VIKTOR.
“Where to first?”I ask, once I step out of the bathroom.
“Training grounds!” Lisa answers with a chopper smile. “That is where everyone would be. You can get to meet various people with different backgrounds, and hey you might even meet people that you know.”
Right.
“About that,” I begin as she gets off the bed and heads to me, linking our arms together.
“Were there any… people or… survivors from where you… Rowan, found me?” I ask as we walk out of the room.
“No, none. At least, that I know of,” she answers. “I heard she found you a ways off from the actual clearing. Do you remember walking into the forest?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Hmm. Well, don’t worry too much about that. I am sure your memories will come back in time. So, while we wait, let’s familiarize you with the grounds. This is the clinic, obviously, a few meters down the path you will come across the…”
She continues for a while, detailing the buildings and what it is for, giving really sensitive information.
It is confusing.
Her actions.
If Rowan doesn’t trust me, why send this chatterbox to take me around. She is practically giving away sensitive information, locations and such.
If I wanted to cause harm I could do so without any stress.
“I have a question,” I say, interrupting her monologue.
“Shoot.”
“So, Rowan is the leader of the… coalition, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How did that come to be? Like, did you all elect her?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Why?”
“Well, she… she is our heart. Before, When we were just migrating from place to place, she was the one who was always concerned for us, watching over us, and when we lost a member due to the pack’s cruelty and intolerance toward us, she grieved.”
“Ah, I see. But, I don’t know… that seems a little, well…”
“Too weak to be a reason for becoming our leader?” she supplies.
“Yeah, exactly.”
“True. What about the fact that taking over this pack was her idea?”
“What?”
“Yeah. I remember that night she came up with the idea. We had just lost two of our members and there was a lot of…grief in the air. Life seemed hopeless, dark. And then she brought up the idea for a permanent place , one where we wouldn’t have to move.”
“But that caused the extinction of another pack!”
“Yeah? What about us? We never did anything to those packs. We never attacked or stole or harmed them in any way but yet, they all wanted to kill us.
No questions asked. As for the Onyx pack, well, it was a dog eat dog world. I don’t particularly hold any guilt over their demise. They were abhorrent.”
True… but still.
“And Rowna brought up the idea?”
“Yep. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person, right?”
“No, she does not.”
At that moment, we turn a corner and I am faced with a field that has been suited for training.
We are at the very edge of the field, and it is clear this isn’t your average training session. It is organized chaos, with every stall strategically placed, with a sense of order to it. On the ground is a mix of worn paths and green patches, clear signs of heavy use but not without care.
As we walk closer I come across a particular stall that causes me to falter. On the table, right at the very fronts are gizmos that would make any tech enthusiast pause. Knives with grips that ensure a firm hold, state of the art compasses that point to precision, and other apparatus that I am not even familiar with.
In the field itself are trading apparatus, climbing nets, walls, tires, obstacle courses and hurdles and the like.
“Um… are you planning on taking over another pack?” I ask as I continue to catalog everything I see.
“What? No! Don’t be ridiculous,” she replies with a laugh that just grates on me.
“Am I? Look at all these. It looks like you are training for war!”
“Not war. For our defense. We know we are not exactly welcomed or accepted amongst the packs. Most of them probably consider us a threat. We are not. We want nothing to do with them. There is a reason we all became rogues, why would we want to go back to all that. No, these are for defending ourselves. For the day, some of them will decide to come after us. like they almost did before whatever happened happened to you guys.”
“Have you tried reaching out? Talking to the packs?”
“No. And frankly we don’t want to. We are rogues for a reason, Louis.”
“I see. So, where exactly did you get them? All these gadgets?” I ask as I gesture towards the field.
“Oh, that is Rowan’s purview. I have no idea about that. All I know is that everyone is mandated to put in three hours of training everyday.”
“Everyone?” including the women and children?”
“Everyone. We are not a pack, remember?”
Right.
They are more deadly than I thought.
“Oh, look,” Lisa exclaims, catching my attention. “It is my sister and Rowan.”
I turn towards the direction she is looking and I see Rowan with a woman who looks exactly like Lisa heading this way.
“Hello,” the Rina says as they reach us. “You must be Louis. Welcome to the Coalition,” she says with a smile and hug.
Wow. There are two of them.
Wonderful.
“Thank you,” I say as I pull back.
“How are you liking our home so far?”
“It has been interesting,” I answer as I glance at Rowan. She is not paying attention to us, instead her focus is on one set of the trainees.
She moves to go look at them but her movement is aborted by the loud cry of a child.
“Mummy!”
As one, we all turn towards the sound and I watch in slow motion as a beautiful girl runs up to us, pass us and into Rowan’s arms.
“Mummy!”