The Darkest Minds - "I'm a red,"

10.

After the fight I helped the others move the sick kids from the white tent inside, lighting up some of the trash cans to keep them warm.

We unloaded the supply shed and spread it out inside the main warehouse, giving out the immediate supplies that were needed.

Everyone slept after that, all drained and tired, needing a small rest to get restarted to figure out the plan.

And since sleep is the first quiet moment I've had since regaining my will to live, the nightmares that come are horrific.

Everything replays in excruciating detail, the pain, the hunger, the yelling, poison words that broke me piece by piece. The longing for the people I loved.

Then there's the fighting. The training. And killing people here on Knox's orders.

I wake with a start, sweating and breathing heavy. Vida sleeps next to me on one side, Jude on the other.

Her burn hasn't been completely tended to, she let Charles, the boy that hugged Ruby, tend to the sickest kids first, meaning she fell asleep and so did he. They poured some water on it but I feel really bad.

She also had to cut off the majority of her hair. Though the flames didn't reach her scalp, the hair that was left couldn't be salvaged and she had to slice it all off.

Shaking my head, I slip out from between the two and stand, making my way quietly to the door as to not disturb anyone.

The nightmares stroked the fire within me and it's making me heat up, twitching as I grab the door and open it, heading into the cool winter air.

I find a crate outside the warehouse and take a seat, wrapping my arms around myself as I think about what happened, going through everything in my mind.

I don't want to face those memories, they're so painful, feeling what I felt, remembering what I went through. I have the scars as a reminder, I don't need my mind constantly reminding me too.

The door to the warehouse creaks open once again. PTSD tells me to stand up and get ready to fight.

I force myself to calm down and look behind me. Vida is there, closing the door as quietly as she can.

After the door is closed she makes her way over, sitting next to me.

We sit in silence for a couple minutes before she speaks. "How bad was it?" Vida questions out of the blue, shivering a little bit.

"Bad. Ten times worse than anything you could imagine it to be. And it was designed that way, to break us," I tell her, looking down.

"How was Cate when I was gone? Was it like before?" I ask Vida, referring to when the group home burnt down.

"No. It was worse than that. She cried for days, wouldn't eat. Her entire routine was checking on your profile at Thurmond and crying in her room. Even I couldn't get her to stop, though I was crying too. We were all a mess. And when your profile completely disappeared from the camp database we knew Operation Jamboree must have been starting. I knew it must have been bad but..." she trails off.

"Ruby seems nice. She apart of the team? What about the other one, Charles?" I ask curiously, wanting to know how our team has been since I was captured.