A Way Out

"Lucas, we need to talk!" I fling Lucas's bedroom door open. As usual, I find him lying on his messy bed, topless.

Why is he always half-naked around the house?

Look at him, in just 7 years' time Lucas has turned so hot. Puberty hit him like a truck! I hope puberty hit Liam like a rocket. Well, that is if he is still alive.

"Go away!" Lucas grumbles without bothering to open his eyes.

His room is so messy, I can get lost in here. Does he ever fold his clothes?

"No," I kick his dirty laundry from the floor and walk towards his bed. "Wake up, Lucas!"

"What do you want? A cuddle?" Lucas says, opening one eye to look at me.

I narrow my eyes at him, "no, thanks!"

Lucas sits up before rubbing his eyes with his unbelievably large hands.

"Whatever you want to do to me, make it quick! I'm too tired to pretend like I'm going to enjoy it," the nerve of this man! Is he trying to drive me to the wall or is he being serious? I can never tell.

I roll my eyes at him, "can you stop being so overweening? I'm not here to do anything to you, I'm here because I need to talk to you!"

"What do you want to talk about?" he says before yawning. "Have your parents not talked you through the birds and the bees kind of conversation?"

I finally smack him in the face with a pillow I found laying around. He deserves to get more severe punishment, but I don't have time for that. "I still don't know anything about this camp! And what am I training here for?!"

Lucas remains silent for a moment, and I thought he was falling asleep again. But his eyes are wide open, and they're staring deep into the wall.

"Earth to Lucas! I will give you a penny for your thoughts," I say again, trying to make sure he's not sleeping with his eyes open.

"I'm sorry, dear... but my thoughts are worth more than just a penny," Lucas chuckles, and his sleepy green eyes stare into mine. "Is it weird that your brown eyes remind me of Aiden?"

I snort at him, "that was the worst penny I've ever spent in my 21 years of life."

"You asked for it," Lucas lays back on his bed.

"Well, your green eyes remind me of Liam. Imagine how it hurts me every time I have to look at them."

There's an awkward silence after I mention Liam, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

"All I know is that this camp was built by several runaway Rebels twenty years ago. There were twenty-five of them at first, and Daisy was one of the pioneers." Lucas folds his arms in the back of his head and continues his story. "They were the beginning of the Fighter. Before this camp was built, there were a hundred and fifty Rebels scattered across Suburbia, and that was before the Guards killed some of them. The twenty-five runaways were the only survivors, and they all became fugitives."

"Is it some kind of a terrorist gang or something? Why did the Guards kill the rest of them?"

Lucas shakes his head, "you can say that if you want to. The Obel thought that the Fighters are associated with terrorists, but we are not. The Fighters are all Rebels who do not agree with the Monarch's dictatorship."

"They slowly raising tax rates but decreasing the minimum wage for all the working Anarals. In the military, more Rebels and Anarals were put on the front line of warfare while the Obels were secured in the office, forming a game plan that seemingly never worked out. Don't you know that over the past century, the numbers of Riotist and Alloyist bloodlines have fallen off rapidly?"

I shake my head, feeling slightly embarrassed that I never really paid attention in school.

"Then twenty years ago, a huge demonstration broke out. The Fighters were all gathered from all over the country to protest against the Monarch, but it went down quite fast when the Guards started shooting them. So the remaining survivor ran away from Suburbia as fugitives, and they built this camp."

"So, what is the training for? I thought the demonstration had ended. Is there going to be another one?"

Lucas shrugs, "we're all trained in case the Monarch finds us, and so we're all prepared to fight back this time."

***

I have been here for two weeks and still haven't found anything I'm good at yet, but Mason told me that I make good punches. I am proud of myself! I can punch someone now, even though my fingers will be sore after, but I hope that my punches will be worth it!

After all the gun shooting, sword fighting, new potential bruises, and dried blood on my clothes, I can finally have a little time for myself.

When I finally called it a day and walked back home, there was no one inside the cottage. Mason said that Daisy is at Savannah's cottage, tending to someone who got hurt during the training. Daisy is one of the Healers in the camp, and they say she's the best one they have. I don't know where Lucas is, so I decided to walk around the village...I mean, camp... around the camp on my own trying to find a place to eat.

I mostly avoid the crowded ones, so I walked in instinctively when I found an empty diner in the far corner of the camp. There is a tall wooden fence behind this place, I wonder what is behind it!

I sit in the nearest table from the door so that I can still find a gate that leads to the other side of the fence while eating, and then I order one fish and chips and a cold glass of root beer when a young woman approached me with the menu.

I must have zoned out because when the waitress comes back with my food, she whistles to me several times until I gather my own sense and realize that she's been there for a while.

"Thanks," I say, taking the plate and a cold fizzy drink from her tray.

"You are new around here, aren't you? What are you looking at out there?" she sits down in front of me, blocking my view.

I am a little bit disturbed actually, but I don't show it to her. I only nod, and I drink half of my root beer which instantly burns my throat and my stomach.

"You're looking for a way out, aren't you?" she asks.

I startle because that is what I am looking for, and I didn't even notice until she mentioned it. It's not that I'm going to run away from here, I just want to know what's out there beyond this camp and beyond the forest.

I am secretly still hoping to be able to find Liam though it still sounds impossible.

"There's actually a way out near this place," she says in a whisper.

I look up at her and stare deep into her eyes like I don't even know how to react. Can everyone in this camp read minds?

"Relax! I've helped several Fighters escape before," she smiles at me before walking away. Right, when she returns with two plastic bottles which I assume are ketchup and mustard, she suddenly says, "I'll help you! But in two conditions..."

That's a bit much as a return, but oh well... "What?"

"If you choose to run away, don't ever come back to this camp and..." she sounds serious. "Keep all of this between us!"

Who is this girl I just met and suddenly offering me help that I actually needed?! Is she some kind of a hero or something?

***

I waited until the diner closed, and I asked the waitress's name while I was eating, but she wouldn't tell me.

"You better don't know," she said, and I guess she was right. If I know her name, and I get caught walking around the forest, I will likely turn her in.

She said the diner is her father's, and it was okay if she closed it early. "No one comes here anyway! It's too far from everyone's cottage, and the food is not all that great."

The first reason sounds fishy and people should have come here to find out, but I'm not going to argue with the latter.

"Usually, drunk Fighters come here to have the same fish & chips you just ordered," she explains to me while we walk side by side. "But I prefer helping someone escape rather than serving those bastards," she chuckles.

"FYI, I'm not trying to run away," I say to her reassuringly.

"Yeah, that's what the other Fighters who've escaped said as well!" She laughs.

"What happened to them anyway?" I ask, moving uneasily beside her. "Have they really escaped?"

"I don't know," she shrugs.

After walking around the camp for 15 minutes, we stop in front of a massive chicken barn. She walks slowly inside the straw yard full of agitated poultries, and we walk deeper inside the dark aisle. Behind one of the aisles, there are about two dozen of them, there is a hidden door. It camouflages with the wall, and there is only a small hole for someone to pull it open. It is right behind the brooder, and if someone does not know this place as well as she does, the door is totally unnoticeable.

It leads us to the forest, and It's dark outside when she poked her finger in and pulled the door open. I wouldn't notice that I'm standing in the middle of a dense forest if it weren't because of the tree branches that slap me on the back.

"So, here we are!" She says while looking around. I was about to close the piece of wood behind us, but she slaps my hand so hard. "Don't do that! I might not be able to find it again until morning."

And then I realize that the door is another resemblance to the wall that is covered by roots, mosses, and mildews.

"Go on then," she pushes me back a little bit too hard, and my foot stumbles over an invisible root as I almost hit my butt to the ground.

"What are you doing?" I ask her, feeling slightly hurt because she just shooed us away.

"Aren't you going to escape?" she asks and frowns at me. Can she even see me in the dark?

"Do I look like I'm going to roam the forest at night without having the utilities that will help me survive in the dangerous area?" I shake my head in disbelief. How come she has not noticed that I'm not equipped? "I told you I wasn't planning on running away! Well, at least not today..." I say, walking back to the door, scared she might leave me.

"Then why are we here?" she put her hand over her forehead. "Oh my God, you're one of Lucas's spies aren't you? You're here to capture me!"

"What? No!" I say, trying to hold on to my laughter. Is she okay in the head? But she's a nice person, so it's all that matters. "Lucas doesn't even know about this at all. Although, I did look for a way out."

"Why?" she sounds suspicious, a little bit too late for that now.

I don't say anything for a second, contemplating whether to answer truthfully.

"I want to know what is out there beyond this camp and deeper inside this forest, and maybe to find someone who is not in this camp," I declare out loud just to ensure myself. "But I know he's out there somewhere, and I hope he's not that too far away from here."

Do I really want to do this?

Is it a sign for me to finally start looking for my long-lost friend?