Kenzie
Page 17: Thou shalt not help traitors, or outsiders before they are evaluated and approved by the council.
“No! Please! Stop!” The girl screams. I watch through the one way window as James roughly interrogates her. He hits her once. When he gets no response out of her, he hits her again. I close my eyes, trying to take in the whole scene.
“Where is she?” I hear him ask.
I open my eyes and see James standing over her, staring into her eyes.
“I don’t know!” She cried, struggling against her cuffs.
This wasn’t my idea, but when James knows what he wants, he gets it. He turns around and heads towards the door. I do not look at him as he enters the room where I stand.
“That is how you get answers, Kenzie.”
“You don’t have to be so rough.”
“Well that’s the only way you’ll get answers out of people. You need to be the alpha dog.”
“She isn’t a dog, James, and neither are we in case you haven’t noticed. Can I try asking her? I think I can get her to listen to me.” I beg.
“Be my guest.” James grunts over his shoulder as he storms out of the room.
I look at at the door James exited through one last time before I open the door to the room where the girl lay. She had her eyes closed and her head was leaned back. She clearly was in pain. I wish I could help her but the rules wouldn’t allow it.
“Hi, I’m Kenzie.” I say quietly.
The girl is pretty, with her long, black hair. She’s practically the opposite of me. I touch my short red hair.
“What do you want?” She asks, hastily.
I avert my eyes. The girl scared me, but I didn’t want her to see that.
“What’s your name?” She asks.
“Kenzie. And also, I’ll be asking the questions around here.”
Something inside me snaps. “Do you even know what this is all about?”
The girl’s face is blank.
“Yeah, I thought not.”
I turn around and slowly walk towards the door. She’s gonna crack. I think to myself.
“Wait.”
I turn around. “Yes?”
“Can you let me out of these chains?”
I sigh, pulling the keys out of my pocket. As I let her out of the cuffs, she massages her wrists and ankles. She stands up, and wobbles a little.
“You still haven’t told me your name.” I say pointedly.
“It’s best if you don’t know.” She says.
She opens the door and looks at me before running into James, who seemed to have appeared. She takes a step back and looks at him, sizing him up. As she sits back down, I squeeze past James. I walk down the hall. I turn around a corner and run into someone carrying a stack of books.
“Sorry Miss.” The person says.
I know that voice... “Sam?”
“Oh, hey Kenzie.” My best friend’s head pokes out from behind the pile. I bend down and pick up a book that fell and put it back on top of the stack.
His mop of brown hair falls perfectly over his blue eyes. I do have a little crush on him, but for now we are just great friends and I don’t want to change that.
“Want to go get lunch?” I ask, shaking myself out of my daze. “You know, after you deliver these to...:”
“Mr. Warren. And sure!” He says. I take half the pile of books and we walk down the hall towards Mr. Warren’s room.
Mr. Warren is one of the school teachers here in Veronia. Our underground society has been around for decades. It is also, literally underground. The main building is a big long hallway with many rooms off of it, like the Council’s room, the school, kitchens and other stuff like that. Outside the main building, there are tunnels, at least ten feet tall. Our houses are outside the tunnels.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,844 Reviews
Hey there! Stella here!
I couldn't find Part 1- if you link it to me I'll gladly review it!
First of all, this is a really helpful article on how to punctuate dialogue- don't worry, I had no idea how to do it for years- but once you get the hang of it it's really easy, it's just a matter of learning it! A favourite piece of advice of mine is to read the article and then spend a while looking at your favourite dialogue-heavy book to see how the author there does it- those are the best examples you're going to find!
It annoyed me a bit the repetition here, but since it's within dialogue I'll let it slide.
Okay, first of all, gender confusion. I got so confused, thinking Kenzie was a girl, then a boy, then a girl, and then the same thing with Sam. It was just a bit puzzling- still not entirely sure what Kenzie is? Anyway. That's just a little thing, just refer to it quicker!
Other than that, the opening line and the interrogation intrigued me about your world which is fantastic! The issue was that I didn't really see much of the world after that- I'd love to learn more about it, and the start of the story is where you should tell us that! Like, where are they at the moment? I got really confused thinking they were in a police station but then it seemed more like they were in a school and I was generally just puzzled.
So altogether, I really enjoyed this, but it's so sparse, you can definitely afford more development- of your world, of your characters. Don't be afraid to fill out the meat on those bones! Story is good, but better when accompanied
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Thank you so much for the review! I will need to figure out more about Kenzie's world, it is a society that few know about. Rachel, the other character (written by my friend) is an outsider. You can read her side in the link at teh top of the story, I will warn you though, it is very much like this story.
Thanks so much for your help!
In the beginning you could had a more of a scene about the hitting because it took me two times to see the sentence " I flinch slightly as he hits her twice."
Ok well I like the way you do the talking in the story. You know who is talking and it is not so confusing.