Chapter 9

I couldn't sleep at all since they left for that mission. I fear that something is going to go wrong. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I did have a fight with my father and we didn't get to do our little tradition when he leaves. Maybe the stress of him being gone is getting to me.

I get up out of bed. My toiletries are still ready to go since I never went to the bathhouse yesterday. I undress, put a simple one-piece bathing suit on and pull a robe over. The halls are empty and dead silent. I'm kind of afraid to whisper because if I did, the room will shatter or something.

When I entered, I suspected no one would be there but I was wrong. Tris sat in the water with a rag over her eyes. I quietly turn and slowly went back to the hallway.

"Where are you going, Zeria?" Her voice sounded strained and tired.

How the hell did she know it was me? She has a stupid blindfold for goodness sake. I sighed and went back into the bathhouse. I kicked off my shoes, let the robe fall and slowly entered the warm water. I made my way to the opposite side of Tris.

She still had the blindfold over her eyes and looked like she didn't want to be bothered. I just focused on myself and dunked my head under the water. When I came back up, Tris was gone from her spot. I let out a sigh of relief. It would've been awkward if she stayed.

My shampoo is running out. I'm afraid that when it does, I'll have no more shampoo to make my hair silky smooth. That's when my world would end. I place the contents on my hand and smother it on my head.

"That's depressing. You're not doing it right." Her voice startled me.

I thought she left but instead she was behind me getting a clean towel. Ugh, does she always have to tell me everything that I do is wrong? It's my hair.

She comes up to me and sinks herself into the water once more. "Here let me help."

I swatted her hands away. "I don't need you. I can do this myself." Her face fell and looked so sad. "What are you doing? Don't do that. You'll make me want you to help me. Stop it."

She smiles a sad smile. Like she's amused but not really. What the hell? My good side that wants to make everyone smile kicks in. I hate myself for this. I turn my back to her and slightly bend my head back to her. Her fingers lace themselves into my long silver hair. She lathers my scalp getting every inch of my head. It feels nice and soothing.

Her hands gently tug at my hair, wanting me to lean back to rinse the shampoo off. I let myself float on my back while she lathers my head underwater. She pulls me up from the water.

What she did was nice but why? What is her motive? She couldn't have done this just because. I need to know, I have to. It's weird. She's my mortal enemy. Plus she hates me.

"I don't hate you, you know that right?" She asks with sincerity.

No. No, I did not know that. I tried to keep my mouth from falling but it was inevitable. I couldn't help but be shocked. This is weird a hundred times over.

"Tris," She looks up at me again. "did you eat any funny food before?" She shakes her head. "Fall and hit your head? Tried drugs for the first time?"

She swats at me but gentler than before. Now, this scares me. Maybe I'm dreaming. If I pinch myself awake, this could all be over. Everything will go back to the way it was. Her hand covers mine to stop me from pinching too hard and making a mark.

"That hard to believe. I get it. I was awful to you. But honestly, it was because I was jealous of you."

My eyes pop out of my head. Jealous? Of me? She's gone crazy. Someone get her to the psych ward, she's lost her mind. Tris is the perfect person here. She has no flaws. She's pretty, well-liked and a pretty damn good fighter. Why would she be jealous of a girl like me?

"Ok, I'll explain, just stop making that face. You make me feel self-conscious or something." I look away trying to cover a blush of embarrassment. "I'm jealous because you have friends."

"You have friends too. What about Brenda? Isn't she, your friend?" Tris makes a slow no nod. My mouth drops. "What about Braydon?"

She snorts. "Hardly. Maybe before but now, now he won't even look into my eyes." Her brown eyes look away into the distance. "Everyone here is either too old or too young. I'm fifteen. There's no one here to be friends with."

My heart goes out to her. I have Elizabeth and Kahlen this whole time and I've been taking them for granted. Now that they like each other, I'm the odd one out.

"Well your not the only one who's going to be lonely for a friend."

Her perfect eyebrow spike up in surprise. "What about your cousin, Elizabeth or Kahlen?"

"Those two are going to be thick as thieves in love or some shit like that." I look away from her. It may be nice to talk to someone like this, but this is fucking weird. Especially with Tris.

"I see, but you'll still have Braydon"

I playfully nudge her arm. "What about staying away from him or I'll beat you to a pulp again."

Her face scrunches up, "Yeah I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to go that far, it's just you've improved a hella lot and if I let you walk with a couple of bruises, you'd fight me again."

I lit up with excitement. "Really? You think I've improved?"

She nods. "But I honestly think you'd do better with me teaching you since I'm a girl and Braydon's a guy. Braydon has taught you plenty but your feminine side is getting in the way of the way he teaches you. It's why he tells you to hold back. Girls are built differently, it's not a weakness, it's just using a different strategy."

Astonishment fills me up inside. "You mean I could be better than Braydon?"

"You could be better than us all. A little guidance and tumbling should get you to be a badass fighter."

"Tumbling?" What the hell is that? I've never heard of that fighting style.

"Oh right, you wouldn't know what that is. It's a thing they used to do before the Humanoids took over. It was used in gymnastics and cheerleading. Basically tumbling is doing flips on the ground."

Doing flips? Without a jumping thing, what they call a trampoline? My mind was blown at this new information. "You have to teach me. I want to do flips."

She smiles. "First you should finish your bath. And scrub everywhere. You kind of smell." She playfully scrunches up her face.

"Tris?" She looks back at me before getting out of the water. "Your not as bad as I thought you were."

"You too kid."

~~~~~~~

After my bath and drying up. I went back to my room to change into my combat clothes. Tris said to meet her at the training area since both of us can't sleep. I'm pretty excited. She's going to teach me how to tumble.

For some reason, she also said to bring a brush and an elastic. Wonder what I would need these for. Tumbling is weird if I have a brush in my hand while fighting. What am I going to do? Wack someone in the head with it?

I made my way to the arena but made a short pit stop. I snuck into the kitchen and stole some breakfast strudels they had on the counter. What is a better way to start a day than with a delicious strudel?

When I entered the room, Tris was standing at the table doing something. I closed the door behind me and made my way to her.

"Sit in the chair." Was all she said.

I did as I was told. When she finished whatever it was that she was doing, she took the strudels from me and put them on the table.

"But I was going to eat that," I whined at the loss of my strudel.

"You'll eat it later. Now I'm going to do your hair." She comes around with a makeshift straightener.

I rolled my eye. "What does doing my hair have to do with tumbling?"

She laughed at me. "Come on, your a girl. A lady should look her best no matter the situation. Plus putting your hair in a good looking ponytail keeps the hair out of the way."

Her hands grab my hair and place it behind my shoulders. She grabbed the brush from my hands and the elastic. I could feel the bristles of the brush pull at my strands. I've never had someone brush my hair that wasn't my father. This is different.

When she was done, she straightens my hair even further with the straightener. After that, Tris grabs a piece from the top of my hair and makes two tight braids on the top of my head. It makes my head hurt. She grabs all of my hair and puts it into a nice ponytail. It looks strange. My hair has never looked this good.

She makes me miss my mother. If she was still here, I'd be doing this with her, not Tris. I frown at the lost memory of my mother brushing my hair and making it look this pretty.

"Ok now, we're going to be doing drills. We have to train those muscles so when we do start to tumble, you won't strain any of your muscles. It's important. But even before that, we have to stretch."

She brings me to the floor. Her limbs begin to do weird movements I've never seen before. When Braydon stretches me it's simple and enough but she looks like a pretzel. I tried to mimic her movements but I feel as though I'm not doing it right.

A breath releases from her mouth, and she makes her way over to me. Her hands guide me into the positions she was trying to teach me. Some felt so foreign, that it felt incredibly awkward.

After stretching, my limbs felt tired. I don't think I did that right if I'm already tired from just stretching.

"Now a warm-up."

What? That stretching wasn't the warm-up? This training seems long and pointless. I want to do a flip. Lady, why won't you let me do some flips already?

We jogged around the arena a couple of times before doing dynamic stretching. Whatever that means. Turns out it's like moving lunges and stuff like that. Basically a workout. Great now we're doing a workout. I feel like she doesn't really want to teach me her ways.

Even so, I kept going hoping my patience doesn't run thin with her and let me hold on until the end. After dynamic stretching, she made me set up a little drill course thing. I had to do handstands on the wall, bridges, attempted cartwheels, and place a thick mat at the end for something she refuses to tell me until I get there.

Tris did a well-demonstrated handstand and when I tried, disaster was bound to happen. I fell awkwardly. But she made me do them until they were on point. After that, she made do a bridge which confused me because we didn't have any materials to make a bridge. Then she showed me it was a position the body can do.

"When are we going to tumble?" I asked at one point.

"Zeria, I told you a thousand times that we have to train your muscles first. You'll strain them and could cause serious injuries."

"We could always heal me with those spray medicines," I say with hopes of getting to tumble. Still not really knowing what that is.

She sighs. "Those are for external wounds, dummy. A strain in the muscle is different."

Frustrated but we kept going, next was doing cartwheels. Tris raised her hands over her head and fell to her one side onto her hands and kicked over with her legs. She was perfectly straight and magical. She told me to do one. I mimicked her starting position. When I raised my arms my mind went blank.

"What do I do again?"

She rolled her eyes. "Fall onto your hands and kick over."

I fell forward and kicked over and landed in a bridge. I don't think this is what I was supposed to do. I release the bridge and land on my back.

"You were supposed to go on your side, not the front. That's for another time."

I tried again and this time I fell to one hand. I awkwardly kicked over. Wow, I must have looked like a weirdo doing that. Tris pushed me to do it again.

"Try thinking about doing a handstand to the side."

I raised my hands and fell to the side thinking of doing a handstand. I got stuck at the top before falling down again.

"Like that but in one movement." She said clearly excited that I managed to do a handstand without the wall.

I did it again but in one good sweep. Tris squealed like a little girl. I stared at her like she's crazy. She grabbed my hands. "You did it! Aren't you excited?"

"Not really. I thought you said you'd teach me how to tumble."

She hung her head low. "Dummy that was a basic move. The first step into tumbling."

I shot up. "Really? But that wasn't that hard after you told me about the handstand thing." Then it hit me. Learning the handstand before doing the cartwheel is what I supposed to do. "Ohh, I see it now. What next?"

She brought me over to the thick mat. "Here I'll teach you the back handspring." I give her a look of not understanding what that is. "Here, I'll show you."

She made her way to an open space in the room. She went into a clean position which is her just standing straight with her hands in blades at her side. Her knees slightly bent, her hands pulled back at her side and she swung up into a straight position with her hands above her head and flipped onto her hands and shot up back in the air landing knees slightly bent again.

My jaw fell open. "I wanna do that!"