To Change a Life

By Hannah Nelson

Hayden Kolter is a survivor. After nearly one month on an uninhabited island facing fire, frost, sickness, and death, Hayden led her friends to safety and then to victory during a brewing war against Duxia. After a shocking surprise, Hayden and Pete Girth find themselves in a Duxian prison for over two months, attempting to conquer a life worse than death itself.

To overcome the life theyve been given, Hayden and Pete cling to each other in desperation until they find themselves back in Gipem to face the extensive rage of countrywide war. Soon Hayden learns beating the enemy demands more than love and determination. It requires a labyrinth of sacrifice, choice, and despair to realize it takes just one day to change a life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503523913

Hannah Nelson

Hannah Nelson currently attends Morehead State University in Kentucky, where she is majoring in veterinary medicine and writing in her spare time. After publishing her first novel Just One Day at sixteen, Hannah published the sequel To Change a Life at eighteen. She has finished her fourth independent novel and plans to continue her literary career through college.

Book preview

Chapter One

I sit on the outcrop of stone the prison guards have provided to keep me dry. The walls are cold, the air smells of mold and urine. Through the tiny crevices of the brick laid on the floor runs a steady trickle of water too dirty to drink. Roaches crawl up and down the darkened walls of my cell. I have been here for a little over a week and Pete Girth, my best friend, has disappeared. I am almost certain, no matter how much I can’t bare it, he is dead.

The only person I ever see is the boy behind the bars, that’s his name, or that’s what I call him anyway. He sits in the chair in front of my chamber and watches me all day. I’m not going anywhere, I do not understand why he has to be here. All he does is stare at me with those big brown eyes and gives me my only meal of the day at noon—a stale loaf of bread. When I need water he fills his palms with the water from the pump and lets me sip from them. I cannot even communicate with him because I can only understand some of the language he speaks.

Three times since I’ve been here a big muscled man has checked on me, he talks to the boy. I think they speak Spanish although there is no such thing as Spain now. On the days the man comes I don’t get food. At first he fooled me with it by holding it through the bars and when I reached for it he’d yank it out of my grasp. When I finally gave up he threw it at my head and it landed in the murky water. After that I learned to keep trying for the food until he gets tired of his stupid game and leaves. The boy is more kind, I honestly believe he wants to help me. When the man bruised my head with the hard crust of the bread the boy soaked a rag in cool water and held it there. I said thank you, but the boy backed away at my ragged voice, that had been the first time I’ve spoken to him since I’ve been here, but that is not the most memorable conversation.

I will never forget the last words I heard from Pete, they were not directly to me but through the vent on my ceiling. On the first day I was taken prisoner I heard voices above me, voices who spoke in my language. One of them was Pete’s. It was just a barely audible mumble, but I heard it. Did you keep your promise? he asked.

The man laughed, Boy, I always stand by what I say, your friends are safe and sound back in your country. As for the girl, the man’s voice trailed off as he cracked a wicked laugh and then I heard the terrible sound of Pete’s agonizing scream. I tried talking to him through the vent, but he never answered and the boy didn’t try to keep me from talking to him. That day was the first day I saw the big muscled man. I asked him what they did to Pete but I don’t think he understood me. He lifted my chin with his finger and studied me, running his eyes up and down my body. His smile was so cunning and falsehearted it gave me chills, then he snickered and walked out the door. That is the nine day ago past.

The nine day ago past is fresh in my mind no matter how stuffy it is down here. I, along with five of my friends and two of the boys I loved, Cam Malrook and Pete, were engaged in finishing our mission. Our task was difficult even for the professionals: destroy the most valuable of Duxia’s offensive techniques in the war. The cloning machine. After Chipolaux Donovan had defied our country and killed who I considered my four little sisters Pete and I, the commanders of the mission, were taken prisoner. We watched as our friends and Squad abandon us after we begged them to shoot us. Pete and I didn’t want to live another second with our sisters gone and if we were to get captured they were supposed to kill us anyway so we wouldn’t be forced to tell Gipem’s war secrets. In the end they didn’t have the strength of will to shoot us and Pete and I were taken as prisoners of war.

I don’t understand why Gipem would have nine random teenagers training for war nonetheless. Yes, we were smart enough to survive on an island for twenty-seven days, mostly thanks to Pete and I. We were in no way prepared for being taken to the Center, taught and transformed into skilled killers, and being thrown into a war we were never told why the countries were fighting. Gipem citizens used the video of the island, which I remember very little of, to vote for commanders of our two Squads. The guys and the girls. After Pete and I were picked we went on two missions, accomplishing our tasks in putting an end to the lists that had us sited on the island in the first place. Before we launched for our final mission I found out my lifelong friend Mazi Seedar had gotten herself pregnant. She was half of the reason my concentration for our mission was demolished, I just couldn’t get over the fact she did that to me in my time of need. She knew her support was essential to my wellbeing because of my sister’s death on the island and when she broke the barrier I practically fell apart. And that is what led to Pete and I being taken prisoner and us never seeing each other afterwards.

Soon after I was thrown in my cell I was blindfolded. I could so easily tell the person touching me was a man, his hands were large and rough. He tore my brace off the foot I injured while I was on my first mission and ripped the stitches out one by one, it took all I had not to scream. Then he broke my cast off my wrist with his own strength and squeezed it until my knees gave. He left me in the water and I still have not been able to mend the wounds he made worse.

The boy behind the bars stands at the loud cry of someone outside the door. It creeks open and he drops to his knees. A fancy man steps in wearing a red suit and a black tie, he yanks the boy to his feet and leaves a hand print when he smacks him. I told you not to do that. I am not your God.

The boy kisses the man’s hand, Sorry master. His accent is strong, that is the only thing I’ve heard him say that is comprehendible to me. Behind the man in the suit the big muscled guy drags in a dangerously abused boy.

Pete? My voice is distorted. I reach my hands through the bar and caress his face which takes on a faint hint of recognition. The big man pulls Pete into a standing position, his body is battered from head to toe. His shirt has been removed along with his sling and his shoulder stitches revealing a wound only half healed, infection is obvious. His skin is dirty with many fist marks and cuts along his ribs and face. The fancy man dips his hat back to show his face and removes his sunglasses. Foryark Dranken.

Just the sight of him makes my body jolt to the deepest part of my cell into the shadows. I smush myself into the small space between the rock and the wall and peak my head around the side of the boulder so I can see Pete, when he looks at me he shakes his head. I can see those eyes, girl, get out here or he gets hit again.

I can’t bring myself to move, to look at his evil face with those curved eyebrows and twisted lips. I hear the sound of a hand hitting skin and Pete’s quiet yelp.

Stop, I say as I push my body into the cell bars. The big man opens the door, yanks me out, and throws Pete inside, he is so weak he lands on his back and uses both of his arms to push himself onto his elbow.

Foryark doesn’t say anything about him releasing the monster fish that took my nine year old sister’s life on the island or the murder of Ariel, Tinley, Hixel, and Broppin, instead, he tows me through a maze of hallways and into a white room. The room is exploding with blinking lights and twisty bulbs and buttons that range from small to large. The big muscled man and the boy follow him in. I can vaguely hear Pete yelling down the hallway, Don’t hurt her, take me… Foryark pushes me in a white cushioned chair and straps my wrists and ankles to the rests.

What more can you possibly do to me? I ask, I can’t get over how much my voice has changed in nine days. I’ve always been allergic to mold and I have never been overly exposed to the stuff, but now in a chamber that has a thin layer covering every surface I touch I can feel my throat closing by the day. The more my throat tightens the harder it is for me to talk. And breathe.

Girl, I’ve done nothing to you. He dims the lights down to almost complete darkness and comes close to me with a gadget I recognize as the needle to an IV.

I’m not sick, I say. He laughs that creepy laugh and pinches some skin on my shoulder. I automatically know this is not for curing an illness because this is not the correct place to put an IV. I would know.

I don’t even notice he has already stuck the needle in my skin and is wiggling the tiny plastic piece around. He turns my chair and presses the play button on the giant television screen. The beginning of the movie is so recognizable I have no choice but to close my eyes. Open those girl. I need reactions, Foryark says as he pries my eyelids apart with his fingers. And if Foryark wants reactions then reactions he will get because in this video, no matter how many times I’ve seen it, I cannot keep a straight face.

At first the video is easy, I mean waking up is a daily thing and every idiot on Earth knows how to build a hut out of sticks. The hard parts come at Ozalee’s death or the panther attack or the fire. Even Cam’s fever and the flood. Seeing the people I care about so much deteriorate to almost nothing. So you do indeed think these people are going to get you out of here? Foryark takes a seat in front of me when the video ends, the boy and the other man stand behind him.

They won’t leave me here for the rest of my life, I say. I know they will rescue us after all we’ve been through. Mazi, Lakuna, and I go back at least thirteen years, and Cam will be begging Gibbs to bring me home. Some part of me doesn’t want to go back to Gipem. Yes, I will get to see my friends and my mother but the people I won’t see will be the hardest. I will never lay eyes on Ariel, Tinley, Hixel, or Broppin again and that’s all thanks to Chipolaux Donovan. He’s the president of the military base back in the Center, he was the man who rescued us from the island, he was the man who trained us for our missions, and he was the man who pressed the golden button setting the panthers loose. The panthers that killed my sisters. I’ve considered the fact that Foryark could’ve cloned Chipolaux with the cloning machine, but then where would he get the DNA from? Plus, the person who pressed that gold button looked to real, every single detail that is on Chipolaux’s face was on the person who pressed that button, even the beauty mark above his left eyebrow. Is it even possible to clone that exactly? I don’t think so.

The only explanation I came up with is Chipolaux was really working for Duxia the whole time. Rescuing us, training us, killing them, getting Pete and I captured. He planned all this out so Duxia could have Pete and I to themselves. But then again, what would be the point of that? Duxian children could be just as talented as us, if he was from Duxia he could’ve picked one of them at random and made them into what I am, a lethal assassin. And if he was from Duxia he could’ve cloned us when we were sedated before we were put on the island and trained the clones instead of us and let our lives go on like normal. What are you thinking about girl? Foryark hisses.

I have a name, I mumble.

Ah, we know your name, he points to himself and the big guy, But you should tell the boy, he is the one who looks after you every day. All of the sudden I don’t want them to know my name, I want them to think they have the wrong girl. My eyes find the ground.

So you don’t want to speak? Foryark says, his hand rises above my cheek.

No! I know her name, the boy says, I can feel my face fill with shock. So he can speak my language?

Foryark drops his hand to his side, What is it then? He laughs as he pushes the boy to the floor.

Her name is Hayden Kolter. She is of the Rescue Squad. One of the nine of Gipem’s Glories. And the other, he is Pete Girth. He is of the Rescue Squad also. Another of the nine of Gipem’s Glories.

Foryark yanks the boy to his feet, How do you know that?

The boy stutters, The television says so. Foryark sends the big man away to go block the Gipem channel he didn’t even know Duxian televisions had.

All of Duxia knows the Rescue Squad, the boy says.

I notice Foryark testing the boy on knowledge, he asks, And is this girl a threat to you?

The boy backs against the wall, Yes, she tries to make us lose the war. Foryark’s lips twist in a cruel smile.

The boy stands next to the screen now, I can tell he knows what Foryark is planning to do. Foryark presses the play button again on the screen and the video begins. He attaches a thin clip to my IV and lets the serum seep into my body. Instantly my veins turn to ice, my fingers and toes freeze in place. My lungs are stone and I find myself trying desperately to breath. The serum is electric inside me and grows stronger as it reaches my brain. Twinkles of light threaten to set my memories aflame, as I think of all my friends I see in the island video they burn in the fiery inferno that is my head. Memories of Gibbs and training disappear and morph into a black nothingness I can’t find again. Ozalee’s death is imaginary now as if it never happened. And suddenly there never was an Ozalee, her name is written in the flames in my head and ever so slowly the letters burn one by one until she is no more.

Drums in my head beat loud as the ice and fire fight each other about which memories stay, which leave, and which are transformed into a totally new thing. The girl who got eaten by the fish vanishes, the four young ones Pete speaks of become more clear and all I want to do is keep them safe. Until the golden button begins to glitter then their death is burning inside me, now they are dead because of a man named Chipolaux. He turns evil, the feeling that he did this to me won’t leave. He is the bad guy. As the video continues on the television recollections of my life melt into each other. The memories of the island become clearer than ever while the people Foryark calls Griff, Spence, Brint, Mazi, and Bree explode into random people who mean nothing to me. And then there are the two named Cam and Lakuna. Everything about them screams good and caring, they are ice and ice heals the burns. Then the television replays my own death, outside of my paralysis I can feel the crushing of my bones as the tree lands on me. Suddenly, the ice filters through the black nothing that separates it from the fire and Cam and Lakuna are red hot coals lighting my head. I can feel myself screaming, but I can’t find the trigger in my mind telling me to stop. It hurts too badly, I couldn’t stop if I tried. Cam and Lakuna push me under the tree over and over again until the pain becomes so unbearable, so excruciatingly painful I use the black vacuum in my head to push them instead. And they are murderers. Murder is what they do. They killed me on purpose, repeatedly. For their own pleasure.

Now the video is over but one memory tugs on me: my mother. She is warm, not fire though. She is kind on the forgiving ice side. The vacuum grows, sucks more and more. I don’t want her to leave. The fire flares, it lines all of my body. Glitter falls over what I can recall of her and without any saying from ice the nothingness swallows her up. She is no more, I have no mother. The word mom lingers around in the ice for only a moment before it’s sucked into black.

Chapter Two

The serum seeps out of my veins as Foryark and the boy, maybe two years older than me, creep into my view. Foryark is smiling a wicked smile, It worked!

The boy rubs his eyes like he didn’t want that to happen.

What worked? I ask.

He takes the IV out of my shoulder, Nothing girl, how do you feel?

The boy pushes himself against the wall.

It’s not like you care, I snap. He chuckles in a deep, breathy tone.

Not physically. Do you recall anyone by the names of Griff, Brint, Spence, Mazi, or Bree? he asks. Those are stupid names, what were their parents thinking?

No, am I supposed to? I ask.

He claps his hands together, What about Ozalee, Gibbs, or mom? I laugh, this is so ridiculous he’s just saying random names.

No, I say.

How about Chipolaux, Cam, and Lakuna? he asks.

I gasp at the names and whip my body around to make sure they are nowhere to be found, They tried to murder me.

He pats my shoulder, That is exactly right.

And who are Ariel, Tinley, Hixel, and Broppin? he asks.

I can’t help but give him a weird look, My sisters? They’re dead…

He nods, Pete? Oh, his name. It feels good in my head.

After a moment I decide I do not want to tell Foryark that Pete’s name feels like an angel inside my skull. A safe haven for my mind to retreat to, even just mentioning him dulls the burning embers in my head. Pete: best friend, Rescue Squad member, Gipem Glory, abused boy, burn victim, flood target, lover…

Please, I whisper overcome with exhaustion, Take me back to my cell.

Foryark unlatches my ankles and wrists from the chair, Take her back boy, I have a feast to attend. The boy leads me to my cell, unlocks the door, and lets me inside. The second I turn around Pete is there with his arms locked tight around my waist and his forehead pressed against mine.

Are you hurt? he asks, his voice is unchanged and so sickly concerned I feel guilty about him even asking me.

No, I breathe. His touch is numbing to the sizzle going on in my head.

What did they do to you? he presses. My body freezes as the memory wrenches itself out of the blackness, dips into the ice for a split second, and fades away. An arctic pain stabs at the black vacuum trying to dig the recollection back out but only poking away at an empty pit.

Ow, I open my eyes and sway on my heels, Foryark and the boy behind the bars had me in a room and they attached some fluid into my shoulder. Um, my voice trails off because I don’t know what to say, that is all the blackness would give me, that one tiny picture.

I lead him to my rock and set him against it. Don’t worry about me, I say.

His shoulder wound is infected to such an extent it’s draining puss. I go to the bars and ask for water, the boy pumps some, and fills my hands. I let the fresh water rinse away the puss and use the tip of my jacket to clean the inside of the cut. The bell that signals noon rings and the boy gives me my bread and what they have been serving Pete, a brown watery substance. While I shove the bread down my throat Pete chugs his drink.

Is that all you get? I ask. He nods. What is it? I continue.

He shrugs, I think it’s a protein shake.

The boy turns the television on, he usually watches right after lunch but it’s kind of annoying to me since I can’t understand anything its saying. I lean against the cell bars and watch the picture of a news lady in front of the Center’s military base. I thought they blocked that station? I ask. He doesn’t look at me. I know you can understand me, I say. The boy fills his hands with water and brings it to me.

As I bring my lips to his palms he begins to speak in his heavy accent, Shut up, he hisses,