I finished my details in the Garden and then headed out. Since I couldn’t manipulate the wood as well as others or make things grow, my tasks were always simple, and I was usually done before everyone else. The others regularly created enough refuse that I had to do the mulching detail at least twice a day. I could wait for more work or come back later in the day.

Since I was a ranked cadet, I could roam the halls freely. Before that, I was forced to sit around the Garden, waiting for other people to finish their job. Then I had to tag along or coerce them to come with me. Often, there wasn’t enough time in the day since it was dictated by the camp’s schedule.

We didn’t really have clocks in the camp. We knew what time it was by the camp’s public address system. There was an alarm, bell, or bugle call for everything we had to do during the day.

Fortunately, spending a lot of time in the Garden lets us see the passage of time throughout the day. It was getting close to the middle of the day, and I was getting hungry, but it wasn’t quite time for lunch yet. I figured I had enough time to go back to the library and see Claire. I wanted to tell her how my conversation with Sarah went and about my conversation with Colonel Baxter.

Since most of the Carpenters were in the Garden, the hallways were bare. As the heavy metallic door to the Garden slammed shut, I was covered in darkness. Coming from the bright Garden and into the hallway, sparsely lit by small cones of light, my vision was slow to adjust.

I didn’t wait for my eyes; I could find the way even if I was blindfolded and spun around in a circle. As I walked, I tried to enjoy the moment. Now that I had this freedom to move around, the camp didn’t seem so bad. I could get my details done, go to the library, train for other matches, and then go back to the Garden to finish my afternoon details. I hadn’t given it much thought, but I had been in a better mood since I gained the ability.

“Well, what do we have here?”

My good mood immediately dissolved as I heard the words. I looked in the direction of the voice and was unsurprised to see Jace. I recognized his voice immediately.

I had been lost in thought as I walked, so I wasn’t paying attention. I looked around to get my bearing and was surprised at my location. I wasn’t too far away from the Garden and was still firmly in what is usually considered Carpenter territory. Although, in recent months, the Welders had been encroaching further into our area.

Jace leaned on the intersection’s corner with his arms crossed and a smug look. As the current champion of the fights and de facto leader of the Welders, he could get away with anything short of murder. As he leaned on the corner, he looked shorter than usual. However, unlike most of the people in the camp, he wasn’t lean, but he was far from fat. Jace was short, stout, and absolutely full of himself.

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I heard a couple of chuckles, and from around the corner stepped two of his cronies; both had the same smug look on their faces. Their entrance from around the corner confused me because that was a dead end and only went a few feet back. Suddenly, I realized that they had been waiting for me.

Just as I realized this, Jace stopped leaning on the wall and stepped toward me. I moved back and adopted a fighting stance. Jace stopped and also adopted a fighting stance as his cronies fanned out to either side of him.

I quickly assessed the situation. I wasn’t as tough as Welders. I wasn’t even as tough as Carpenters. Unfortunately, they didn’t know that, so I could die if they were to punch me with their full strength. There was no way I could win a fight without giving away my actual abilities.

“What do you want?” I asked. I had to see if I could talk my way out of the fight.

“I’m just here to give you a little advice,” Jace said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“And it takes three of you to give this advice?”

Jace smiled. “No, but they wanted to give you some advice, too,” he said.

“I don’t want your advice, and I’m not going to fight you,” I said, exiting my fighting stance. This was the only plan I could think of that wouldn’t end up with me too injured.

“I should have known you would be too afraid to fight,” Jace said. “If you’re too afraid to fight, you shouldn’t be going on missions.” He moved out of his fighting position and took a step toward me.

“I just want to help out. Aren’t we all on the same side and going through the same issues?”

Jace laughed. “Issues? What issues?” He pointed at me. “The only issue I have is you thinking you can be like us. You may have won a couple fights and got promoted, but don’t think that you’ve earned a place on the team and don’t think you CAN earn a place on the team. You’re just an ignorant twig.”

He poked me in the chest. His thick finger was hardened naturally from being a Welder, and it hurt, but I couldn’t let it show. “But you’ll find out how the world works soon enough.”

“You think you’re so much better? Is that it?” I was getting mad, but I kept trying to control myself and stop my abilities from activating. “We’re all stuck in here together. We’ve all lost our families and trying to survive while the world rebuilds. Why can’t I do the same things as you?”

“You see,” Jace said, leaning close to me. “That’s what’s wrong with all you Wood Whittlers; you don’t know what’s really going on.” Pain exploded in my stomach, and my breath was forcefully expelled from my body. I folded over Jace’s fist, lodged in my gut, and then fell to the ground.

Jace leaned down, hovering above me, “You’re so weak. Here’s my advice, twig. Next time there’s a mission, you had better not go. After that, turn in your rank and go back to gardening.” Pain erupted in my head, and I blacked out.

I slowly came back to consciousness, and when I remembered I had been knocked out, I sat up quickly, preparing for another attack. Once my head stopped swimming, I noticed I was alone in the hallway and pulled back into the dark recess of the dead-end.

My stomach and head were throbbing. I couldn’t do much about my head, unable to see it, but I looked at my stomach with my power activated, placed my hand over the throbbing and slowly healed my injury. The easing of the pain in my stomach also helped my headache.

Once I felt a little better, I thought about what Jace had said. I dismissed the last part about not going on a mission of turning in my rank. I considered his words about not knowing what was happening, how the world worked and being ignorant.

I got up and started to walk toward the library once more. After a moment of walking, I realized that my stomach pains weren’t only from the punch but also from being hungry. I decided to postpone going to the library to get food.