The next morning, Jake greeted me with his usual delighted smile and an eloquent summary of the morning's proposed activities. Also, coffee. Oh, wait – that's just a dream I had.

In reality, Zoe woke me up by dropping a slice of vegemite toast onto my upturned face. It landed butter-side down, because of course it did.

I then had to lunge out my sleeping bag – with vegemite all over my nose and forehead – to stop Paige from sticking a knife into the toaster.

I snatched it, then held the offending utensil above her head. "Electrocution!" I proclaimed. "Metal is a conductor!" My piece of toast dropped from my shoulder to the floor with a sad noise.

Jake, who was reading something at the kitchen table whilst eating his breakfast, looked up at me. A tiny smile quirked at the corner of his mouth before he looked back down at his Weetbix.

"That is some serious bedhead, Cardigan," called Zoe. "Like some full on static shit. Like, we could probably generate enough electricity to power this entire fucking bunker. You just wait here – I'll get Mila onto it. This is a breakthrough in the history of science – wake up Rao!" Zoe had already taken her pilgrimage of morning wakefulness to the other side of the room, where Rao was a motionless lump inside a sleeping bag. She grabbed the end of the bag and started to try to tug it off him.

I touched my hair. It wasn't hanging down – it was sticking out. In multiple directions. I tried to push it back into a normal shape, but it resisted. Paige picked up my piece of toast from the floor and took a bite. "Unhygienic!" I yelped. "There could be bacteria on the floor. Or, or pathogens!"

"Ten second rule, Button," commented Zoe. Rao's sleeping bag wasn't budging. It seemed he was clinging on from the inside. Zoe started to slowly drag it across the floor, like a massive, elongated cocoon.

"Leave him alone," said Mila.

Zoe dropped the end of the sleeping bag – possibly Rao's feet? – with an audible thump. It remained silent and motionless in the middle of the room. I wondered whether he was somehow still asleep. Or dead.

"Mission briefing today," said Jake.

"Ooh, exciting," said Zoe. "Are we meeting up with Team Asshole?"
"We're meeting up with everyone," replied Jake.

"Everyone, everyone?" I asked, "Like, other people in the other cells everyone?"

"Yes," said Jake shortly.

"Are there other Wakers?" I asked.

Mila snorted, "Obviously."

I sniffed. "What's the mission?" I asked Jake.

He shook his head. "Mila and I are finalising the plans. Just – wait till the briefing."

"Well," said Zoe. "Just make sure Team Asshole go in first – without guns. Wearing fuzzy bitch jumpers. And bells."

"Why don't you like Team Asshole?" I asked her.

Zoe turned towards me and opened her mouth to answer. Before she could, a muffled voice came from Rao's sleeping bag. "True love," the voice announced.

Jake choked on his Weetbix. Mila turned away, possibly to hide a smile. I couldn't read Zoe's expression, because she was a blur of dark hair and murderous rage.

She sprinted across the room. Possibly sensing danger, the Rao-shaped sleeping bag sat up, only to be knocked flat on his back as Zoe threw herself on top of him in a body slam of epic proportions. "Are you talking in your sleep, Rao?" Zoe gritted out, grappling with the area where his head should be – her hands slipping free due to the shiny fabric. "Because I swore I just heard some complete and utter dream-like bullshit coming from your general direction." Rao wriggled around like a particularly large and helpless caterpillar – but Zoe had him. "There is nothing between me and King Asshole. I am completely and utterly uninterested in that dicklord and his dick,"

"Children present!" I yelped. Paige was watching Zoe's attempted murder attempt with deep fascination and the aura of someone taking copious mental notes.

"Derek Burns is a fuck knuckle," continued Zoe – still attempting to either strangle Rao or pop his head off. I clapped my hands over Paige's ears. "A fuck knuckle," Zoe repeated. "About whom I give no fucks."

"Ok," said Jake. "You've made it very clear that Derek Burns provokes no strong emotions in you at all."

"Well, good. I'm glad that's clear." Zoe let Rao go. He flopped backwards onto the floor. She glared at his prone form. "Anna," she announced. "I'm going to shoot you now,"

"Now?" I said, letting go of Paige and looking at the kettle longingly. "Can't I have breakfast first?"

She grabbed my arm. "I brought you fucking room service, I made you toast. Enough of this spoiled shit ..."

"But –" I sputtered. Zoe was already hauling me out of the room. I was appalled. Breakfast is the cornerstone of a healthy diet.

"We were supposed to have reading!" Paige called after me, looking irritated – as though I was the one being unreasonable.

I pointed at my satchel. "I brought you a new book!" I called – but was unable to elaborate further, because Zoe had already yanked me around the corner and to the training room. I've been progressively moving through the children's section, providing Paige with new books to read – but they just don't interest her. I think it's because the time she spent amongst the slavers burned the childhood out of her.

Zoe shooting me is not as exciting as it sounds. It's mainly her firing wax bullets in my direction as I attempt to use my shard to block them.

I'm still getting the hang of it. As in, I'm consistently covered with horrible, inexplicable bruises that I have to hide from my family and Lily. Luckily, Zoe's a good enough – or bad enough? – shot that she's never hit my face or neck.

I'm nowhere near fast enough with my shard to block the bullets mid air like Rao does, and unlike Jake – I only have enough shard to cover my hand like a shield. However, I'm still the best at manifestation in the unit. I gripped my shard hard – feeling it come to life between my fingers. I looked around the bare concrete room for inspiration. It was bare of decoration, except for the occasional water stain.

"Bam bam," said Zoe casually. She stood with her feet braced. Smoothly, with both hands on the grip of the revolver, she swung it up, sighted and fired.

I dived out of the way, but Zoe tracked my movement. She let off two other shots even as I threw myself to the side. A bullet hit my shoulder, another jolted into my waist.

I stumbled onto the concrete. Even through the thick fabric of my pug jumper, they hurt – a lot. "Ow!"

"Don't complain, Gumdrop. If I was a slaver I'd be finishing you off with a boot to the head."

Sometimes, I feel Zoe takes her role as pretend assailant too seriously.

I frowned at the dark water stain on the concrete near her (booted) feet, letting my eyes drift out of focus. Water, I thought. Still under the surface. Rising. Quicksand.

I felt energy tremble through the cold concrete floor, but Zoe didn't seem to notice. She brought the revolver up again. I scrambled upright. Her finger flexed on the trigger, and I sprinted to the right. I saw a bullet strike the wall behind me and winced. Another two bullets flew past – too fast for me to register anything except displaced air. My heart pounded. Knowing they were non-lethal didn't help at all.

I darted behind a broad rectangular pillar and took a deep breath. I heard Zoe laugh, shortly. I was out of her line of sight, I realised – and she was about to move to follow.

I'd lost my grip on the manifestation. Moving does that. So does thinking, and looking away for too long from whatever you're trying to influence. Attempting to manifest something is like balancing on a tightrope. One slip of concentration, one stray thought, one stray look – and you're gone.

I peered around the corner, attempting to see the dark stain on the floor again. Zoe fired off a shot, but her heart wasn't in it. My head was the only thing visible. The bullet soared past my ear. A rush of force, air.

Quicksand, I thought. Water, rising. Concrete – softening.

Still focussed on me, Zoe stepped forward and her boot disappeared into the dark stain on the floor. "Shit!" she yelled. She buckled forwards, losing her balance, and her hands slammed down to brace herself. The gun was trapped between her palm and the concrete. I frowned, and the concrete swallowed the gun, too. I forced it to harden before her hands followed it. I didn't want to be obnoxious. Gloating winners are just as bad as sore losers, in my opinion. Apparently Zoe didn't share my thoughts on sportsmanship. She scowled at me. "Anna. Fuck you."

I suppressed a smile. Zoe only ever uses my real name when she's worried or impressed. Her experiencing either of those emotions right now was absolutely fine with me.

I stepped out from behind the column.

Zoe attempted to pull her trapped foot free. I'd hardened the concrete around it, too. "This is some seriously unnatural shit that could definitely give me an inferiority complex if I wasn't such a well adjusted individual," she announced.

I made a vague assenting sound and walked a little closer to check that the gun had been well and truly sunk.

"Just know, Waker girl," Zoe continued – possibly feeling slightly inadequate – "that if I had an assault rifle, you'd be done. You haven't got anything on rapid rate of fire."

"Yep, sure." I agreed, moving closer and frowning as I tried to decide how to get her out.

"My method would be to shoot the hand holding the shard off. Then you're useless. Plus I'd probably get an artery, and you'd be all like – 'aah, my beautiful hand! You hurt my cardigan!' then you'd pass out. Then I'd fucking medstick the shit out of you – and then possibly blind you – so you can't do any of that weird manifestation stuff."

"Wow. Thanks, Zoe. I feel that that level of ... aggressive detail ... has no place in this particular situation."

"My leg hurts, woman," she said.

I stepped closer, concerned, and she moved faster than a snake striking. Her free leg swung out along the surface of the floor, sweeping my feet out from under me. I made an undignified squawking noise, and fell hard onto my back.

The air was knocked out of me – and before I could regain my breath or sense of direction, strong hands forced my fingers open and snatched my shard from between them.

I vaguely registered another blur of motion, then Zoe was holding a wide, frightening-looking knife to my throat. "Check fucking mate," she said, grinning fiercely. "Boom. I win."

"You're trapped in the floor," I pointed out. "You need me to get you out."

"Yes," Zoe agreed. "But I have a knife, and you don't. I'll let you in on a little secret, Anna. I'm Partial. You're a Waker. Partials take pain better than your side. No one wants to hurt a Waker too badly – you're special, expensive. Partials – we're common as mud. We've been the underdogs of the unworld for millennia. Partial: it means partially human. Partially Waker. Partial rights. Partial worth." Zoe's knife was trembling slightly against my neck. The whites of her eyes were showing. She continued, "No one wants us. We're used to enduring – surviving. So here's how I'd – hypothetically – get out of this little Catch-22, here. I hold my knife up to your eye."

I went very still, but she didn't move her knife from my neck. That somehow made everything worse. She continued leaning over me – her dark eyes full of shadows. "I'd hold my knife up to your eye, and tell you that for every millisecond my leg's still in the ground, you're going to lose another important body part. I mean, sure – you could probably kill me with your shard – but it would take a few seconds. And when you have a sharp knife like this, so close to the skin – the face – (people are sensitive about their faces, don't you think?) – that's a lot of time. It'd be down to who could do the most damage in the least amount of time. And I don't think it'd be any soft Waker girl."

"Zoe –" I began, but she spoke over the top of me.

"So then I give you the shard," she said. "And you let me out."

With her free hand, she forced my shard back into my palm. A cold sweat had broken out on my skin, and I had to close my eyes to try to sink back into the right frame of mind for manifestation. The floor, softening, I thought, turning my head to look at the water stain – trying to avoid the bleak look in her eyes. Water, rising. Quicksand.

I knew it had worked when Zoe suddenly sprang to her feet. "Good session, pug monkey!" she said cheerfully, reaching down to grab my forearm and hauling me forcefully to my feet.

Yanked upright, I looked into her face. All the darkness in her eyes was gone – as though she'd flicked a switch, pulled a plug.

But I'd seen it. Felt her shaking. I realised that I'd never made a manifestation directly affect her before. I'd only ever altered the course of the bullets. I felt a hot rush of shame. The dark look in her eyes. Was it fear? Old fear? For whatever the Wakers had once been? Once done? To the unworld? To the Partials?

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Aw, look!" Zoe said, swooping down to pick up the revolver I'd let rise out of the floor, too. "My baby."

"Zoe," I said.

She avoided looking at me, glancing around the room rapidly, as though she was checking everything was still in place.

"I didn't know," I said. "I won't do it again. I'm sorry."

"No," said Zoe, drawing to a stop in front of me, looking me in they eye at last. "I need to ... it's good practice." The shadows flickered, then were gone.

"Now, where's Maleficent?" she announced. Maleficent is the name of her assault rifle. I tried to hold back an eye roll.

Then there was a rapid step at the door and Paige stuck her head inside, her eye glowing excitedly. "Briefing!" she said, "Hurry the fuck up!"

^^^

Author's Note:

Hi guys. I know that was a very long break – sorry! My exams are over, though! Uni's over! I've officially graduated – and been accepted into a great Australian film school for my Masters in Screenwriting (yay!)

I'm thinking of doing an extra chapter this week to make things up to you. Plus, I'm putting together an adorable (in my opinion :P – so maybe you'll disagree) picture/cartoon/ compilation of Rao, Paige, Anna, Zoe, Mila and Jake. I'm still learning to photoshop, so I hope you'll be kind when you see it :P

Keep an eye out for any surprise updates – and next chapter has some very big developments. I know I always say it - but I'll really try to fit it in this time!

See you soon (hopefully an update in the next few days?). And thank you, thank you, thank you again for your patience. x