Rescha Graves's Story

As soon as Kamala had put a hand against the tree and grit his teeth together, Rescha was worried that he was going to be sick. It honestly looked like he was going to throw up or cry. One of the two. That had been the reason why Rescha stood up from the stump she sat on and started to cross the distance between them.

But she stopped suddenly.

A sound came out of nowhere and was loud enough to penetrate Rescha’s ear protection. Her face skewed into high confusion while she looked around and shifted from foot to foot. Rescha wasn’t sure what was going on and she definitely did not like it.

She lifted her hands to her ears and waited for it to be over.

And it was soon enough.

“Kamala,” Rescha yelled out before realizing her ear buds were still in. She pulled them out and just let them fall to the ground. It was seconds later that Rescha was at Kamala, grabbing for his face. A coppery, metallic, smell assaulted her nose. It was easy enough to identify.

“You’re bleeding! And what was that?”

Instead of the tree holding Kamala up, Rescha was doing it instead. As soon as he had wavered, she stepped quickly to his side and slipped beneath his raised arm with her own wrapping around him supportingly.

“You’re so stupid,” Rescha told him in a scolding tone. Her face reflected the reprimand too. “Look at you,” she spoke to Kamala, “You can’t even hardly stand up right after doing … whatever that was, and you think you can use it on a mission? That’s gonna get you killed!” A twinge of hurt lanced through Rescha and she thought for a moment about pushing Kamala over to show him just how horrible he looked, at least to her.

“C’mon. Let’s get you back into the bunker and get you cleaned up or somethin’,” Rescha said in a more hostile tone than she meant.

“Kamala! Think fast,” Rescha said before she shoved the young man with her hands roughly. A grin splayed across her face playfully and her ponytail bounced in rhythm along with her feet. She had watched him come into the gym, but Kamala did not seem interested in doing anything at all.

Well, if Rescha could help it, she was going to motivate him. She gave him another shove attempting to flare his temper.

“Yes, you do, you screwy twit,” Rescha said, laughing through her grin. She planted her wrapped hands on her hips before taunting him even more. “You scared to fight a girl? Maybe I will break your nose just like I did to Treia,” the girl stated before raising up her hands to protect her face.

“Kamala is afraid to fight a girl!”

She shuffled over to Kamala and made a jab for his bicep. Her attention was caught for a moment and Rescha looked over to Patchi, rolled her eyes at his antics, and glanced over at the other woman whom she shared a bunk with. Rescha shouldn’t have looked away as it had left her wide open.

Rescha flinched as Kamala hit her side but it was more out of surprise than pain. It didn’t hurt at all. The girl growled in frustration and then put her dukes up before throwing a hook for Kamala’s face.

It hit home on his cheek with enough force to whip his head to the side. Rescha only noticed at the last second that he was distracted.

“Oh … shit.” She was like a deer caught in headlights. Rescha was in trouble now.

Rescha snapped back into reality with a terrible blush on her cheeks. She would apologize to Kamala later but first things first. The girl shoved Patchi in tandem with Kamala.

“Hey! Don’t shove him, stupid! And stop calling him bad names!” Rescha looked like she was about to punch Patchi square in the face.

The air in Rescha’s lungs was exhaled in a great ‘whuff’ sound as Patchi hit her right in her diaphragm. She stumbled back a few steps while holding her stomach, after having the wind knocked out of her. That was going to leave a very large bruise in the morning—in a few hours.

Rescha felt like she wanted to vomit but luckily had an empty stomach. A strange rage came over her before she wheeled around the group to make for Patchi’s backside. Her leg reeled back and came forward with the full intent on nut punting the arrogant boy.

Unfortunately, if Kamala had been successful, that meant Rescha was going to be tackled down to the ground along with them due to her inopportune timing.

As soon as it registered with Rescha that her bunkmate—of all people—was stepping on Kamala’s hand. That did not fly well with the girl at all. Rescha gave up on hitting Patchi, some because Kamala had said so and mostly because she was throwing her full weight against Bryanne to make her stumble, using her shoulder. However, Rescha was a small girl at barely five feet tall and around a hundred pounds. She was as petite as they came.

“Get off of him!”

Rescha had stumbled a few steps herself after Bryanne went down. The girl was mid-step in helping Kamala back up to his feet before the voice rang out. She froze once more as the lieutenant caught them all fighting.

When Kamala had mentioned something about Patchi punching her, Rescha just muttered a “M’fine” while rubbing her upper stomach. She wasn’t fine but Rescha was still standing. Rescha nodded at Kamala’s question and then followed him out a few steps before feeling the urge to need to vomit again now that the adrenaline had passed.

Rescha ran to the latrines.

Rescha did not like this at all. The entire week was going to be absolute torture being separated from Kamala. She had not been since they first met aside from a few days after the unfortunate escape attempt.

The girl just glowered at the dirt, grinding her teeth. There was no way she was speaking to the other woman. Not a chance after she had stepped on Kamala’s hand.

Rescha Graves kicked a rock, making it roll a few feet. Rescha didn't even look at the other girl as sweat rolled down Rescha's face. Already she could feel the familiar skritch of sand in her clothes and the uncomfortable stickiness of her sweat.

"Stupid."

Rescha eyeballed the rock she had kicked seconds earlier and then got an idea. She was good at hitting targets, but only targets that Rescha could see. However, the girl didn’t realize this and wanted to test out a theory.

Rescha went to the rock, picked it up, and threw it over the building giving it a little ‘push’ in order to send it over the building. It cleared it but whether it hit Patchi or not was a mystery.

Rescha Graves grumped and promptly sat on the ground despite what the lieutenant had said. She didn't care.