The taller one opened the door for me, we all stepped inside the meeting room. I took a glance at the grand, stained glass windows all around the walls and ceiling. I took my seat at the end of the table, waiting for the others to arrive. The inside of my cheek got chewed and the flesh ragged as I awaited to get chewed out for leading such a reckless and futile mission, without the consent of the board. People had started to trickle in by the time that General Smith came into the room, glowering at me with enough burning hatred to melt the table between us. Hunter walked in behind him, and my heart started beating faster. Hunter and I had been kept separate since the mission, any unauthorized contact and protocol was to be taken against us. All fell silent as the head monarch, Claudius Greys, waltzed into the conference room. I rose to my feet along with some of the other soldiers and commanders. Greys reached the head of the table and turned to us all, a mad sort of power glinted in those black, beady eyes. With a slight nod, he dismissed us from our stances as all those standing hurriedly found their seats.

Talk over how the course of the meeting started to proceed when I started to zone out of the conversation; It would be more beneficial to listen, to try and make amends with the mess that I had made, but a certain blonde hair nurse was all that was on my mind. The way her smile made the nightmares more bearable and the reassuring touches she gave helped me keep going. The faint smell of peaches and strawberries flooded my memory as I relived her holding me close. The kiss started running rampant through my mind. What could she have possibly meant by kissing me? I was nothing more than another patient for her to patch up and send off, was that her way of saying goodbye? With every blink I took, I could see her working over those goddamn papers, tapping her pen against the clipboard as she thought of what to write down. Tap. Tap. Tap. The tapping began to grow louder as when it dawned on me that my memory was not the cause of the tapping.

I started to focus on the meeting to see that Claudius Greys and General Smith were both as red as sunburnt lobsters with all the shouting that they were doing. The projected presentation was clicking with the stats being flipped back and forth rapidly. After taking a quick glance to read the room, it was noted that everyone had their hands above the table. Checking first to make sure that the argument was far from over, I started to study the glass and the ceiling. Hues of many colors danced across the walls and table, the ceiling was a rainbow of itself with all of the reflecting. Oranges, Greens, Yellows, and Violets intertwined above; all of the panes seemed to have all of the same colors, so why was a blue pattern finding its way onto the table? I narrowed my eyes in on the blue and saw it quiver the slightest. I jumped up out of my seat and ran over to the monarch. I tackled him and we both crashed to the ground as the bangs started going off.

Wails of pain started bouncing off all of the walls, replacing the colors that once stood there with a much bloodier picture. Guns. Where were all of these guns coming from, and how was this much ammo being supplied? I wrapped my arms around Greys and dragged him farther under the table. I sat back up and reached for the stunner gun left on the monarch's chair when a foot tried to collide with my face. I grabbed the ankle instinctively and wretched sideways as I scrambled away from the stomper. An agent, male I presumed, stood facing me with two guns pointed at my chest. I went in between his arms and shoved them out to the side, making the guns drop with a twist of the wrists. I headbutted him at the top of his crown. A deep grunt came from the figure and a sharp elbow to just under my collarbone, hitting my healing wound. I hissed in pain and brought my knee up, catching his chin. I swung my right fist and collided with his face. I hissed again when his knee struck me in my ribcage. He kicked me down to the ground and started to straddle me. With his hands wrapped around my neck, it was clear how this was going to end. I tried fighting back, everything grew more desperate as my lungs ached for air. I rasped out garbled obscenities as the fingers dug deeper into my throat. His black and blue suit had started to become a blur when he released me from his grasp. My wheezing and coughing filled the room as the masked assailant made his way up and back out the window. I lied there and waited for an hour, glancing over constantly to make sure that Greys was still breathing.

After an eternity, guards busted in through the door and checked the area for survivors. Twenty-five people walked into the conference, ten made it out alive. I was talking to the medical crew about my perspective of what had happened when a furious General came stomping up towards me.

"How the HELL did you know that shots were going to be taken? How could you have possibly known?" I glared at him in silence as I wiped his spit off of my face.

"All of the stained glass windows in there had four colors, so why was a fifth moving across the table, inching closer and closer to the monarch?" Smith opened his mouth to object, but for once no sound came out. I'm sure that he had been forced to review my files enough times to know that I wouldn't lie about these little details. He snapped his jaw shut and turned on his heel, looking intently towards the ground in an attempt to hide the growing redness spreading across his face. Once the nurses were done interrogating me, I asked if any of them had seen Janie.

"Sorry honey, she went back home. I heard that her grandfather got hurt in some of the riots, she rushed out of the infirmary real quick. I am sure that if she was here, she'd be the one asking you all of the questions, though," The nurse received a small smile and a genuine thanks for her information.. A small ache made its way to my chest at the thought of Janie being out there and vulnerable to attack. Those thoughts were pushed away to make room for the new objective, I started making my way over to the training room to see Ingrid.