Chapter Seven

(Elsa's POV)

"Petran!"

His harsh voice brings me back from my thoughts and I see now that he is seated with the forever angry mask of a face he carries around that always reminds me to not get into his bad books.

"Did you not hear what I said?" he says a little harsher this time.

"I am sorry sir. I- I didn't hear you sir," I say looking at his head.

Eden is right after all, his head is too big for his body.

"I thought as much....sit!" he says, giving me a stare like he wanted to purge my soul that very moment.

I take the seat closest to the door just in case he decides to hurt me or do something crazy, I needed to be closer to an exit just like Mamie had thought me so I could save Eden, she was so naive most of the time, yet so sweet, gentle and sw-

"If I remind you again to pay attention, your punishment would be multiplied," he says, coldly.

My mind had a funny way of distracting itself whenever I got myself in a very bad situation and right now it wasn't helping. As much as I try to stay focus, the fear of what my punishment could be keeps my mind away from even focusing on Bellman.

I clear my mind one more time and stare at him squeezing my hands together to pay attention to the sentence he was going to throw at me.

"The leaders have considered your good deeds and importance in the city but we have to be fair so the people would not turn against us." He pauses, looks at my shaky hands and smiles before continuing, "Ruth is already packing her things and preparing to leave Amazon has we speak, we can not continue to harbor people that break the law and remain unproductive only eating our food and drinking our water without a relevant contribution, can we?"

He continues going on and on about Ruth's punishment not realising it was making me sick, I have always known the political circle were up to something, they were responsible for all the missing people -somehow- I admit we got into a fight but that is not enough reason to banish her, only murder was a crime that deserved such punishment and even if I didn't know the girl well enough she was not a killer - everyone knew the consequences of that- the political circle were purposely reducing the population but why? I am sure the stuffs my team found was really helpful at least our food ration increased, even our neighbours were looking better than they did a couple of months ag-

"As for you Petran,"

His voice cuts my thoughts and brings me back to the conversation.

"Since you have proven yourself worthy, we can't banish you without earning a riot from the people. The circle have decided to send you on a solo mission if you succeed you can come back, if you don't.. you must never return," he says his eyes never leaving mine. I try to stay as calm as possible under his gaze. I didn't want to give him the pleasure of seeing how affected I was by his words.

"What am I suppose to bring back sir?" I ask, trying to sound brave, he stares at me with little glints of satisfaction flashing across his eyes then he opens a drawer under his table and throws a new face towel at me, I catch it thanks to my good reflex and stare back at him with confusion.

"Wipe the sweat off your forehead Petran, in this new world we live in it's survival of the fittest, someone has to die for another to live."

There is an evil grin dancing in his eyes, I have always known Bellman was creepy but this is just too much, I wipe the sweat off my face and I realise even my palms were sweaty I quickly wipe them and place the towel on the table pushing it slowly towards him.

"What is my mission?" I ask through my teeth.

"Don't be in a hurry to know, you will spoil the fun! Do you know how angry you made the leaders the day you saved all those pesky kids we wanted to get rid of?"

Now I confirmed it, Bellman was in this little conspiracy going on in the compounds. His intense glare makes me want to sink deeper into the chair but I don't want to give him that satisfaction I stare back at him holding my grounds.

Ever since the water mission a few months ago, most of the leaders even if I never really saw most of them were not happy with me for standing up against them and forcing them to let everyone they wanted to banish back into the city and Bellman was one of them, he gave us the hardest of missions and was always very strict and stern with us.

I shouldn't have gotten into a fight with this Ruth girl, damn her!

"I know you and your little friend have a secret you are hiding and this time, I am going to expose you!" he says, calmly getting up and signalling to me to do the same.

"The mission would be revealed to you tomorrow morning as soon as you leave the city gates not before, we don't want you girls to do your voodoo or whatever it is you do to succeed, have a nice day Petran." He opens the door and motions for me to leave.