I wake up once again gasping for air, my face wet with tears as I try to center myself in my surroundings.

There's still some light outside so there's no need for me to turn on the lamp but my heart is pounding inside my chest.

I slept for maybe two hours before the nightmares caused me to wake up and I'm exhausted, not just physically but emotionally as well.

I need to train.

I wonder is the headmaster is still here?

I change quickly into some athletic clothes — which I do have a good amount of considering I was practically always working out with Cohen, and I braid my hair.

Braiding my hair was something I learned recently from the girls at the orphanage. I was taught how to do a basic, French, and Dutch braid, as well as a fishtail.

Once finished I head to the door and peak my head outside. I can see the light is on in Finns room from the space underneath the door, so I venture out into the hallway.

Lena's in the kitchen putting something away as I try to sneak by.

"Jade."

Shit.

I stop and turn towards her as she raises an eyebrow at me before pointing to the stool seat at the counter. Dropping my head, I make my way over and sit down.

"Where are you off too Jade?"

"To see if the headmasters here."

"Why?"

"Because I need to talk to him," she looks at me with this 'really Jade' look but continues what she was doing.

"Fine don't tell me. When was the last time you ate?"

The last time I ate? Why would that matter?

"Earlier today"

She gives me a disapproving look, "and what did you eat?"

"A cookie."

"And when was the last meal you've had?"

Last meal? Hmmm I don't really remember......oh it was "breakfast yesterday."

She looks at me wide eyes a mixture of shock, confusion, and disappointment.

I can't help but feel like a child being scolded by her mother at the moment and now that Lena's mentioned it, I am actually pretty hungry.

Right on cue my stomach decides to sound like its dying, and begging for food to save it.

Lena hides a smile as she grabs a plate from the cabinet and food containers from the fridge, filling the plate up and putting it in the microwave — another thing I learned about at the foster home.

Cohen wouldn't let me in the kitchen and all the recipes in the cookbooks used stoves, ovens, even this thing called a crockpot, but no microwave.

Once heated she places the plate in front of me and gives me a stern look, "eat."

I don't really know what it is, but I eat it anyways, some type of chicken in an orange sauce and rice, and its kind of spicy.

I scarf down the food quickly and put it in the sink, thanking Lena I leave before someone else comes out and wants to talk.

I make my way downstairs and into the main room, finding Adeline still there I approach her. "Is the headmaster still here?"

She smiles at me kindly and begins shaking her head, "no he left a little bit ago, but he did give me this for you incase you came by while he wasn't here."

She holds up an envelope with my name on it and I smile and take it from her. Tearing it open I find a key and a piece of paper with a password on it, relief runs through me as I get to train.

Hopefully train away my nightmares.

I thank Adeline and with that I'm out the door and on my way to the training building.

There's the smallest amount of light out, casting the sky in a beautiful midnight blue. There are streetlamps along the sidewalks and lights on the outside of all the buildings so its still fairly illuminated out here.

Once at the training building, I use the key to open the door and sure enough I'm in. I shut and lock the door behind me and as I take a step in, the lights in the hallway turn on.

Hmmm, they must be motion detected or something.

I head straight into the hallway where I know the simulators are, once again all the lights turn on and I take the room in. It looks extremely bare, an empty room with the exception of a desk filled with different knives that you're supposed to use.

I walk over to the far corner of the room where the knives, headset thing, computer, and some type of suit that looks way to big for me are located. I turn on the computer and enter the pin on the note the headmaster gave me, and the screen starts showing my name and specialty.

Hmm, I never picked my specialty, but I guess its obvious to the headmaster.

There's different options to choose from and I pick the hardest one, hoping to get some good training in and maybe be challenged.

The instructions tell me to put on the suit and even though its definitely not going to fit me I do it anyway. Sliding the suit onto my body the baggy material swamps me but before I even have the chance to pull it off, it molds into a skintight mold on my body.

This is some weird ass technology.

I grab the set of knives that I'm supposed to be using for this specific simulation and feel content with the weight of a knife in my hand again.

I slid the headset looking thing over my head like the picture shows and secure it to my eyes, the picture says its some sort of VR software, but I don't know all that much about VR.

Once everything loads, I'm able to see a sign in front of me with a start button on it and requesting a confirmation of my name.

Soon enough it's like I'm transported into another world where literally everyone is trying to kill me, and I enjoy it.

I start out with five knives and am showed my target to eliminate on a screen, then it's like I'm walking around in town till I find this person and put a knife through their head, as soon as I start getting a rhythm, I find out there are points to this game.

A different number of points is added to your score with every kill, difficulty level, and placement.

This is fun and I wonder if it counts as my first video game.

The levels get harder, and the targets are now fighting back. Whenever I run out of throwing knives, I have to grab them from the persons head where I killed them in the simulation.

After what feels like hours and many targets eliminated, I die. I was up against 30 people all trying to kill me and I was doing great, until someone threw a bottle at my head out of nowhere.

I mean in real life I wouldn't have even died from that, it would have just pissed me off, but apparently in the simulation I now have brain damage and am on the road to death.

Great.

I take the headset thing off with a sigh and rub my face, an indent around my eyes from having that thing on for so long.

There's a button in the middle of the suit that keeps flashing and once I press it the suit goes back to its original baggy state.

Removing everything I look at the screen on the computer and the words 'High Score' are in big letters on the screen.

Well, no duh it's my high score, it's my first score on this thing, but at least now I have something to beat next time.

The screen on the computer shows a 4 AM.

Wow I did not know that I was in here for that long.

I log out of the computer, grab my key and leave the building, slipping the key into my pants pocket as I walk down the sidewalk.

It's completely dark out now with the lights from the streets and building creating a weird ambience as I make my way back to the housing building.

As expected, no one's here when I enter but the quiet is comforting. I try to stay quiet when I enter the door to our room, not trying to wake anyone when they're asleep.

School will start soon enough and I don't really have anything else I need to do and sleep is definitely out of the picture.

Walking down the hallway to my room I stop in my place, the light in Finns room is still on.

Is he awake?

I slowly walk down the hallway, being particularly quiet so he doesn't hear me. In my room I head straight to the shower to wash off all the sweat from the simulator and wash the day away — well technically would it be yesterday's day away since its 4am?

Oh whatever.

I stay in the shower for a while, scrubbing my skin and washing my hair with the fancy products Callie put in here. It's a luxury people wouldn't even know they have, and my hair has become noticeably softer after using them for the short amount of time of me being here.

I decide not to leave early today and to just face the music of the questions I'm going to get from everybody else.

Plus, I don't want Callie to think I've been ignoring her.

I get dressed in my clothes for the day and leave the room, deciding to sit in the living room until everybody wakes up.

I lay across the couch and stare up at the ceiling as I go through everything I did yesterday and prepare for the questions I will be asked. I don't want to lie but I'm not going to just tell them my life story.

Finns' reaction is the one I'm most worried about. 

Everyone else I feel won't care as much, but Finn doesn't like me already and I feel like it would only make it an excuse to not like me more.

The whole thing with Jason was kind of a shit show but at least I didn't kill him. So, there's a plus side for the day.

I know he's probably going to give me shit today for it and maybe even try to punish me and a small part of me believes I deserve it, even though I was defending myself.

I don't know if that small, damaged part of me will always be there, and I'll always think I deserve the things I went through and I deserve to be punished. That I was in the wrong instead of them, but I can only hope for it to disappear and maybe in time it will.

I know Finns still mad at me for not responding or opening my door to him, but I feel like there's more he's mad at me about, but I just don't know what it is.

Callie's head appears in my vision as she learns over me, "Good morning sunshine, whatcha thinking so hard about?"

I smile up at her as she rounds the couch, lifts my feet sits and then puts them back on my lap.

"I heard you took down Jason yesterday at training."

Still looking at the ceiling I shrug, "I guess so."

She smacks my leg, "Don't leave me with just that girl I want it all."

I scooch back a bit so my heads resting on the arm rest as I look at her, "It wasn't that exciting, he grabbed my arm so I wouldn't leave, and I reacted."

She sighs, "I wish I was there to see my best friend in action, everybody's saying it was badass, but I'm pretty sure that's also because he made them run sprints for an hour, and they wanted revenge."

The smile on my face when she said 'best friend' was probably the biggest I've ever experienced. I hope she means it because I really want a best friend.

"It wasn't that impressive," I try to shrug it off.

"Oh, trust me it was impressive, I would know since I was there." Lena's voice fills the room as she ascends from the stairs smiling at me, "and it was pretty badass, considering you took down one of the deadliest assassins in the world with just one move."

I roll my eyes, "I just caught him off guard, that's it."

"Whatever you say Jade, whatever you say."

Lena takes off into the kitchen, probably to start breakfast, while Callie stands from the couch.

"Well, I for one would have loved to see you in action."

I just shake my head at Callie and follow her into the kitchen to keep Lena company.

A couple minutes later Phoenix and Charlie come down the stairs and join us at the counter, talking amongst themselves as I marvel at the scene in front of me.

I feel happy for the first time in a long time and I'm surrounded by some of the closest people I have in my life. That may be depressing seeing as I only meet them just recently but to me these are some of the best relationships I've had in my life.

A door slams from the hallway and we all turn our heads to see Finn walking out of the hallway the seemingly permanent scowl on his face.

"Well hello sunshine," Phenix says from his spot on the kitchen stool smiling sweetly at the scowling Finn.

Finn ignores him and heads straight to the fridge, grabbing a large bag of oranges and a couple other things from the cabinets. He starts cutting the oranges in half and using a metal thing to get all the juice out.

I think he's making orange juice.

I've never seen it been made before but I know what it is, and it looks a lot easier when he's doing it.

I find myself staring at the muscles on his arms that aren't concealed from his t shirt.

Wow

I feel myself getting hot, but I don't know why, Callie nudges my elbow and I swing my gaze to her but all she does is wink.

Oh, she caught me staring.

Wait, is staring bad?

I don't know but it was nice to look at his arms, I've never seen anyone as toned as him or as tall and it's a little intimidating, but in a way that I like.

Soon enough Finn has gotten through the whole bag of oranges and puts them all in separate glasses.

He then places a glass in front of everyone sitting at the counter, he even puts one aside for Lena.

Well, I guess not everyone, since there's no glass in front of me.

But that's okay......I think.

It still doesn't stop the little bit of pain from flaring in my chest though.

I ignore it though as Lena finishes breakfast and everyone gets up to get a plate full and head to the dining room.

I'm last in line again, but only this time when I get to the food there's barley anything left, maybe a forkful of eggs and a strip of bacon.

That's okay though, I wasn't very hungry anyways.

I eat the forkful and the piece of bacon and put my plate back in the cabinet since it wasn't used.

Everyone's talking in the dining room, and I choose not to bother them as I grab my things from my room and head out the door.