I watch the man try to ram me into the corner of the ring. His large fists comes over my head. I pounce to one side, doing a shoulder roll to get back to my feet. I kick my leg out, hitting the man in the backs of his knee making him fall to. I’m about to punch him when he grabs my hand at the last second squeezing it. Pain surges throughout my body, but I have enough sense to kick my leg up into his groin.

He releases my hand and I kick him in the gut then pull back and hit him across the face. He yells in pain launching out, trying to grab me. I step back then stomping on his head.

That is a mistake, because he reaches up and takes my leg pounding me to the ground. He twists me around so I’m lying flat on my stomach. Then he pushes my leg back towards my head. People were cheering for their champion. They want him to win.

I dig my nails into the floor embracing the pain trying to think of a plan. I now use my other leg to thrust up under his chin. He cringes at the pain, giving me time to slip my leg out of his grip and quickly turning around punching him in the face. He falls to the ground but soon gets back up. I haven’t even made a dent in his fighting skills, but his weak point is, he’s already fought two fights before this. He’s probably exhausted from before.

I decide to use that against him I get to my feet and he regains his balance. He snorts like a horse and runs towards me like a bull. I get in a crouch and at the last second, leap to the side making him ram into the wires of the ring. I get to a corner and wait for the bull to get his balance back. He charges again this time with out-stretched arms.

I grin as I roll under him. He crashes into the corner hurting his head. I wait for his next move which is again to try and tackle me. The only problem is, my speed only happens for a short period of time. I feel my body start to slow down but I know the man is more exhausted. I take my chance. While the man his crouching low trying to catch his breath, I run up and wrap my leg around his neck in a head lock. We both fall to the ground, but my leg is still wrapped around him. I’m in a position where I’m actually sitting on his throat. As he squirms against it, I only wrap my leg around harder. His eyes are full of panic and fear.

He is starting to lose breath quickly but I just keep squishing his throat. He scratches against my leg trying frantically to get me off him, but I won’t let him. I keep my leg wrapped around him. Then I don’t feel anything. My body goes into shock and I scramble off the man. He lies their limp. His eyes still open and his mouth drooling.

I gasp in horror at the sight. Everyone in the bar looks at the man in disbelief. Then all eyes turn to me.

I stand there in the ring looking over the man’s body. “I killed him.” I whisper to myself.

“Praise the new Champion.” The man’s voice, who told you place your bets, yelled out again. Everyone still stared in shock. I look at everyone’s faces. I have a feeling they want to kill me. Then I spot Razor behind the bar. She has her arms crossed smiling at me. Like she knew I was going to win.

I don’t grin back at her but jump down from the ring. Blake, Saige, and Ronnie give me back my weapons and I string them around myself again. “We need to leave, now.” I declare pulling Blake’s arm and the two girls follow.

Once we leave the bar the fresh air opens up our lungs. I take in a deep breath before rushing back to Jason and Ivan. Jason is asleep in the front while Ivan just hangs out in the back.

“Jason!” Blake shoves him awake. Jason staggers in surprise.

“What the hell!” He snaps.

“We have to get out of here, drive!” I tell him. Jason looks confused as to why we are in a rush but doesn’t waist time to turn the key and pushes the gas pedal. We’re off once again.

We pass the bar seeing an angry mob standing in front of it. But I spot Razor, again, just watching us go by. She salutes us before we disappear from sight.



We drive for another couple hours or so. We reach Ohio around 11500 hours. I notice Jason already dozing off. I don’t blame him. We all need our rest, and not just in a car.

“I’m exhausted.” Saige complains. “Can we stop for a bit?”

I barley hear her because I can’t stop thinking of what I just did. I just killed a man. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Jason asks me. I don’t answer. Instead Blake answers for me. “She got in a wrestling match with a huge man.”

“Did she loose?” Jason asks confused on why I won’t talk.

“Oh, hell no. If she did loose, she would probably be dead. She won.” Blake says like it’s a good thing.

“So, why are you upset?” Jason asks again.

“Because I killed him.” I confess. “I killed him, and . . . and I don’t . . . I don’t feel . . .” I can’t say it.

“You don’t feel what?” Jason asks me.

“Guilty. When I killed him I looked down at his body and I didn’t regret what I did. I-I don’t know why I killed him and I don’t know why I don’t feel guilty, but I just do.”

“Did . . .,” Blake starts, “Did you like killing him?”

“No, but I mean I think he deserved it. Maybe that’s why I did it.” I haven’t realized how tired I am. I now just want to sleep. “Let’s find some place to stay the night. I’m tired.”

“Okay,” Blake doesn’t argue with that.

We continue driving a little bit. The feeling keeps coming back to me as we drive along the highway.

Around 1800 hundred hours Jason pulls off towards an exit and we find a small hotel. The place doesn’t look too bad, just old. We all pile out and Jason locks the truck. Blake and I are already inside looking at the hotel. The wall paper is a pink and tan, fancy style, country look with the main desk being to the right.

“May I help you?” An old woman with glasses asks looking up from what she was doing.

“Oh, yes,” Blake says walking up to the desk. I sigh and spin myself to I’m next to him. But I don’t look up. How could I do it? How could I just kill someone like that and not think about it? I think to myself. He isn’t the first person I killed, the first person I ever killed was when I was eleven and was out on patrol with Logan. It was in self-defense when Unions attacked us. I half expected Logan to congratulate me but he just asked me if I was alright and we continued on with the patrol.

Killing didn’t come easy at first, but I soon go the hang of seeing blood and blocking out the weird faces and sound the person makes when you end their life. But never have I killed an American cold blooded, even if he was trying to kill me.

“We need a room for six please.” Blake says. The old lady perks an eyebrow but moves over to the computer and types something on the screen.” The hotel is old but the technology is new? Weird. “That’ll be sixty dollars.” She says. Blake turns to me hoping I have money. I pull it out and hand it to her. She takes it and pulls out a key handing it to Blake. “Have a good stay at the Hotel Inn.”

“Thank you.” Blake say turning the key in his hand. He stares at it. “Room 17.” He says. The rest of the group finally comes in and meets Blake and me in the small part of the hall.

“What room?” Jason asks.

“Room seventeen, come on.” We follow Blake down the hall and he opens the door into the small room. It contains a video screen, two king sized beds, a table in-between them and a window with the curtains covering it.

“Girls get one bed we get the other?” Ivan asks almost like a question.

“I guess that makes sense.” Jason says throwing his bag on one of the beds. I do the same with mine on the other. I don’t bother changing since I’ll only have to put on the same outfit tomorrow. I pull out the food bag and toss each person a can of something. I take a can of green beans. The room doesn’t have microwave so we just eat the cans cold. They don’t taste too bad.

“What’s the plan then?” Jason asks. “Did we get directions?”

“Oh yeah, a woman named Razor gave them to us.” Blake answers him. “We need to keep heading west till we get to the Oregon Bridge.” He feeds himself some more of his food which is corn. “The Facility is on an island. Long story remind me to tell you it later. But that’s where we have to go.”

“Okay, so how long do you think that’ll take us Kim?” I don’t hear him. I’m still in daze trying to figure out how I killed the man. He was ten times larger than I am. And I killed him.

“Kimberley?” Saige waves her hand in front of my face getting me back in reality.

“Sorry thinking.” I say shaking my head. “What did you say?”

“How long will it take us to get there?” Jason asks again. I shrug. “If we travel most of the night and day, nonstop we should get there in about . . . a week or two. Maybe a little longer if we travel by foot somedays.”

“Okay, do you think Logan will still be alive?” Saige asks.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” I say throwing my empty can in the trash. I, “We should try and rest. We have to get up early tomorrow.”

“How early?” Blake asks, “Hopefully not at dawn.”

“We should leave here no later than eight o’clock.” I say taking off my coat and throwing it on a chair in the corner, not before taking the journal out. I’m left with a simple black shirt on with pants. I flick off my boots and crawl under the covers of the bed.

“Ronnie,” I say. She turns to look at me and I toss her the black leather book. “You can write if you want to.” Ronnie examines it and grins.

“What’s that for?” Jason asks looking at the journal.

“I don’t know, to document our journey I guess.” I say sliding under the covers some more. “Just a thought. I wrote the first entry this morning.”

“Good idea!” Ivan says tossing his can out. “I’ll do the second one.” I see Ronnie take the pen and begin to write something down. I hear someone click on the TV and the news comes on.

I sigh turning towards the window wondering what it would be like if our lives weren’t full of havoc.

“Kimberley,” I hear someone whisper next to me. I jolt awake at the feel of whoever is shaking me. It’s Jason. “Can we talk?”

“Now?” I ask looking over at the lock with one eye open, seeing the time is two in the morning. “It’s 2 o’clock in the morning.”

“We don’t have to talk for long. Just get up.” He orders. I groan annoyed but somehow crawl from the bed and walk over to where Jason was sitting. In a chair with a tiny table and a chair on the other side. A small lamp was sitting on top of it. He turns it on so we can see one another across the table. My eyes are blinded for a second as the brightness hits them. Then my eyes adjust and I can see Jason sitting across from me. He sighs looking at me. I move my eyes back and forth. Finally he asks me a question. “What’s wrong?”

I don’t know what he’s talking about at first, then the emotions fill me again with guilt and hate. I sigh looking in the eyes of my older cousin. “I can’t get my emotions past you can I?” I smile. He grins back at me. “No, I think we’ve already established this. I know you too well.” I grin at him looking up at the ceiling. “Now what’s wrong?” He repeats the question.

My smile fades and I look at him. I lick my lips getting the dryness off them. I don’t want to look him straight in the eye. I’m too embarrassed to, too ashamed. Instead I look down at the wood on the table. Following the lines in the wood. “Am I a bad person?” I ask. Jason doesn’t say anything. I decide to look up at him and see a look of shock on his face. “Why would you think that?”

“I just killed a man back at the town. He was an American, he wasn’t a Union, and I killed him.”

“That doesn’t make you a bad person, Kim. So you killed him, there has to be a reason why you did it.”

I think for a minute. There is a reason I killed him. “He killed two men before me that I saw, maybe he killed more today. I didn’t want him to kill any more people. The only way I thought I could handle the situation was to kill him. But does anybody really deserve to die?"

Jason opens his mouth but then takes in what I just said. I do too. “Ever since I was little I’ve always seen Unions as the enemy, and they are. But do all of them deserve to die?”

“No, of course not. The innocent deserve to live. It’s the people who attack us, like those people on Friday, they are the ones we should kill.”

“But they were just following orders. We’ve done the same thing to them, so you’re saying we deserve to die?”

“They captured thousands of innocent Americans Kim. What do you want us to do leave them there?”

“No. But I’m just saying, we are just as big of a monster as they are. We need to be better than them. I realized today when I was fighting . . . that man was probably drunk, angry . . . mad about something. And he didn’t know what he was doing. Then I just got so mad, I thought he needed to die, but just as he took his last breaths I realized he didn’t. But it was too late. I killed him, so instead of him being the monster, I was. So, am I a bad person?”

Jason’s expression is shock and confused as he listens to me. Then he sighs and his expression turns calm and understanding. “Kimberley, you may have made some wrong choices in your life, really bad ones,” he says sarcastically. I grin slightly at that. “But that does not mean, in any way, that you’re a bad person. You are my cousin, you can’t be bad. But sometimes bad things happen to us, we just need to keep moving forward, and not think about the times we did bad things.”

“But we have to remember them.” I but in. He tilts his head up listening. “If we don’t remember what we did when things were bad, then history will repeat itself. We can’t let that happen.”

Jason smiles and puts a hand on my shoulder, “Then I guess we got to stop them from ever happening again.” I grin at that. I must look exhausted because the next thing Jason says to me is, “Get some sleep.” He says.

“I was until you woke me up.” I say standing up. “Set the clock for seven thirty. We’ll leave no later than eight.”

“Sounds good.” Jason says, turning off the lamp and finding his way back to his own bed. “Hey Jason,” I say before settling down, “Thanks for the talk.”

“Anytime Kim. Now get some sleep, goodnight.” He says. I hear him rustle trying to get comfortable. I soon hear nothing and try to get comfortable myself. But I keep thinking back to myself in the ring. Then it hits me why I’ve been so restless. I’m not guilty about killing the man and I didn’t like killing him. I’m guilty because . . . I think I had fun killing the man. And I hate myself for it.