THE FIRST CHALENGE

That evening, pretty much everyone was in a bad mood.

Kat was still mad at me for having rotten luck, I was mad at Kat because she was mad at me and not to mention I just found out she might have been with my boyfriend!

Hazel had gotten her tail today as she was brushing her teeth. She didn’t notice so as she was leaving the bathroom she accidentally slammed it in the door. So she was sulking.

Aunt Sarah had found out that Kat exiled me from our room so she yelled at Kat and then yelled at me for not telling her. And now the three of us were mad at everyone.

So I’m back in my room now but I can’t say I’m all that excited about it.

Kat could still smother me with a pillow in my sleep.

And then there was Uncle Victor who looked all kinds of nervous because there were too many angry women in his house.

Really, Parker was the only one who was even relatively in a good mood.

He filled up the dinner table with chatter about his cutthroat life on the play ground.

It’s not until Uncle Victor said a prayer that we were all allowed to go to bed.

I ignored Kat and she ignored me.

We slept on our respective beds facing away from each other.

I thought about the day and I was honestly just so exhausted by it all.

On the bright side, it couldn’t possibly get any worse, right?

The next morning, I woke up way too early for any normal human being again.

Today, I had the option of changing right into my training attire before heading off.

Kat happened to wake up and when she saw me, she just scowled and walked right past me to our bathroom.

Aunt Sarah was up and had made me breakfast even though I insisted she didn’t have to.

I walked to school, alone. Through the dark woods because of course the sun hadn’t come up yet.

I had to say, I really did enjoy the few moments of peace without expectations or pressure or anyone being mad at me.

It almost made me wish Roman was here to take this short walk with me.

He enjoyed these hours when it was too early for the sun to be up.

He usually chose this time to go for jogs or to go hiking. He always invited me to join him but this girl loves her sleep way too much.

Oh how I miss my bed.

A thought suddenly came to me. Was that why Roman would always go for hikes and runs? To survey the territory?

Whenever someone said his name now, it was always accompanied by ‘spy’ and ‘traitor’.

I always wanted to jump into those conversations and yell at anyone who would ever dare call my sweet, kind and loving Roman any of those things.

But what did I know?

He lied to me too.

I got to school and found everyone in the gym already.

Today I was ten minutes early.

Ha! Take that Major Raphael.

I scanned the room.

Andre and Allison were by the bleachers, Andre was demonstrating some kind of punching gesture.

Bea and Courtney were not too far, chatting with Ashton doing push-ups close by.

Well I guess everyone was here except Mr Grumpy pants and Mikey.

I honestly contemplated staying in the same position until the instructors showed up just to avoid having to sit by myself. But I knew everyone had already noticed me and turning around would make Bea and Courtney think they had succeeded in intimidating me.

Well, they had. I saw the way the girls trained and they definitely did not come to play.

Bea was definitely the best among the girls when it came to the physical activities so far. Her and Joshua must have been some crazy literal power couple.

I was about to walk into the gym when I heard a voice coming in from the hallway.

“Will you drop it? I’m sure it’s nothing.” It was Joshua, he sounded irritated.

“Nothing?” That must have been Michael, he sounded hysterical. “Josh, he called an emergency defence meeting yesterday, that’s not nothing. There must have been a security breach or something must be wrong.”

“And you think she knows something about it?” Josh grumbled.

Was I being paranoid? Or was the way he said ‘she’ vaguely familiar? It sounded like he was talking about someone he definitely wasn’t too fond of, i.e, Crystal Swan.

“Well, after what you saw last night...”

I could hear their footsteps getting closer, they were going to find me here and probably think I was spying.

I should probably move before - oops, too late.

The twins showed up.

The minute they spotted me, Josh turned to look at Micheal who just looked panicked.

If I thought fast, I would have pretended not to have heard anything and just walked through that door. But my slow butt just kept staring.

“Hi, Crystal!” Michael  greeted. He scratched the back of his head. “Funny bumping into you here. Josh and I were just talking about you!”

Joshua looked at his brother with narrowed eyes.

“I - I mean not right now. In case you overheard anything.”

Joshua shot him another look.

So they were talking about me.

Emergency defence meeting?

Security breach?

It didn’t take long for me to connect things.

Last night with Tristan in the woods.

Was something wrong?

I fought the urge to gulp as another thought came to me.

The voice I heard yesterday... the one I thought had belonged to Roman.

“I didn’t hear anything.” I spoke immediately.

Michael looked relieved but Joshua just rose his brows at me. He obviously didn’t believe me.

So another comparison between the twins. There was the gullible twin and the ever suspicious twin.

“Great. Cause we were just talking about nothing. Nothing at all. Just Josh, actually and how nervous he is about being in this program.” Micheal spoke, rumbling nervously.

His brother glared at him, clearly not wanting him to tell me his business.

But alas, Michael continued ranting.

“You know how nerve wracking these things can be. Poor kid can’t even sleep anymore.”

Joshua shot him daggers.

“Say bye Mikey.” He spoke sternly.

Micheal chuckled uneasily. “Right. Gotta go.”

I looked at Joshua just in time to see him roll his eyes.

“Cool. See you later then.” He spoke before turning to leave.

He turned way too quickly and slammed his shoulder into a wall.

I flinched on his behalf.

His face turned pink.

“Stupid wall.” He muttered before walking away.

Um, okay...

Every interaction I had with him was weirder than the last.

I turned to look at Josh... his cheeks were also tinted pink. Was he...

He rubbed his shoulder and quickly turned around to walk into the gym.

That’s strange. It’s almost as if he was mirroring Micheal.

Michael quickly spun and turned to follow his brother, not even making eye contact with me.

I walked into the gym after him. I had questions about what had happened out in the hallway, but I already knew I couldn’t ask him.

I could have better luck with Micheal though.

Michael seemed to not have a problem with me like his brother... or at least that’s what I thought his weird behaviour meant.

Could I ask him for answers?

Maybe I was crazy. Maybe that wasn’t Roman’s voice in the woods.

But then why did I feel so hopeful?

If the twins knew something... I mean they are the alpha’s little brothers.

But Roman wouldn’t come back. He would be stupid to do that. If he got caught, they would kill him for sure.

Was it wrong that I wanted to see him again though? To hold him... To speak to him...

There were so many questions I needed to ask.

The most important one being; why?

I had hardly stepped into the gym when I heard a commanding voice from behind me.

“Apprentices. Line up!”

Major Raphael.

He walked in.

Without May.

This was going to be an interesting session.

Everyone rose up and rushed to the centre of the gym.

I was still standing behind.

Major Raphael shot me a hard look.

Oh.

I quickly rushed to join the line, standing at the other end beside Allison.

“I hope you all slept well.”

I looked at the other apprentices. I don’t know about them but I had stayed up late studying the content May gave us. If I was going to suck at the physical component, I should at least thrive in the theory.

“Instructor May will not be joining us for the morning training today. She has other obligations but I trust that you will see her this afternoon for your lessons.”

“Okay, lets get started. Yesterday’s session showed me two things; one, most of you are physically fit - “ He might as well have just said my name right there. “Two, some of you aren’t very good partners.”

Again, he should have just said my name.

Bea and Courtney were best friends. Andre and Allison seemed to be getting along well even though they seemed like polar opposites. Andre was pretty loud and talkative while Allison was more quiet and reserved. They seemed like a good match though, I even saw them talking during school hours yesterday. Then there was Michael and Ashton who not only seemed to be working well together but also seemed to be having fun while doing it.

Then there was my partner and I. 

I looked over to where he stood in line.

He didn’t even spare me a glance.

“Because of that and some recent developments, me and some of the people in the Defence Ministry have come up with these.”

Raphael dropped his training bag in front of us. He crouched down and took out two thin black bracelets.

“These are only prototypes but they’re the Silvercrest’s pack idea of ankle monitors. They’re still in development so congratulations, you guys get to be our guinea pigs.”

“What do they do?” Bea asked.

“Good question, Miss Mizrahi ” Instructor Peter spoke. “Step forward with your partner. You two have the honour of demonstrating.”

Bea and Courtney shared a skeptical look before they both stepped forward.

“It isn’t going to shock us, is it?” Courtney asked warily as Instructor Peter latched the thing onto her wrist.

“Yes. Yes it will.” He spoke with no smile on his face whatsoever.

“What?” Courtney yelped.

“Okay!” Instructor Raphael exclaimed. He stepped back after putting the bracelet on Bea as well.

“Now, watch carefully.” He spoke. “Walk to the opposite ends of the gym, you two.”

Courtney eyed Bea warily but Bea just shrugged and started walking.

Courtney shortly followed suit and started heading in the other direction away from her.

When Courtney almost reached the basketball court, I was wondering what the bracelets were for until I heard Courtney scream.

Bea quickly turned to her.

Courtney was rubbing her wrist.

“It shocked me!” Courtney screamed.

“I said it would, didn’t I?” Instructor Raphael spoke nonchalantly before gesturing for the two girls to come back.

“They’re called AB1 bracelets. They’re primarily designed for guards who have the job of transporting prisoners.” He explained. “The one Miss Mizrahi has on is the primary, A. So in this case, Miss Thompson has on the secondary, B1. She is assumed to be the prisoner.”

“Um, okay, boss man, how does this have anything to do with us? Is our next lesson bringing in prisoners?” Andre looked way too excited in my opinion.

Raphael smirked. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

Everyone muttered in excitement among themselves.

I felt my palms get sweaty as my nerves built up. So this was our first challenge.

”During the war, my team and I were sent into Shadow pack territory to cease certain prisoners.” Raphael explained. “Sometimes you’ll be sent on retrieval missions. Except you won’t be retrieving things. You’ll be retrieving people.”

I looked around and saw the excitement on everyone else’s faces.

”We’re going to play a little game called cops and robbers. Just a little more advanced. The ‘robbers’ job is to hide, for now, only within pack territory and avoid getting caught. The ‘cops’ job is to hunt them.” Raphael reached into his bag and took out more bracelets.

He handed a pair to Ashton and Joshua each. “Cops.”

”Sweet.” Joshua grinned.

”Cops.” He told Bea and Courtney.

Oh no.

”That leaves the rest of you as robbers.” Raphael told the rest of us.

“No offence, boss man, but what is this supposed to teach us?” Andre asked.

So far I had seen how carefree Andre was. While everyone seemed more or less intimidated by Raphael, he displayed an incredibly relaxed attitude all the time which I could only aspire to.

”For the cops, I expect you to sharpen your tracking skills and for you robbers,” he stopped in front of Joshua, “can you stay alive in a matter of life or death?”

His words sent a chill down my spine but Joshua didn’t flinch. He looked directly at Major Raphael without even blinking.

“Candidates Joshua and Ashton, your targets are Candidates Andre and Allison. That leaves Candidate Courtney and Beatrice hunting down Candidate Joshua and Crystal.”

 I froze and looked to my left and saw Bea and Courtney smirking at me.

Oh no.

They’re going to kill me.

”I’ll give the robbers a ten minute head start. Cops, you have an hour to track your targets down, When you do, plant the bracelets on them and bring them back. If you don’t get them within the hour, you lose and points go to the robbers.

The whole of Woodfell is fair game.”

”What? Woodfell is huge!” Courtney screeched.

Major Raphael stepped up to her. “Is the beta’s little sister scared of a little distance?” He asked.

Cortney lifted her chin. “No.”

”Good.” Major Raphael nodded.

”Uhm, Major Raphael, what are the rules for this task exactly?” Allison asked.

Major Raphael shrugged. “Try not to hurt each other.”

 I stole another look at Bea and Courtney.

Yeah... try not to hurt each other.

”Your time starts now. Robbers, go.”