold the napkin over my nose and wait for the blood to stop flowing. My entire face hurts like hell.

  Once the bleeding finally stops after a few eternities, I turn around and ask.

  ‘Who the hell would even think to make a punching bag like that?’ I gesture to the bag behind me, and flip it off for good measure.

  ‘Lucas would. I decided that the originals weren’t good enough, and that was his idea to make them better,’ Xia shrugs, a fond smile on her face.

  Of course. I throw my arms up in the air. Of course he would!

  ‘Can you teach me how to use them, please? That shit hurt,’ I mutter the last part under my breath.

  ‘Of course. As much as it builds character, we can’t have you getting beaten too much. That’s my job,’ Xia jokes. Wow. She seems to be in a very good mood today.

  She steps away from me and over to another bag, and presses a button at the top of it. She immediately leaps back and raises her fists.

  ‘Fighting this thing is similar to fighting a real person,’ she lands a flawless right hook, ‘except its movements are predictable since they’re programmed.’

  I cross my arms and watch her effortlessly dodge and parry the bag. Terrifying. It’s like watching a river during a storm. Graceful, yet with the force of a typhoon.

  It eventually shuts off after a bunch of well-placed hits, and starts playing… video game music? I don’t question it, nor do I want to question it.

  ‘Ready to try?’ Xia steps out of the way and gestures towards the bag.

  My arms tense, and my heart skips a beat. Can I do this? I don’t want to get whacked again. That seriously hurt. I look down at my hand, and see a flash of blood again. A shiver runs down my body as I glance between my hand and the bag. I can do this. Right?

  ‘I might as well,’ my voice strains.

  I look over the bag. Where did she turn it on? I can’t remember. Ooh- I should probably tie my hair up.

  ‘Do you have a spare hair tie?’ I spin around for a moment and make eye contact with Xia. I forgot how sharp her eyes are. Shudder.

  ‘Oh. Here,’ she throws one into the air, and I unfortunately do not catch it.

  I kneel down and pick up the hair tie. Shame on me, honestly.

  ‘Alright…’ I rise and pull my hair back into a low ponytail.

  I manage to find the button, and I press it. Follow what Xia did. It should be simple.

  The first thing she did was leap–

  Hngh!

  The bag swings at me and lands a blow on my gut. She did leap back immediately after turning it on, huh? I must’ve waited too long. I stumble backward, letting out a low groan.

  Alright. Let’s try this again. I inhale sharply, before throwing a punch.

  It lands on the bag, but doesn’t do quite the same thing as Xia’s did. My blow seemed more like a tickle than an actual move.

  ‘Your form is off. Punch with your knuckles. Not below,’ she comments behind me, before I’m swung at again. This damn bag.

  I barely manage to sidestep it. My eyes blow wide, and I snort. I actually dodged it. By a hair.

  Thwack!

  Since when can the bag move to hit me!?

  Xia actually starts to laugh now.

  ‘You’re going to need to focus, Tomi,’ she wheezes between cackles. Seriously?

  I scoff, and channel all of my current rage into my fists. The backstory behind how I got here, Lucas’ bullshit, and now this damn bag. I throw another punch.

  ‘Sloppy. I can tell you’re letting your emotions control you,’ Xia shakes her head in disappointment.

  I roll my eyes, and attack again. Two punches and a front kick.

  ‘There you go, solid,’ I can feel her nod, even if I can’t see it.

  I’m tempted to tell her to shut up. I need to focus, otherwise I’ll get beaten up by the bag. Wow. That’s something I never thought I’d say, then again, I do live in a big ass bunker now, so I guess there’s going to be a bunch of firsts for a while.

  ‘To shut it off, you need to land at least fifty actually good blows. So far you’ve landed… two,’ Xia calls out.

  …

  Fifty?

  It can just go ahead and beat me at this point because there is absolutely no way.

  Maybe there is a way. If I could actually focus.

  I step back from the bag for a moment, and breathe.

  I can do this.

  Maybe?

  I bring my fists up to my face, and start whacking.

  I count in my head how many I need to turn this damn thing off.

  Forty-five.

  This thing seriously pisses me off. It has the audacity to embarrass me like that, especially in front of Xia?

  Thirty-nine.

  I’m already weak in her eyes, I’m sure of it! This thing just had to set that judgement in stone. I’m weak. Seriously weak.

  How many do I have left? I can’t remember anymore. I’ve just been mindlessly punching for what feels like hours. Have any of them even been good?

  I feel my throat closing up. My attacks grow weak and shaky, and my legs slowly shift into puddles of flesh beneath me. Is this seriously how I go?

  The bag jerks, and catches me in the heart. The wind flies right out of me, and I collapse. It hits again. To the face. Am I bleeding again? I can’t tell. My ears ring, and I can feel my vision closing in. At a tortoise’s pace, but I’m probably going to faint.

  Another hit. I can’t take this anymore.

  I vaguely feel something grabbing onto my arm, but it could just be the tingles flowing through my entire body. I’m not being hit anymore, though. My vision is but a pinhole at this point. I think that’s Xia’s chin? Someone’s chin, I can’t tell.

  The pinhole closes, and my brain shuts down with it.