Infected inside

Infected inside (chapter 9)

A year had passed by since I’d escaped WIC. I had been training hard since then to become strong enough to take them on, well, I knew I couldn’t fight a whole army alone but that wasn’t my aim, I just needed to know how to defend myself in case I came across any soldiers when I broke into the lab again. I wanted to expose them for what they were and what they had done, to me, to Liam, to my parents. I wanted the world to know but I needed proof, hard proof to help my case, I had already found a journalist who really wanted to help publish this for me but that was only if I could find proof, because even John (the journalist) doubted my story.

I had a personal trainer I had found online, not too far from where I was staying in my tiny studio apartment. The money I got was from the restaurant around the corner from me, doing my role as both waitress and cleaner. I barely scraped by but it was enough to have enough leftover to afford lessons. Danny was my personal trainer, he was in he’s sixties but I liked that, he had trained since he was a teenager and was so good at MMA that he wasn’t even allowed to compete in some countries anymore, or something like that.

I walked into his class just as everyone was leaving. He’s green eyes looked up at me with raised eyebrows. “Back for more Gracie?” That was the nickname he had for me and I secretly liked it. He treated me like a granddaughter and it was nice to have someone genuinely care about me and how I was doing. Before I’d found my job he had given me lessons for free after I’d explained my situation, he was the first and only person who had believed my story without a doubt.

“Hey Danny, you know me, I’m not a quitter.” I joked back and started putting on my gloves.

We climbed into the ring and trained for two hours. I had been worried at first that at his age I was asking him for too much. He had classes three times a day and then after that because I felt more comfortable training without other people around I expected him to train me on top of his classes and not for the one hour it was meant to be but two hours. When I had started to mention this he had cut me off and explained if he didn’t want to train me he wouldn’t do it. It was that simple. I came to realise after months that he was more than fit enough to train me too, more fit then some twenty year olds I had met.

Over the months the pain of losing Liam had lessoned somewhat, so that my heart didn’t ache quite so crushingly anymore and I was able to actually get some sleep these days but I still missed him terribly, and sometimes I dreamed of him running around in a field with dodge, playing with her up in heaven, it helped me to think of them in heaven together.

The day was coming when I was ready to go hunt down WIC and destroy them. Each passing day as the date drew nearer my nerves grew stronger. On my last training session with Danny he noticed my quietness and knew something was up. “You ok Gracie?”

I nodded but was distracted and didn’t train as well as I usually did, eventually Danny gave up and ended the session early and got us a couple of sprites to drink.

“Tell me what’s going on,” he demanded.

Sighing I looked down at the can in my hands and said, “I’m going to get that proof in two days time, it’s just making me anxious, but I’m absolutely going to do it, I have to.”

He looked at me hard and answered, “you always have a choice, you don’t have to do anything, you’re only young, you still have your whole life ahead of you.”

“I have to do this, not just for me but for everyone who died for this horrific experiment WIC set up. If I don’t do anything it won’t be long before they create something even more deadly and I don’t want to wait around to find out what it is.”

He nodded in understanding and then said, “I’ll come with you.”

I shook my head violently, “no way in hell! I’m not dragging you through that, I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

He stood up and said, “I get to decide what I want to do, I’ll be fine and if these people paid the price for some horrifying experiment then you can be damned if you think I’m going to sit in the sidelines and do nothing to help get justice for them.”

I didn’t even get a chance to answer before he was getting up and bringing over a black bag and pulling out a scary amount of weapons. He had an MP15, shotgun, assault rifles and some other guns I didn’t know the name of. He must have read the expression on my face because he answered, “I was in the military a long time before I became a veteran but you can never be too careful.”

He was one crazy son of a b***h and I liked it. I wondered for a moment and then asked him, “did you ever know someone called Liam Thompson?”

I knew there was like a one percent chance of him knowing Liam but wanted to ask anyway. I don’t know who’s jaw dropped lowest to the ground, mine or Danny’s when he stuttered, “yes, you knew that son of a b***h? He was one of our best him and dodge.”

He was smiling and then he looked at me and his face dropped. “If you knew him then was he the one who trained you to survive?”

I nodded yes and added, “he kept me alive, when we first met he promised if I slowed him down in any way he would leave me behind…but he never left me behind, even on the occasions I almost got us both killed he never left me.”

Danny nodded solemnly replying, “oh yeah, that was Liam alright, he acted tough but he was the most loyal son of a b***h and damned if he was going to let you die on his watch.” I watched Danny’s face harden, the determination of coming with me all the more set in stone for him.