The apartments for the State soldiers were just a couple of blocks away from the station. It used to be located right by it at one point, but it had been shifted due to it presenting a big security risk. If the station got attacked, any soldier inside the building would be compromised as well.

This stretch contained everything someone could require in Section B, mainly because it was the road leading up to Section A. The station was located right on the cusp of it, servicing both the residents of Section A and B while doubling as the local police force as well. Which is why we wore these uniforms, to look like police and not like a part of a secret squad of augmented kids. The only thing separating us from actually looking like the police were a set of special collar tags we wore. It looked a bit like enameled, black equal signs.

It was a bit into the morning. Winter was settling in. I stepped outside and shivered a bit as the cold wind pierced right through the thin uniform.

"Need a jacket?" Keelan offered.

I shook my head, revelling in the feel of the goosebumps spreading across my body. "I'm fine. The apartments are not far from here anyway."

"How does being free feel?" Rush placing his arm around my shoulder, leaning heavily on me as he threw the other one out to gesture to the surroundings. "I bet it feels great."

I chuckled, stepping aside to let today's workers come in. "Not that much, really." I tapped the collar. "I'm not completely free yet."

"Oh, that's nothing. We can still roam around A and B." Keelan started walking down the steps, Rush took his arm back as we followed. "Do you want to have breakfast first or go see your room?"

I shrugged. "I don't mind anything right now. But I'd really rather get changed out of this uniform."

"Apartment, it is."

"Do you really feel nothing?" Rush's words moved my mind back to darker times. When the Peacekeeper was taking me away, and then when Terrence had asked it after I'd killed Rick. "I mean, being free and all."

My mind was tilting at hearing those words again. Considering the memory I'd just been through, a wrong word could send me on another unpleasant trip down memory lane. I forced out a genuine smile as I scrambled for stability. "Not right now. It's still a bit unbelievable, having being let out early and all."

"It's really surprising." Rush nodded, giving me a few moments of reprieve to right myself. I looked down at my feet as he spoke about Malcolm calling him.

Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. Don't slide away. Relax. Relax, and fix it. It's all in the past. It can't hurt you now. Maker can't hurt you now, Bert can't hurt you now. That part of my life is done and over with. I won't have to work for him ever again. I won't have to see hi-

"Terra?" I jumped to the side as Keelan's hand landed on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

I looked into his grey eyes, smiled and nodded. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"You've seemed off ever since you woke up."

"Yeah." Rush piped up. "We knocked on the door, but you wouldn't answer. And when we entered you were shaking, and talking in your sleep."

I stiffened slightly. "What... What did I say?"

The two exchanged a glance before Rush spoke. His delivery was slow, he knew he was treading on sensitive ground. "You were... begging someone about something you couldn't do anymore."

I felt my shoulders hunch as my wings shifted under the harness. They were about as uncomfortable as me. "It was a bad dream. And just leave it at that."

"You... You do know you can talk to us if you ever need to, right?" Keelan sounded worried. "Any of us. Rush, me, Mikhail. We're your teammates. We'll listen if you need us to, even give advice if you need it."

I shook my head, eyes glued to the ground. "No, thanks. I don't need to talk, and I don't need any advice as of right now." I looked up as we approached the building, feeling relieved that I could end the topic here. "Which floor am I on?"

"We'll be told about that once we go in." Rush spoke after some hesitation, going along with my abrupt subject change. "You can collect the pass that will get you entry into the building, register your thumbprint, and then they'll tell us what room you've gotten."

"How cool will it be if you're on the same floor as us?" Keelan did sound somewhat excited. "We don't have curfews either because they consider us adults."

I gave Keelan a dry look as we turned into the non-descript doorway of the gray building. "You're 24, Rush is 28, I'm 19. How are we not adults?"

"Now, now." Rush ran a hand through his hair. "Age is just a number, honey." He winked at me, making me giggle for the first time that day.

As instructed by the receptionist/guard, I let my prints get scanned into the system before being given the pass. The room number written on it was 15G.

"Nice. You're down the hall from us." Keelan looked over my shoulder. "G, great view."

"We all have great views, Keelan." Rush rolled his eyes, leading me over to the elevator. "We are on floor 15 too, by the way."

I listened to the two bicker as I felt my mental state finally start to relax. It was just the past. What had been done, had been done. It was over. Bert wouldn't come bursting through the door to beat me up anymore.

We stepped out onto the fifteenth floor, stepping aside to let some people in uniform pass. They seemed quite interested in me once their eyes met mine. Looking me up and down as they passed, both the guy and the girl winked at me over their shoulders.

I frowned in confusion, looking at Rush for an answer.

"Despite there being so many floors in this building, the maximum people here at one time are barely forty."

"That's... That's quite less."

"The first two floors of this place are training spaces with adapted equipment made to suit the kinds of people who live here. The five floors above us are just facilities, and each floor has eight apartments."

"So, only ten floors are residential? Eight rooms on each floor amounts to eighty, of which there are only about forty occupied. What are the other rooms for?"

"Some of them are used as storage, but I think they're kept empty in hopes that one day there might be more survivors of these sick experiments." Rush's voice was bitter.

Surprise passed through me. This was the first time I'd heard any of them speak about the experiments. They'd obviously gone through the same things to end up her-

"Here's G." Rush stopped in front of a door, waving his keycard by the reader placed on it. There was a click as the door unlocked. Rush pushed the door open, stepping in and placing the keycard in its holder, and the entire room lit up.

"Who leaves the lights on?" Keelan mumbled behind me as I walked in.

Short entrance hallway, bathroom door to the right. A little down came the main living area- a couch, a glass table and a modestly-sized screen. There was a bed right towards the end of the room, full length windows along the length of the outer wall. There was another open doorway to the right, no door. It led to a small kitchen. Cabinets on the top and bottom, a stove, a small fridge that just reached till my waist, and a microwave.

"Nice." I finally spoke after walking through the place. I placed the old shopping bag I'd been carrying on the bed and sat down. It was very soft. I'm not going to be sleeping well for a while.

"Great. You like it." Rush clapped his hands turning towards the doorway. "I'd bought some stuff for you to stock your fridge. Wait right here."

Keelan took a seat on the couch, waving a hand to switch on the screen. The screen monitored his eye movements, flicking through the channels with just the shift of a retina. "Like the place?" He asked, stopping on a channel showing an explosion.

I shrugged. "It is nice. Nicer than anywhere I've lived before. And certainly bigger than my room in Section D." My room in Section D would've ended by the sofa. I turned my head to look out the window. It wasn't one of the tallest buildings in Section B, but the view was pretty decent. "Does the window open?"

"Yup. But only their upper halves."

I paid closer attention to the thin black line running through the middle of the otherwise clear glass, vaguely realising that it was a single line of the new flexible suspension steel. I hadn't been able to work with it before I left. The principle was pretty interesting, though. When left alone, it would be as rigid as steel, keep the object in the position you'd left it. But it would move like butter when you needed it to even though it's range of motion was very limited. It was also called a 'seamless hinge'.

"I'm back!" I turned to look at the door again as Rush walked in with a smile on his face.

My eyes went to the bags of groceries he was carrying. Before I could even protest, he strolled into my kitchen. I stifled a groan as I heard the fridge door open. Another thing to pay off.

"By the way!" Rush started yelling from inside the kitchen, voice slightly muffled by the fridge no doubt. "This is my housewarming gift! You don't need to pay me back!" Well, then.

"Hey!" Keelan started to protest. "I paid for some of that! It's 'our' housewarming gift, Terra." He added, giving me a meaningful look.

"All you did was buy a few tubs of ice cream!"

"Hey! I did buy something! What'd Mikhail get? Huh?!"

"He said he'd buy something when he was out of surgery." There was a short pause. "Wait, that was supposed to be a surprise." There was a scuffling sound as Rush's head appeared in the doorway, eyes narrowed at me. "You didn't hear that."

I held up my hands, starting to smile a little. "Heard what?"

"Good girl. Just for that..." He disappeared back in the kitchen, reappearing to throw me a tub of ice cream and a spoon. "That's from Keelan."

"Brownie fudge sundae." Keelan informed as I stared down at the sweating container in my lap. "You're welcome."

"Uh, thanks." I replied, digging a nail under the lid and popping the tub open. My first bite was slow, careful. The coldness spreading in my mouth as the ice cream melted and the flavour seeped into my tongue.

Keelan spoke up after I'd had a few bites. "Why do you eat like that?"

I turned my head to the side, seeing him looking slightly amused. I turned slightly red. "Uh, I haven't had ice cream in years. It's just... so nice."

"Oh, come on, Keelan." Rush yelled from inside the kitchen again. "Stop kinkshaming the way she's eating."

"Ki-Kink?" Keelan sat up abruptly. "How is this kinkshaming?! How is her eating ice cream a kink?!"

"Stop screaming, Keelan. You're annoying the neighbours."

I started to laugh at how easily Rush got under Keelan's skin as his face turned red. "I'M NOT SCREAMING, YOU'RE THE ONE SCREAMING FROM THE KITCHEN!"

Rush poked his head out of the kitchen again, giving Keelan a condescending look. "Keelan, calm down. You're annoying th-oh, hello."

My head swung towards the door. We had a guest. Or for me, another guest. "Oh, hello." I repeated.

Keelan turned redder, starting to stand. "I'm sorry for the noise. I'll close the do-"

"You're quite young." The girl's eyes were on me. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen." I replied, with a bit of hesitation. She barely looked older than me.

"Oh. Still a kid. I'm your neighbour, in H. I just came by to see who's moving in. This apartment has been empty for ages."

"Go away, Arnie." Rush waved his hand in a shoo-ing motion. "She's not into women."

"Hey, she's my new neighbour. I'm interested. Also, don't call me Arnie in front of the new kid." Her eyes ran over my form. "I don't see anything on her. She looks human. What's your shit?"

"I have wings." I spoke through a mouthful of ice cream.

Arnie was silent for a while before she chuckled. She rolled her eyes as she turned to leave. "Fine. Don't tell me. See you around, kid."

I blinked blankly a few times after she left. "She doesn't believe me."

"It is rather unbelievable." Rush shrugged. "I mean, if you'd told me that you had wings instead of us seeing them in the simulation, I wouldn't have believed you either. It's one of the more outrageous augmentations." He turned to walk towards me. "I want some ice cream. I'm pooped."

Rush grabbed my hand, bringing the spoon of ice cream up to his lips to take a huge chomp before flopping onto the bed beside me.

Keelan stood up. "I could do with some ice cream." He grabbed my wrist, repeating Rush's action before he flopped down onto the bed beside him and grimaced. "Nope. It still tastes like shit. And this used to be my favourite flavour."

"It tastes fine to me." I looked down into the tub.

"My sense of taste changed for the worse after what they did to me." Keelan started explaining. "Anything sweet tastes horrible."

"And I always prefer raw meat over cooked." Rush piped up. "Mikhail has a really bad reaction to drinking too much alcohol. What's yours?"

I was still staring down into the tub. Absently taking another bite, I thought back a while. "I don't really know. I haven't had access to a wide variety of foods to test it out."

"Since you're sort of like a bat. Do you ever have urges to drink blood?"

I turned to look at the two, smirking down at them. "Your necks do look very tempting right now." On cue, their hands flew up to cover their necks, making me laugh. "No. No more than any of you anyway."

"So..." Rush trailed off as he turned his head to look at Keelan. "Been craving any blood lately?"

I snickered with Rush as Keelan rolled his eyes and sat up. "Come on." he patted Rush's stomach. "Let's go change and show her around the place. We'll head out for lunch somewhere."

"Sounds good." Rush sat up too, stretching his arms above his head. "We didn't get to take you out for dinner last time."

"Oh, you guys don't need to." I closed the tub, placing it beside me. "I'll just make something here."

"No way we're letting you eat here in your first day. We're taking you everywhere, showing you everything-oooh, it's so exciting to finally be able to hang out with you." Without warning, Rush twisted in his spot, throwing his arms around me.

I hesitantly patted his back after a few moments of getting over the surprise. "Where will we go? I don't have money."

"Ugh, can you not worry about money just for today?" He pulled back. "Wear the clothes we bought you. We'll go shopping for more." I heard Keelan groan tiredly.

I grimaced. "No, thanks. I can't wear any of these. I don't even want to rip the new shirts you've bought for my wings, more new shirts won't help."

"Then we'll buy you some cheap ones." Keelan piped up from behind. "Or those ones that come in sets. You shouldn't have any trouble making cuts in those."

My grimace didn't die out. I didn't want them to buy anything else for me in general. But they seemed determined to do it anyway. I gave a resigned sigh as Rush finally pulled away from me and stood up. "Fine. Let's go... shopping."

"That's the spirit." Rush patted my shoulder as he followed Keelan out the door.

I stood up to see them out, watching them walk down the hallway and head into their rooms, coincidentally across from each other. I was just closing the door when Arnie popped up again. I opened it again for her, giving her a questioning look.

"Good, those two are gone." She smiled at me, holding out her hand to me. Her eyes were purple in colour. "I'm Arnette. As you heard, you can call me Arnie."

I grasped her hand to shake it. "I'm Terra Carai. Nice to meet you."

"How do you know those two already? You seem quite close already considering you're fresh out of the labs."

I felt my heart skip a beat. I took my hand back, a moment of stalling to think. "We... uh... We've met a few times. I used to live in Section D, so I would go over to their Sections to find work."

"Huh, okay then." She nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. "So, you're probably going to be introduced at the Gratitude Night."

"I've been informed. What will happen?"

"Nothing much. They'll dress you up all nice and pretty, then you have to go around talk to the sponsors about yourself, drink expensive alcohol, get groped by rich, old farts." She shuddered in disgust. "I'd rather wear suits." She shifted, my eyes falling to the dark skin just visible underneath her collar. "Anyway, I'll leave you to settling in. If you need anything, knock."

"Uh, one more thing. When is Gratitude Night?"

"First weekend of November. This Saturday."

So, that means three days. "Thanks. Right now, those two are taking me out for lunch, so maybe I can go with you to the mess for dinner?"

She nodded, smiling warmly at me as she turned away. "Sure. See you later, Terra."

I waved to her back, closing the door and turning into my room. Running a hand through my hair, I picked up the wet tub of ice cream and placed it back in the fridge before starting to undress. These few days had been peaceful. Just my teammates, missions, and my cell. I had a few more days of peace right now till Gratitude Night. And then I would have to deal with him again. I'd been thinking about the fact that I might get to meet Lionel, and I didn't like that my heart rate rose everytime I brought it up. I had to wonder if it was rising in fear and worry, or excitement.

I thought back to the Rebellion base. His sharp blue eyes on me, lips inches from mine, barely breathing with anticipation. I still think my wings fucked me over that day, for both good and bad reasons.

He'd shut me down in the base before we left, saying that I would be too much of a distraction. He was right. I couldn't have distractions now. I had to think about my parents. I had to get them out of Section D as fast as possible. And Lionel, out of my mind as fast as possible.