Ch. 53 | New Beginning 11: Girl Behind the Door 1

Every person in the room freezes on the spot, and even the heat in my chest seems to shrink almost as if on instinct.

In the middle of the open doorway stood a girl. Under normal circumstances, she’d be more or less the same height as me, if not slightly taller, though right now, I towered over her enough that she had to tilt her head back to look at me. Still, based on the look on her face, she wasn’t much impressed by my height.

She had light brown skin and wore short shorts with a yellow heart-shaped belt buckle, along with a shiny white star stitched onto one of the pockets. A pink shirt sat over black-and-pink striped sleeves, while knee-high pink-and-white socks covered most of her lower legs. Her brown-blonde hair hangs in two uneven tails, hastily tied with little care for appearances.

Judging by the frown on her face, she’d pretty clearly just gotten out of bed and looked ready to murder whoever had been the poor soul unfortunate enough to wake her.

Her gaze drifts slowly around the practice room, taking in the hole in the wall behind me, the second one farther across the room, the cracked panels, the dust still hanging in the air, and the blood smeared across Narun’s mouth. Marcus, who was still half-baked in white dust and pieces of debri, Maya, who is standing beside yet another crater, Oba, who has somehow ended up looking as clean as before the scrap, to the point where you think he left and took a shower while no one was looking, and then, finally, her eyes settle on me.

Everybody remained still as corpses as she was eyeing us down.

For a moment, Alysa herself just stood there and stared. Then her eyes closed, her expression tightened, and one foot resumed tapping against the floor in a slow, increasingly irritated rhythm.

“Well, who was it? Fess up right now, and I MIGHT spare your life,” she growls through clenched teeth.

I glance around the room, and whatever confidence I had left disappears the moment I see the looks on everyone else’s faces.

Maya is the first to speak, cutting through the tense silence.

“Alysa, the captain already told you that you’re not supposed to sleep during watch duty.”

Maya’s voice was careful in a way I hadn’t heard from her before, stripped of most of the confidence she’d shown since I arrived. She stood a few steps away from the open security-room door while Alysa glared at her through half-lidded eyes, her hair still flattened on one side from sleep.

“Fuck you.” She replies flatly.

Maya’s expression tightened.

Alysa scowls at her. “I’ll sleep whenever I want during my sleep duty.”

“Watch duty,” Marcus corrected absent-mindedly.

The words were barely out of his mouth before his face changed.

Alysa slowly turned toward him.

She stared at him for several seconds before her brow furrowed slightly. Marcus shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, and I caught Narun looking away as though he already knew exactly where this was going.

After a few seconds of silence, Alysa frowns at him. “Who the fuck are you?”

Marcus blinked and pointed a finger at his own face.

“It's me– Marcus.”

There was a second of silence.

“I’ve been here for a while already.” He added.

“Oh.” Alysa blinks once, then looks him over from head to toe.

“Can’t expect me to memorize every fly that crawls through here.” She said as she dismissed him with a small wave of her hand.

Marcus looks like he wants to argue, but one glance at Alysa makes him change his mind real quick.

“Besides,” she continued, “you look weak. People like you don’t usually last long enough to be worth remembering.”

Marcus’s expression tightened. Narun looked away with his jaw clenched, while Oba stayed where he was near the wall, suddenly looking much more interested in the floor.

What irked me most wasn’t the insult itself, but how quickly everyone went quiet afterward. She was belittling their friend—technically my friend now too, and not one of them pushed back.

“Alysa.”

Maya spoke more sharply this time.

Alysa whirled back toward her, her twin tails whipping through the air.

“What?!” She snapped.

“The captain specifically told me to make sure you didn’t antagonize the squad again when she was out.”

Alysa stared at her for a moment, then stepped closer until she was right in Maya’s face. Maya was a little taller than her, yet when Alysa stepped in close, Maya seemed to shrink a little on the spot as if she was trying to disappear into the ground. There was nothing physically imposing about Alysa. She was thin, petite, and aside from the attitude, about as harmless-looking as they came. And yet, whenever she moved or spoke, the entire room seemed to tense around her.

There was something about Alysa that put me on edge too, so I couldn’t really blame the others for reacting the way they did. Being around her felt like standing too close to a rabid dog that might explode on you at any moment. Every shift in her expression, every sudden movement felt like it could suddenly escalate into violence, and judging by the way the others kept watching her, I clearly wasn’t imagining it.

“Oh?” she said softly. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Maya didn’t answer.

Alysa jabbed two fingers into her shoulder, causing Maya to stumble.

My eyes narrowed as I watched Alysa lean down and right into Maya's personal space.

“What are you going to do about it?” She repeats, this time with a colder edge to her voice, her eyes fixed on Maya.

“I’ll tell the captain,” Maya says quietly.

A smile spread across Alysa’s face.

“Oh, but the captain isn’t here.” She leans in closer, and I could see the terror wash across Maya's face as Alysa grabs her by the front of her shirt and pulls her closer towards herself and whispers in Mayas ear, “I’m the captain now.“

“That’s not how it works,” Maya mutters, looking away from her.

Alysa’s smile widens.

“Wanna fight about it?”

Maya’s hands curled at her sides, but she didn’t raise them.

Alysa’s smile widened.

“Thought so.”

She let go with a shove, and Maya hit the floor.

“Pussy,” Alysa sneers as she turns away, only to stop and glance back at the rest of us.

“Actually, that goes for all of you. All bark, no bite. Always whispering behind my back—Alysa this, Alysa that.” She plants her hands on her hips and looks around the room. “Well? You’ve got something to say about me, say it now. I’m listening.”

I still had no idea who Alysa really was, only that she was clearly important enough for everyone else to put up with her shit. From the way the others reacted whenever she opened her mouth, I could only assume she was the dreaded vice captain Maevis had warned me about. Either way, I knew what I was supposed to do. Keep my head down, stay in line, and try not to start a fight on my first day. The problem was that somewhere over the last few hours, Maya, Marcus, Narun, and even Oba had already become the closest thing I had to friends in a very long while. Stepping in was probably going to come back and bite me in the ass. I knew that. But I’d spent too many years being the person everyone could push around while all the people nearby pretended to conveniently not to notice anything. I still remembered how badly I’d wanted just one person to say something.

Nobody ever did.

And now came the time when I got the chance to be the person who spoke up, and I sure as hell was not going to miss it.

“Who the hell do you think you are, talking to people like that?!” I snap, my voice rising.

I guess that it came a bit out louder than I expected, because everyone’s attention was suddenly turned right at me. Maya had gone a little pale, while Alysa just stared at me, looking genuinely confused by the interruption.

“Huh? And just who’s this supposed to be?” She asks, turning toward Maya.

“Did we just get another fly while I was out on my sleeping duty ?“ She bent down even lower, her hands still at her hips. “Well? Did we?“

“She’s the new officer,” Maya said quickly. “I told you about her, remember? You were supposed to meet her at the door and introduce her to the squad.”

“Oh, that.” Alysa waves a hand dismissively. “You could handle it just fine on your own. No need to bring out the big guns for every little thing.”

I stared at her, completely dumbfounded. I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone quite this peculiar, and considering some of the bizarre people I’d run into over the years, that was honestly saying something.

A loud cough came from behind me. When I glanced over, I saw Marcus with his hand clamped over his mouth, his eyes planted at the corner of the wall, his body completely rigid, not daring to move an inch.

Alysa gives him a brief glance to him and then turns her attention back to me.

“I don’t like this.“ She says deadpan, then makes an exaggerated vomiting gesture at me, "Blegh ! Disgusting ! Go kill yourself."

Heat rushed into my face. There was something painfully familiar in the way Alysa spoke to me, and after watching how she’d treated the others, whatever patience I had left finally snapped. I could feel my anger burn hot in my chest.

My hand curled into a fist almost on its own, and the shape of it felt strangely unfamiliar. I glanced down and remembered I was still transformed, dark plating covering my arm as my altered fingers tightened into my palm. For a moment, I stared at my clenched hand before turning my attention back to Alysa. I wasn’t helpless anymore, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand there and watch her push everyone around.

I stepped toward her, and I watched all color drain from Maya’s face.

Maya grabs me by the arm before I can take another step. “No. Please, just don’t.” She pleaded quietly.

I turned back toward her, but the look on Maya’s face stopped me dead in my tracks.