Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

hair, but she quickly put it back to rights, turning to smile at her partner who was slowly getting up from the ground.
    “Sorry, Rob. I was just following the instructions.”
    He limped away, rubbing his head and his eyes. “Yeah. Whatever.” He went over to join the rejected kids with stooped shoulders.
    “Where are you going, Rob?” I asked loudly.
    He stopped and turned slowly. “I thought …”
    “You thought wrong. Get your butt back over here.”
    “Are you going to poke my eyes out again?”
    Everyone laughed.
    “No,” I said, laughing along with them. “You’re safe for today.”
    He smiled and walked over to join the two guys that remained and Winky, giving them all high-fives.
    “That’s it for this session,” I announced, checking my watch. Twenty-five minutes to find three guys and one girl. Sweet. “You guys who were told to step out can go. The rest of you, bring it in.”
    I moved over to meet them in a huddle, giving them the instructions to talk to Peter at dinner to get their training schedules. They all smiled and nodded, justifiably proud of themselves that they’d made it this far. I looked around at the group and decided that I’d probably have to go through a second cut tomorrow morning. I was going to end up with a lot more than eight candidates at this rate, and I couldn’t afford to take anything but the best. This was going to be harder than I thought.
    I made it through the rest of the day with the seven other sessions, finally able to cut all but eleven guys and three girls. One of the eleven guys was Bodo. I really wanted to be able to cut him too, but he was bound and determined to be a part of the operation. When he both eye gouged and nut hammered his opponent, he’d loudly given credit to his girlfriend and demanded a kiss right then and there. Even the worst dirty-look I could send his way didn’t stop him from insisting on it, right in front of everyone. I had been afraid it would lower their opinion of me as a fighter in their eyes, but it didn’t seem to have that effect at all. It almost made them seem more positive about the whole thing.
    Go figure. I’d never been able to read anyone before except in the one way I’d been trained to from the time I was practically a toddler. I guess it was unrealistic for me to expect myself to be able to do it now.
    ***
    Peter and I spent the evening working our way through the list of candidates that he slimmed down to the final group as they arrived at dinner to check in with him as instructed. He set us up to meet the next morning at eight o’clock so I could make the final cut.
    The mood at dinner was lively. Most of the ones who hadn’t made it to the final level were offering their services as fighting partners; the few that didn’t were at least laughing along with the conversation. The ones who had been chosen were getting a lot of attention, and all of them seemed to be enjoying it, with the exception of Winky. She just shrugged everyone off and kept mostly to herself.
    I went over and sat down next to her, balancing my plate of food over my crossed legs.
    “Hey, Winky. What’s up?”
    She shrugged. “Nothing.”
    “You don’t seem very happy about today.” I felt like I needed to give her an out if she wanted it. “If you don’t want to do this, it’s no biggie. We have plenty of qualified guys to choose from.”
    “No, I want to do it,” she said, not looking at me.
    “So what’s the problem then? You don’t seem like you’re too excited about it.”
    “Well, I guess I’m not. I mean, it’s a good cause, and it needs to be done. And I want to help. But the idea of killing someone? It makes me uncomfortable.”
    “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. And it’s gonna happen. If someone’s coming after you, you’re gonna have to make that choice.” It was time to be brutally honest with her. This trip wasn’t about just self-defense and we all knew it. “Honestly, if we leave those canners there, they’re just going to go get more kids and kill them, too.” I sighed. It wasn’t easy, what we were planning to do. “I know you were raised like I was, to know that killing is wrong. But life isn’t that simple anymore. It’s like, kill or be killed with these guys. They don’t have that human instinct that says life is precious.”
    “And that people shouldn’t be eating people,” she said with disgust in her voice.
    “Yeah. Exactly. I mean, if we knew that after we took