Young Writers Society

     Amanda tried to keep the tears from welling in her eyes as she was dragged down what seemed like a hundred flights of stairs with a very unflattering sack over her head. The only sounds that could be heard were footsteps echoing, and Kaden and Robbie’s bickering.

     “Can you breathe okay?” Kaden asked, fidgeting with the corner of the burlap sack covering her face. Amanda felt another hand—probably Robbie’s—smack Kaden’s hand away.

     “Stop giving me that look, Kaden!” Robbie groaned. “I know, I know—sacks aren’t exactly a popular fashion statement right now. But Hansen will skin us alive if we let this Amanda gal see everything before we figure out what to do with her. You already practically told her everything...”

     “I did not!”

     “Uh, did too.”

     “Nothing important!”

     “You were practically drooling—fumbling all over yourself in a hurry to tell her every little secret! Who knows, she could be an enemy spy! Or an undercover cop!”

     “Just for the record,” Amanda sighed, her voice muffled from the sack. “I’m not a spy or an undercover cop.”

     “Sounds like something a spy or undercover cop would say...” Robbie muttered under her breath.

     Amanda was jostled around as the twins shoved each other in the small space. Or at least, she assumed it was small by the way she collided with damp brick walls even if she barely moved. Supposedly she was going to their base to get in uniform (whatever that meant), and then she was going to talk to someone Kaden and Robbie referred to as Hansen. By the sounds of it, she wasn’t going to like this Hansen character.

     After practically an eternity of agony, the sack was yanked off her head. She squinted from the intense light and held her hand in front of her face, but as soon as she adjusted, she soaked in the room.

     There honestly weren’t that many people in there, but it was enough to make Amanda’s skin crawl. Every single person held a weapon—most of which seemed to be things like knives and throwing axes. Her brows furrowed as she studied what everyone was wearing. The girls wore what looked to be—gag— black spandex jumpsuits with a band of color around the shoulder, though there seemed to be three different colors the band could come in. The boys, on the other hand, wore unreasonably tight black spandex shirts with the same bands of color around the bicep and cargo pants. Blake probably looked so cute wearing their "uniform," she thought with a sad, stupid grin.

     The floor was entirely covered in black tumbling mats, the walls were lined with deadly weapons of all sorts. Robbie grabbed Amanda by one of the belt loops of her jeans and pulled her forward before she would’ve gotten hit in the face with a swinging punching bag.

     “Robbie, incoming!” a girl’s voice yelled. Robbie and Kaden immediately crouched down, and Kaden grabbed Amanda’s hand and dragged her down to the floor with them. A small throwing ax planted itself in the wooden boarded walls right where their heads had been. She covered her mouth so a cry didn’t escape.

     Without missing a beat, Robbie stood back up and kept walking towards the hallways on the far right. Amanda got to her feet slower. She was shaking so badly that it probably looked like she was having a seizure.

     Kaden gently put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay...?”

     She nearly blurted no of course not you psycho, but then she remembered she needed a job here. “Yea-yeah,” she finally muttered.

     For the rest of the walk through the training area, Kaden walked between Amanda and the rest of the assassins. She thought it was sweet, but her mind was a little stuck.

     Blake probably trained in this room, she thought sadly. He had probably talked to some of these people, and used some of these weapons. She felt her shoulders sag, and she followed Kaden into the hallway.

     “Kaden, I’m gonna need you to distract Hansen for a little bit so I can get Blondie here ready,” Robbie insisted. She had opened the first door in the hallway that was labeled Women, and peeked inside. “He said the last half of today is going to be all exercise classes, and if I miss one more of those he’ll get after me.”

     “How am I supposed to distract him?” Kaden whimpered, his voice going up an octave.

     “Dunno,” she said absentmindedly as she opened the door further for Amanda. “Tie his shoelaces together. Pull a Home Alone level scheme. Whatever it is, just give me enough time to fit this girl into the training uniform so nobody shoots the outsider. Well, at least until Hansen says so.”

     Amanda gulped, and before she or Kaden could protest, Robbie was already pulling her into the Women’s room.Amanda stumbled inside, knocking over a duffel bag that was sitting against the gray lockers. The barrel of a gun peaked out from the opening, and she sucked in a breath. Cool it, she told herself. If I’m going to be an assassin, I need to get used to the sight of a stupid gun.

     “Okay…” Robbie mumbled, opening the nearest locker and rifling through it. “You probably wear the same size as me, so...ah ha!”

     She spun around and held up what looked like a spandex jumpsuit. Amanda nearly gagged.

     “I have to wear that?” She poked it with her finger, personally offended by how disgusting it looked.

     Robbie rolled her eyes. “Apparently these make it easier to move around while training or something? But it’s freakin’ ridiculous considering the guys only have to wear spandex shirts. Believe me, I’ve brought up the debate before. Just put it on—unless you want me to end you right here right now?”

     Amanda sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed it from her, grimacing. This was not her style, but she wasn’t all too ready for death yet. “You’re kidding me. For real? This is a pathetic attempt at clothing.”

     Robbie ignored her and pushed her behind another set of lockers so she could change. “Tragic, Barbie,” she chuckled darkly from the other side of the lockers. “The training here ain’t made to be pretty. Oh, and ignore the ring of red on it. It's a ranking thing, hopefully no one will notice.”

     She glanced down at the bright red band around the left arm and wondered about the ranking. In the training room she’d seen yellow and blue along with red, but that looked to be it. Was red good or bad? Which ranking had Blake been?

     After a moment more of staring, she cautiously changed out of her cute outfit and baseball cap and into the trashy skin-tight assassin garb. As she changed, she looked around, realizing that there was a lack of blown-up stuff in the locker room.

     “Hey...Robbie, Kaden told me that Bl—someone blew up the girls’ locker room. But this one looks very un-blown-up.”

     Amanda thought she heard her mutter something about Kaden being a blabber mouth and killing him, and Robbie was silent for another beat before she responded.

     “He blew up the only other one,” She replied in a voice that made Amanda wonder if she was smiling. “My friend and I nearly got blown to smithereens. It was kind of awesome.”

     She tugged at and adjusted the wretched uniform. “So, you know the person who blew it up?” she tried to ask casually. Amanda leaned against the lockers, not quite ready to leave yet.

     Robbie started to say something, but it was like her voice died in her throat or something.. Eventually, all she gave was a lame, “Yep. Cool guy.”

     Amanda frowned. Was Robbie one of Blake’s friends? He’d mentioned in one of his letters that the girls didn’t really talk to him—but then again, he hadn’t told her a lot of things. Maybe she could find some clue to Blake’s killer through Robbie.

     She walked out from behind the lockers, and gasped in mock offense when she saw that Robbie was still wearing her military jacket and ripped jeans.

      “Why don’t you have to wear the Torture Suit?” Amanda complained, gesturing to her ridiculous outfit. “I swear, if all of this is some elaborate prank—”

     “Yo, okay, chill,” Robbie laughed, running a hand through her golden brown hair. “I never wear the uniform. Hansen yells at me for it every day, but Blake always—”

     Her words seemed to die in her throat, and every muscle in Amanda’s body tensed. She wanted to scream, Blake what?! But Robbie didn’t trust her or know that she knew Blake, and she couldn’t risk scaring her off yet. Hopefully Kaden wouldn’t tell his sister about the conversation they’d had in his room..

     Robbie puffed out her cheeks and looked away from Amanda. “Y’know what? I think it’ll be fine if I just miss one more day of classes. I can take Hansen’s punishments.”

     Amanda opened her mouth, but no words came out. What was going on? Why had Robbie gotten so weird all of a sudden? She obviously knew Blake, but how? A million questions swirled in her head, so she barely heard it when Robbie told her to go find Kaden. Amanda walked out of the locker room in a daze.