CHAPTER 151: 151-THE EMPTY TRUNKS

Clementine:

"What kind of catastrophe?" I asked, watching her take a deep breath. She seemed pretty upset about whatever she was about to say.

"There was a time when the Academy gave a lot of weapons to the crusaders on their first day, their first mission. It was supposed to be a trial. They expected them to use the weapons wisely. But the North is different from any other place. People do things they normally wouldn’t when they are not in the North. One of them, who didn’t want to be part of the squad, used those weapons to kill all their squad members. When questioned, that squad member blamed someone else, saying they had been influenced."

She paused, took another deep breath, and bit into her steak so hard it sounded like she was biting the fork.

"Anyway, I know you can find weapons in the North. But anything brought back from there can be harmful to us. Nothing from the North can be trusted," she said, making us take a deep breath. Little did she know, we had already gotten weapons from the North. I mean, she did know, but was she suggesting we shouldn’t use them? Well, we were way past that point.

"If someone wants to kill, they will kill regardless," I said. "The excuse that a weapon is all they need doesn’t feel valid."

She nodded. "True. It’s just, we don’t want to be the ones providing such weapons. Killing one person individually is different from killing many at once with a weapon."

Although she tried her best to explain, it didn’t make sense. The chances of someone killing us with a weapon were less than the chances of a monster killing us. Or maybe not.

"You said it yourself the white squad was being messy, right?" she asked. "Then would you feel comfortable with us giving them a weapon?"

None of us could respond.

"We asked them the same thing about you all, and they gave us the same answer," she added.

I grunted. "Well, that’s ironic since we’ve never killed anyone."

I hissed the words, and she nodded. "True, I agree with that. But they don’t."

"Anyway, the thing is, you have to learn to survive. Or we could send our own lurkers. But like I said, the will to survive is what compels us to bring in young crusaders. I hope I’ve answered your questions. If there’s anything else, you can always come to me. Ask, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability. I will never shut you down," she said as she finished her meal.

She set her fork and knife down delicately and wiped her mouth clean. "Now, you should be escorted to your room by the lurkers." She pointed at the ones standing by our table.

This was the first time. I didn’t know why they were tightening the rules. Maybe because we were being resilient. I couldn’t be sure. But they were clearly bothered that we were raising our heads and our concerns.

Once we entered our dorm room, I noticed Ian smirking.

"I hope you guys didn’t let that little chick get into your head," he said, mentioning Rue with little respect.

"I mean, she tried to answer as much as she could," Troy replied with a shrug. He always wore sleeveless shirts, which made his biceps look insanely buff.

Meanwhile, Yorick went straight to his bed, knelt down, and opened the tin trunk. He started frantically searching for something.

"I’m just saying she only answered what they told her to. Why do you think they sat with us this time? Why the sudden change of heart and the need to know us, to be nice to us? It’s because we’re raising questions they don’t want to answer. So now they’re trying to play nice to compensate," Ian argued.

But my attention stayed on Yorick. The way he turned around, got up, clenched his jaw, and shook his head showed he was pissed.

"Where the fuck are our weapons?" he shouted, pointing at the empty tin trunk.

"What?" Ian muttered, instantly kneeling beside his own bed to check his trunk.

I did the same. We had decided to distribute the weapons among ourselves, but none of us seemed to have any left. I even checked my tin trunk.

"What the heck?" I grunted when I found nothing. Haiden and Troy said the same. There were no weapons left in our room.

"Isn’t it obvious? They took them from us," Ian growled.

"Huh, now you believe me when I said not to trust that chick?" Ian grunted as he paced the room angrily.

Yorick sat on the bed, looking disappointed, while Haiden stood by the window, fisting his palm. Troy leaned against the wall, shaking his head.

"You’re right," I said with a grunt, admitting they were only nice to us because they knew they were screwing us behind our backs. "Now what? Should we go and complain?"

"And what would we say, that we want our weapons back? Didn’t they already give us a huge-ass lecture on weapons and why they’d never give us one?" Ian shot back, reminding me how cunningly Miss Rue had told that story about weapons and crusaders dying.

"And who knows what else they can do? They could ask one of the white crusaders to use the weapons against the others just to teach us a lesson, even if we convinced them to give us weapons," he went on.

"And then what? We’d be the ones to take the blame for the deaths," Troy added, pointing out that the ringleaders could do anything, and there were too many corrupt crusaders ready to do their bidding.

"So what are we going to do? Nothing? Just sit on our ass?" I asked, watching Ian squeeze his eyes shut, then shake his head.

"Early morning, we’re going to spy on the train. Forget whatever Miss Rue said. We don’t trust them," he decided, and we all nodded in agreement.

"Let’s go to bed, Crusaders. Starting tomorrow, North isn’t our only mission," Ian declared, and we all shared a look before agreeing with him.

But a small part of me wondered what if we were making a mistake? What if the ringleaders were onto us?