It took twenty minutes to get to the training grounds. And twenty minutes for all the simmering tension in the car to finally explode.

            I wasn’t sure how they managed to nab so much land, but they had, and it was dotted with people everywhere. They all recognized August’s car and waved in greeting, some casting suspicious glances toward me in the passenger seat.  August pulled up in front of what appeared to be the main house, because it was pretty huge and in the center of everything. As soon as he cut the engine and pulled the key out of the ignition, all hell broke loose between us.

            And all because I said, “You shouldn’t have told me to sit in the car.”

            He gaped at me, shoulders shaking with his anger. “Are you shitting me right now?”

            I frowned. “No . . .”

            “What the hell happened to you?” he exclaimed, with enough force to lead me to believe he’d been holding this one in for a while.

            We fully faced each other in the car now, breaths heavy, shoulders heaving, bodies wired. He was angry, fine. That I understood. But he really shouldn’t have told me to back out with those Bounty Hunters. “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” I ground out, fighting to maintain control. I didn’t lose it often. I realized the only real times I’d ever lost it were with Augie, too.

             He threw his hands up. “Six months, Ellie. I think you’re dead for six months. And . . . and to see you again . . . for you to see me again, after how we left things . . .”

            “We were hurting,” I returned, the words tasting like battery acid in my mouth. “We were sad.”

            His jaw dropped. After a moment he snorted, composing himself. “Oh, so what? That was just sex to you?”

            This was unbelievable. I pushed open the car door. “I want to see Blake and Jessica.”

            “Good! You’re running away again! Just like you do every time you don’t want to face something!”

            “Maybe I ran away for a reason, Augie! Maybe you shouldn’t follow!”

            Our screaming match caught the attention of any bystanders as we stormed up to the door of the main house. Certainly we were creating quite the scene, but I couldn’t help it. We couldn’t help it.

            We crashed through the door. A grinning Jessica with tears in her eyes waited on the other side, hands clasped in front of her. “Oh, my God. Ellie—” she began, but didn’t get a chance to finish before August cut her off.

            “When I tell you to stay in the car, you stay the hell in the car,” he growled, grabbing my elbow to turn me around. “What about that is so difficult to understand?”

            “Maybe that you can’t tell me what to do!” I gritted out in return, teeth clenched.            

            Jessica bit her lip. “Guys—”

            “I’m not some helpless girl anymore, Augie!” I continued, right in his face. “I never was! I was born to kill. Born to be an unfeeling killer, and that’s just the way it is!”

            He released a humorous laugh. “You’re a walking contradiction, you know that? You complain about wanting to be human, and then at any chance to be normal you push it away! What the hell is wrong with you?”

            “How could you say that to me?”

            “If you’re not careful you will be a monster, Ellie. All alone and unhuman because you pushed everybody away. Because that’s the way you wanted it to be.”

            My heart broke. In some way or another, everybody said that to me. But to hear August say it . . . to hear it leave his lips like that . . .

            It was different.

            Worse.

            Horrible.

            “Everybody shut up!”

            August and I jerked toward Jessica, heaving, red in the face, tears filling her eyes. Blake stood beside her with an eyebrow quirked up and an amused expression on his face.

            “Seriously,” she said, flicking hair behind her ear. “I find out Ellie is alive and this is what you do? I should kick both your asses!”

            My cheeks flushed. Blake scratched the back of his head. August roiled beside me.

            “Don’t you guys have anything to say?”

            I nearly cried, because Jessica was the exact same, and it was refreshing in this life to know some things never changed.

            “I’ll be in my room if you need me,” August grumbled, turning toward the staircase. “Don’t need me.”

            He disappeared, and then Jessica and Blake pulled me into the hugest hug that ever did exist, and I couldn’t hold in the happy tears anymore.

            “Come on,” she whispered. “We have so much to talk about.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Your mom sounds like a real bitch.”

            I laughed, folding my feet beneath me on the sofa. Jessica, Blake and me had spent the better part of an hour sharing stories and catching up. With some time to cool down, I didn’t feel any different on where I stood with August, but my heart did hurt. A lot. Too much. I missed him, and he came down once, but only to leave.                        “She is,” I said.

            “So what made you come out of hiding?”

            I didn’t answer at first, because I wasn’t sure how to without feeling more pain rip through me. “Reasons,” I eventually said. “It was time. I didn’t share the same views with my mother.”

            Jessica snorted. “Ha. No kidding.”

            Blake walked into the room carrying a tray of crackers and cheeses. He was still cooking and preparing food. That was good. Nobody should let go of the thing that made them happy; the thing that made their soul feel whole and pure.

            “I missed your cooking,” I said to Blake. “There’s nothing like it.”

            He smiled. “Thanks.”

            Jessica clasped her hands together, supporting her chin. “I still can’t believe you’re alive.”

            “Well . . . here I am.”

            “I know. It’s freaky.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Then . . . who was in the grave?”

            I froze mid-chew on a cracker. After a moment I swallowed hard. “You don’t want to know.”

            She nodded. “Probably not. Whatever. I’m just glad you’re back.”

            A knock on the door frame into the living room interrupted our conversation. A boy who looked about sixteen or seventeen with shaggy brown hair stood uncertainly in the entryway. “Hi,” he said. “Blake called me here?”

            “Ah, yes.” Jessica stood to make the introductions. “Ellie, this is Roy Gibbons. Roy Gibbons, this is Ellie Armstrong.” She turned to me. “He’s going to show you around the grounds.”

            I nodded. “Thank you.”

            He didn’t meet my eyes, and he seemed to be fidgeting more than normal. Not unusual. I found people reacted differently when in my presence, usually with hesitance or fear or disgust.

            Not August. Never August.

            Blake and Jessica bid me adieu, saying something about strategy planning. I followed Roy out the doors and the moment I stepped foot outside, I was the object of everyone’s curiosity.

            “You’ll get used to it,” Roy stated, noticing my wariness. “They’ve heard a lot about you, and to think you were dead before just a few hours ago, well . . . it’ll be okay.”

            Not all that reassuring. “When did you guys set up camp here?”

            “I guess it’ll be almost seven months, now,” he replied, waving to a girl who walked by, scrolling through her phone. “Around the time of your death . . . or, faked death, I guess. August made it his prerogative to bring down Angel and the Prophets, and so with Jessica and Blake they started up this place. They found and brought in a lot of people, me included.”

            Everything seemed to surround the main house in a circle. Three other buildings, probably where the rest of the people stayed, some practice and sparring fields, and that was about it. “Where did you guys find this?”

            A cobblestone path lined the main house in a donut shape, with the house in the middle and everything else accessed off the edges. Roy stopped by a bench and braced his foot on it. “It was actually one of Angel’s places, but August, Jessica, and Blake took out the Prophets stationed here, and we claimed it as our own.”

            “Wow.”

            “Yeah. You miss a lot when you pretend to be dead.” It was said in a joking matter, but it was the truth. I missed a lot. I was prepared for this situation; to come back and be with August and plunge myself right back into the thick of things with allies at my side. To be honest . . . I hadn’t known what to expect. Imagining a world beyond the grueling torture at the hand of my mother was inconceivable.

            But here I was. Free from her. Free from her torture. Free from her pain.

            I was free, and yet all I could do was imprison myself.

            “That’s basically it,” Roy spoke up again, breaking my thoughts. “I live in those houses over there, along with the other strays they took in. I assume you’ll stay in the main house with August?”

            My cheeks flushed red. “Why do you assume that?”

            Roy’s eyes widened. “I, uh . . . I just . . . I figured . . .”

            I sighed. “It’s okay. Yes, I’ll stay in the main house. Thank you.”

            “Is there anything I can get you?”

            “No. I’m pretty tired, actually. I think I’ll just turn in.”

            “Okay . . . hey, Ellie?”

            I turned, looking at Roy. “What?”

            He was fidgeting again, this time with his hair, tucking it behind his ears or running his hands through it or pushing it off his forehead. “What you can do, um . . . is it like they say?”

            Fear.

            That’s fear in his eyes.

            Fear in his voice.

            Fear of you.

            A strange chill entered my blood. “Worse,” I murmured, and after his audible gulp, continued back to the main house. With a significantly dimmed skip in my step, if a skip at all.

            Roy and I were only out for about five minutes, maybe ten at the most, but already the bottom level was clear. Blake was nowhere to be found, but Jessica stepped out of the kitchen to confront me.

            “Where will I be sleeping?” I asked, arms crossed tightly against my chest.

            Jessica narrowed her eyes, mirroring my stance. “With August.”

            My traitorous heart skipped a beat. “I can sleep elsewhere.”

            “There’s only one bed available. With August.”

            I clenched my jaw, glaring up at her. “Jessica.”

            “Ellie.”

            “Why are you doing this?”

            She threw her hands up in the air. “Um, because somebody has to have a head that’s not shoved up their ass? Ellie. My God. Can I please put something in perspective for your poor, sometimes aggravatingly slow, brain? If somebody I loved pops up like a fucking zombie after six months of me believing them dead, it would take the entire United States army, and maybe half their naval force, to hold me back. Understand? You guys should be like freaking rabbits right now.”

            I frowned. “I don’t understand the comparison.”         

            “Mother of God.” She rubbed her temples, mercilessly digging her fingers in. “Six months and less has changed then you think,” she muttered to herself.

            “I can take the couch,” I said. “That’s perfectly fine with me, Jess—”

            “You’re not sleeping on the freaking couch!” she shouted, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me. Sharp pain shot up my back, but I didn’t complain. “Sweet Mary and Joseph, woman! There isn’t anybody left to hold your hand on this one! You went through a lot of hell with your mom, I get it, but come on. Ellie. Take some responsibility for yourself.”

            Bit by bit, the resolve within me cracked. Crumbled. “I don’t love him. I can’t.”

            Jessica groaned, dramatically lifting her eyes to the heavens. “You know what I don’t want to hear? Self-pitying, ‘I’m beyond love’, ‘woe is me’ bullshit. You’re alive, you know? And all I fucking want is for people to get along around here, because there’s enough fighting out in the real world every single second of every single day, so get your act together, Armstrong. Figure out what you want and just get it, because let me tell you; you let him get away, you break him up and hurt him, and there’s no recovering. There’s no second chance.”

            “I would never hurt Augie.”

            She snorted, inspecting her nails. “Too late for that.”

            I slumped into a chair, holding my head in my hands. “I’m confused. I don’t know what to do. Help me.”

            “I am.” Jessica placed a hand on my shoulder, smiling softly. “Think of me as the big sister you never had. I know we had our differences in the beginning but . . . we girls gotta stick together, you know? I’m here for you, El. I am.”

            I sniffed. “I missed you, Jessica.”

            She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a tight hug. “And I missed you. Now go and apologize to August. If I don’t hear that bed knocking against the wall, I’m coming in.”

            Heat flushed my entire body. Jessica laughed at my easily-flustered self, and ushered me toward the stairs. “I don’t even know how to begin,” I tried, even though I was really just stalling and she knew it, too.

            “You’re a creation of advanced scientific research and manipulated genetics,” she replied. “A born killer. And August doesn’t fall for just anybody. You must have something going for you.”

            On the third stepped I whirled around, eyes wide. “What if I screw up? What if it’s already too late?”

            She cast me a droll look. “Do I have to knock you out and drag you up there?”

            I bit my lip. “Please don’t.”

            “Well, alright, then. Get to walking.”

            Her face exhibited nothing but seriousness. And because I knew she wouldn’t move unless I, “Got to walking,” I mounted the stairs. With each step the civil war in my head grew louder, rougher, all the more volatile. The doubts intensified. The mindset I’d adapted over the last six months blew up so it was all I could hear. In the back of my mind, I registered Jessica’s retreating footsteps.

            She left.

            I stopped.

            The civil war raged.

            August’s closed door was ten, maybe fifteen feet away.

            Jessica didn’t come back.

            Silence filled my head.

            A verdict was reached.

            I walked away.