I’m turning to a new chapter when my bed begins to rattle under me. I scowl at the interruption, but start to lean over anyway, tossing the book under my sack as I do. It’s probably better I pry myself from the book sooner than later, it's not uncommon for me to read the entire thing front to back in one sitting. It’s always been my favorite pastime. My brother used to laugh at me, saying that I could be a historian in a made up world. A hobby he thought to be useless. I’d almost believed him for a time, but maybe if he’d paid better attention, he would still be alive too.

Dipping my head over the side of the bed, I find the shit-eating grin belonging to none other than William Reed. I almost roll my eyes at how ridiculously he’s sitting. Lounging on his back, his muscled brown arms cradling his massive, ego-inflated head. One of his legs is propped over the other, his trashed and scrappy jeans somehow even bloodier than when I left him. The mooch is probably looking for a cig. I know he ran out earlier today.

Reed is the only person I’m remotely close to here, I’ve known him since the day I arrived. He was actually my first challenge. Dude totally kicked my ass. I don’t blame him, though. Well, not now, anyway. Later, I learned that he went easy on me. Not enough so that I wasn’t a different color by the end of the match, but at least he didn't break any of my bones. I didn’t realize it then, but if he had left me unscratched, the others would have picked away at both of us like vultures until our lifeless bodies were tossed under the compound.

Reed’s actually a pretty good guy, all things considered. He hasn’t changed much since I first met him, still has the urge to pester people to no end, still won’t hesitate to kick my ass. Or try to, anyway. Even his hair is pretty much the same, his close cropped, tight, black curls that he never lets grow past his ears. His skin has gotten darker over the years though, having deepened into a dark chocolate. But I would wager that the constant bruises we all wear like a uniform makes him appear darker than he naturally is.

Our dynamic is probably the closest thing I’d consider a friendship here. And if I hadn’t sworn off friends, I would probably consider him one. But after Luca…

Gods, I can’t even think about him without getting all choked up. It doesn’t matter that it’s been five years, I still remember him like it was yesterday. The thought of him always makes my heart ache. I lost him. Just like everyone else in my life.

But I don’t need anyone anymore. I can hold my own better than a majority of the people here, and I’m going to keep it that way. Compromising that isn’t something I’ll allow. Since Luca was taken, I’ve done my best to distance myself from the boys as a whole. Reed’s a good enough guy, and I spend most days with him, but I don’t let myself get too attached. Not to him or Carter or any of the other guys we typically hang around. Brutal, but necessary. People drop like flies here. I can’t let myself be that weak again. I can’t keep watching the people I care about die.

“Can I help you?”

“Thorn,” he picks at his teeth as way of greeting, seeming not even remotely sorry about kicking my bed like an infant throwing a fit, “don’t be such a smart ass. I’ll drag you out of that bed by your damn braid if I have to.”

“Oh, my apologies, your majesty,” I roll my eyes, “What do you want?”

His deep brown eyes seem to glimmer as smirks, “Fancy a smoke?”

Do I get a reward for calling it? “Yea, I’m game. The roof or the woods?” I swing my head back up, ruffling through the sack until I find my pack of cigs.

Pushing to his feet, the entire bunk rumbling with the movement, he proclaims, “Let’s do the roof tonight, you beautiful, miraculous, angel.” Dude knows how to lay it on thick.

I roll my eyes and hop off my bunk, landing about as gracefully as a racoon in the night, “Yea, yea, whatever. More of that and I won’t share any.”

“I’ve always liked you, Thorn. Always so feisty, even as a kid. I still have the scar to prove it.” He lifts his shirt and motions with his chin to the jagged slice just under his armpit that I gave to him my first month here. He was showing me how to use a longsword, and I got my first knick in. Not even the gruel they serve as food could dampen my mood that day.

“You really want these cigs, don’t you?” I raise an eyebrow at him, pushing out of the door and into the frost coated hallway beyond.

Swinging his heavy, muscular arm over my shoulders, Reed shoots me his famous sly grin, “What’s wrong with a little buttering up?”

⭒ ⭒ ⭒

We settle onto a portion of the roof that has the best view of the massive forest surrounding the compound. The ancient trees spread so far that you can’t see anything but the varying shades of green and the array of vivid colors of the fresh blossoms still blooming this time of spring. The relentless rain has ceased for now, but the roof is still soaked, the cold moisture seeping into my clothes and caressing my skin, making my shudder as I pull out my pack, snagging one of the cigs as I do.

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Years before I got here, some of the boys came across a large bushel of tobacco plants on one of the morning runs, they began rolling soon after and started a new business amongst the walls of inmates desperate for any relief they can get their hands on. I’ve been smoking them since I got here. A horrible habit to be sure, but it eases some of the daily turmoil. My mom would kill me if she found out. Not that she could. She’s probably dead.

Goosebumps prickle across my skin at the memory as I light the cig with the small pack of matches I won last week, the smell of the smoke as soothing as a lullaby, already easing the day's trials as I inhale a lungful of the glorious salvation.

I look up at the starry sky and blow the puff of thick smoke out, handing it to Reed who’s eyeing me like he may jump me for it at any moment. Staring as if I was in a trance, I run my hand up and down the shadow trail on my arm as I attempt to redirect my thoughts. It’s been ten years since they were all massacred like cows at a slaughterhouse. Ten years. I can’t believe it’s been that long.

I arrived here after they found me and my decimated family. I had been crumbled in a tight ball on the ground, entirely soaked with the blood of my siblings and Father. When the officers got to us, they stormed into the house, wailing as blood gushed out like a river. One of them threw up his lunch then and there, another fainted at the dreadful sight.

It only got worse when they entered the tomb. Two stayed in the living room, where they were horrified to find the guts and bones of my father and brothers thrown around as if they’d gone off in a colossal blender. They tried to save us. It didn’t take long for them to be ripped to shreds. The other two entered the kitchen, where they found the mutilated remains of what you couldn't even describe as the corpses of my sisters. They had been gathering knives to help, but they too were soon no more than splintered bones. And at the very center of the graveyard, my body lay surrounded by bits of flesh and bone.

They questioned me for weeks, but I never said a word. They claimed it was a trauma, but I knew it was more than that. I had seen something none of them could possibly understand.

A month after my family was obliterated, they retrieved my miraculously unharmed book, and it cracked the wall I had built around my shattered heart and soul. After all those painstaking days, I finally spoke. Just four words. “It’s all my fault.” I whispered to the woman who had been working with me for all those weeks. She begged me to continue, but I gave no further explanation.

They claimed that I must have gone mad, that I had killed my family in a cosmic temper tantrum. It was the only explanation they could come up with. There were no traces of a break in, no signs of footsteps, no clues or reasons to believe it was an attack by someone outside of the house. It didn’t help that my family had been smashed beyond repair, giving them nothing to work with.

They never found a trace of my Mother, either, and obsessively asked me where she was. That is probably the worst part of my miserable memories. I never learned where the thing took my Mom. She could be dead or alive and I would never know. That question is the one that eats me up late into the night. The not knowing is nearly unbearable.

It didn’t matter how many times they asked me about her, I never fessed up. How was I supposed to explain what happened to her when I, myself, am partially to blame?

It haunts every breath I take that I just froze in that kitchen cabinet, unable, or worse, unwilling to help my family who was being slaughtered not even three feet from where I cowered. I heard it all. I smelt it all. I saw it all. And I didn’t do a damn thing to help them. If I hadn’t been such a coward, she may still be here. They all might.

So, no, I didn’t tell them what happened to my Mother. I didn’t tell them how my family was butchered. Because if I explained that, I would have to explain what did it. What. Not who.

This is where they sent me after the trial finished. They declared me a maniac, saying that I needed to be imprisoned for what I had done. That death was not enough of a punishment for the atrocities my family had gone through in their final moments. There was no other explanation.

So, as people in power do, they sentenced the wrong person and sent me to Madame Axtens Detention for Delinquents, or as everyone calls it, the MADD House. It’s supposed to be the most strict detention center in the country, a home for criminals and orphans who have nowhere else to go, and I guess in many ways it is, but not in the ways everyone thinks.

Yes, we get beat and punished. Yes, we have far more rules than freedoms. But it is not just discipline they enforce here. No, the MADD House is more than a prison. It’s a training camp. For what, I couldn’t tell you. Even after a decade of living here I haven’t a clue. But what is clear is that they're turning us into weapons. It doesn’t matter if you’re here because you butchered your aunt or you simply had nowhere else to go, from the second you step inside these walls, you’ll be trained like an animal.

Reed snaps his finger in front of my face, sending me jumping a few inches backwards, “Thorn!”

“Shit, sorry. Did you say something?” I try to blink away the thoughts that had nearly sent me spiraling.

He scoffs and hands me the cig, “What were you thinking about, it was like you were in your own world.”

I stare out at the looming forests ahead, now more frightening than before. Every dark spot reminds me of soulless eye sockets, every sharp treetop makes me think of the pointed, blood stained teeth, “Just thinking about who I’m gonna challenge for more cigs,” I do my best to smile.

Reed bumps my shoulder with his and takes the smoke back from me as I exhale a long, slow breath of relief, “Damn straight. Better get ‘em fast, two cigs won’t last us an hour.”

I roll my eyes so intensely I’m surprised they’re still in my skull. If Reed wasn't such entertaining company I would have to kick him off the damn roof. My gaze returns to the darkened forest stretching so vast it seems like a sea, and despite the leech who consumes more of my cigs than I do, I can’t help but be thankful for his company. I know better than anyone that life can change in an instant, and for now, I’m grateful for his presence.