complicated

Kimberly flinched back in fear, turning around swiftly to find out who it was.

She breathed out deeply on seeing the girl that bumped into her earlier.

"Woah, sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized.

"Oh no, It's fine," Kimberly replied.

She nodded and turned around to leave.

"Hey, Uhm, about earlier, I'm really sorry," Kim said.

"Common now, it's in the past, we are good," she replied.

Kim nodded with a small smile.

"So... Your family huh?" She retorted.

"Yeah, my mom and kid brother, you know it's only being few hours but it feels like decades already, I miss them so much," Kimberly replied.

"You are lucky to have that, not everyone is opportune to have a family you know."

"Okay? I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that, everyone has a family, I mean no one fell from the sky," Kim teased.

"You'd be surprised," she retorted.

Kim noticed the small frown visible on her face.

" "No one ever cares," why did you say that?" Kim asked.

"Sorry if I'm being a little bit extra, please ignore the question," she added.

"My mom passed away, five years ago.."

" I'm so sorry about that, I didn't mean to bring up the memory," Kim retorted.

"My dad took in another wife a year later, and it's being hell for me since then, she will always look for a way to get me into trouble with my dad, and he on the other hand didn't help matters, he believes everything she says and they all painted me the bad egg, I lived in my house like a slave until she got tired of seeing me and suggested they gave me away to the SQUAD academy,"

"What?" Kim couldn't help the tears that welled up in her eyes, she had always thought that she's the only one going through shit in life.

"He knew one of the directors here so it was pretty easy, I can remember crying out all the tears in my eyes, pleading with him not to take me away, I was willing to do anything, be their slave, their toy, rag, anything just to remain in the house but my step mom had a stronger hold on him," she stopped and cleaned off her tears.

"You know, initially, I had thought life here will be terrible for me, but girl, I've been here for few months now and I feel like I don't even want to graduate after the three years anymore."

Kim chuckled as she said that.

"There's unity and love here, like one family, I guess that's what brought about the name, "the SQUAD academy," that's because we are a team,"

"It's so peaceful here, so calm, everyone has equal rights, so long you abide by the rules and regulations, this place is practically your heaven," she said.

"Why do y'all keep talking about the rules and regulation?" Kim retorted.

"That's because the owner of the academy is the coldest and ruthless man on earth, he doesn't take crimes lightly," she replied.

"He can be really sweet and down to earth, but he has strong detest for violations, people often say it's better to jump off a high cliff than breaking any of his rules." 

"Who is he? What does he look like?" Kim asked impatiently feeling cold shiver wash over her body.

"His name is London Malik, the finest man on earth, you'll see him at the orientation," she replied.

Kim suddenly went mute, staring into space.

From what she just heard, it will be a death sentence breaking any of the rules, but with the complications of her situation, she knew she'd be breaking one in no time.

"Hey, don't give much thought to it okay? Its not that bad," the girl said.

Kim breathed out deeply.

"Uhm, I'm starving, do you know where I can get something to eat?" Kim asked.

"Of course, come with me to the cafeteria," she said and started heading away, Kim followed behind.

"My name is Kimberly by the way," Kim said.

"Claire," she replied.

**

She took Kimberly to the most amazing cafeteria she has ever set her eyes on.

It was classic and was filled with other students but luckily, it wasn't entirely noisy.

The floors were glassy and same were the walls that she could see her reflection in them.

Everyone was seated neatly on a table, discussing with his/her partner (s) while eating, They were all dressed so neatly and classy.

Claire took her to the reception where she met about six ladies dressed uniformly.

There were other students as well, placing orders. 

"Order anything you want. Its free" Claire said and she she gasped.

"F...free? Are you kidding,"  she stuttered.

"Yes, girl. Everything is free," Claire replied.

"Fucking incredible!" She exclaimed before she could stop herself.

"Language," one of the ladies snapped at her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she quickly apologized.

She took the menu from the table and scanned her eyes through it and finally settled for mac and cheese.

It was given to her together with a drink.

Claire also ordered hers and after which, they looked for an empty table to use.

"You seem to know so much about this place, can you enlighten me more?" Kim said as they munched on their food.

"Everything will be broken down to you during the orientation tomorrow," Claire replied and she nodded.

"You should know though, here we are trained to help the government fight crimes and they pay our boss heavily for it, that's what he uses to make sure we live comfortably here," Claire said.

"For instance, there might be a ship containing golds and silver which should be useful to the government. We would go to claim the gold in the ship and deliver it to the government."

"Sounds pretty simple to me," Kim muttered stuffing her mouth with a spoonful of cheese.

"Yeah, it is, but then you know where the bigger problem lies? "The kings," she added.

"The kings? What's that?" Kimberly asked

"More like, who are those, they are another crime fighting academy, but they are the bad guys, rumor has it that our boss used to one of them, they were doing pretty well until the kings authority started shifting the goods to themselves, he didn't want to be part of their evil scheme so he left and set up the SQUAD academy," she explained.

"Interesting," Kim mumbled.

"It's not, the KINGS are horrible people, all they do is track government goods and try to steal it but it's our job to stop them, and trust me, it's not an interesting experience," Claire said.

Kim suddenly dropped her spoon.

She is a feeble school drop out who's looking out for her families survival, not a fighter or a soldier, she doesn't even know how to throw a good punch.

"I think I lost my appetite, how come you said it's peaceful here? Our lives are clearly at risk," she snapped and Claire bursted into uncontrollable fit of laughter.

"It's not that horrible Kim, you'd be properly trained before being sent out on a mission, and you'd also be highly equipped, we hardly get injured not speaking of getting killed, the only place you can get injuries easily is at the training field, trust me," Claire tried to cheer her up.

"Wait, why can't the government fight this KINGS with their forces? Why impose it on us?" Kim asked.

Claire chuckled lightly.

"It's impossible for the government to bring them down because they also have heavy sponsors in the government, they're some secret bad people in the government who're strongly supporting them," she explained.

"Complicated right? Don't worry, you will get to know everything during the orientation tomorrow okay? For now just please, finish your meal and go have a good rest, you have a big day tomorrow," she added taking hold of her hand stroking it gently.