unbroken (unexpected series)

Chapter 43

        I placed the first picture on the projector, and watched as the blood drained from her face.

        She was safe on this island, however her family, the people she thought she would leave and they would be perfectly safe, were dead. Jason had the pictures to prove it and now, she was seeing it.

        Her mother gone.

        Father gone.

        Sister gone.

        “The war that’s coming, is with the people that had that,” I pointed to the screen, “done to your family, they are the ones I want to remove from authority. I don’t have time to sit and baby sit you like you’re some child. That. Is. A. Waste. Of. My. Time.”  Her children around her, tears in their eyes, the room still deathly silent, while minds raced wondering about their family.

        The people they left behind.

        I turned to Lola, for a minute, finding the next clip that I needed, “Who here is not aware of areas where they aren’t supposed to go?” I waited. Nothing. Oh God… Lola sank down lower.

        “So everyone here knows that certain areas’ of the island is off limits? That’s what I’m getting with the silence? Am I wrong?” oh god… no…

        Lola bit her lip avoiding my eyes, her heart racing, “Lola, you were aware you went somewhere that you were told specifically not to go?”

        She looked up her eyes meeting mine, tears there and Leland sat saying nothing, just watching this happen, angry with his daughter, “I know I wasn’t supposed to be there,” she whispered.

        “But you decided to go there anyways?”

        “Yes,” again her voice shaky.

        “Why?”

        “We – Anthony and I – we wanted to-” before she could finished I answered her.

        “You were doing something you shouldn’t have been doing, and since you knew it was wrong, and something that your parents wouldn’t approve of you had to do it behind their backs. Where could you go to do something behind their backs? A place they told you not to go? A rule was set, not to trespass onto that beach? Right?”

        “Yes.”

        "You were born on this island?” I asked her again, so many children and teens here, were actually born here, they didn’t know what life as like for our kind in some place.

        “Yes Luna,” she added her voice wavering. “Okay,” I replied turning the video on.

        “For those of you that were also born here, you’ve been sheltered, living the good life here and not understanding, grasping just what life is like outside of this island. Grant you hear stories from newcomers about the treatment that others get but I think there is this gap, this blindfold over your eyes preventing you from placing yourself in the shoe of others,” no one said anything, “this video was taken by Jason, he was given a recording of a young girl receiving her punishment from a pack in Denver…”