Beep, beep, beep.

My head was thumping and the constant whirring only added to my headache. It was excruciating to breathe through my arid throat, even the Plains were moister. Slowly, I moved my head a tiny bit but it sent volts of electricity shooting through my spine. I wanted to scream and beg for mercy but to no avail. I was frozen by sedation.

Eternity passed and gradually the swirling blackness relinquished its grasp one me. I moved my head more to the same agony but my reactions were no longer subdued. A hand comforted me, locked in mine as I yelled in pain. Rachel?

I had to see her.

It took me a while to open my eyes but I got there, at first my vision was blurry. I blinked away the tears and a face began to form, a girl's but... no scar. Her hair was blonde while Rachel's was black and I finally recognised the face. Elyse.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, endeavouring to keep the disgust out of my voice. I still didn't like her.

"Oh charming," she muttered, obviously, my face was an open book, "I thought you might have wanted some company."

Now, I felt bad. My eyes diverted from her face and I gazed around the room. I was in an infirmary; there were four other beds but all empty. In the far corner, a nurse of some description waited patiently. To my side was a lot of high tech machinery, you would have thought that we might have developed it to be a bit quieter. Not the case.

"Elyse, why am I here?"

"You were quite lucky really. Juan found you on the floor in the abandoned wing whilst patrolling. You were in pretty bad shape, lots of cuts and bruises. He took you straight here."

"How did I get like this?"

"We're thinking an animal might have gotten into the compound and set up a den in the abandoned wing. Everyone's keeping a look out. But don't worry, Verity, you're safe now."

That couldn't be right. I had no doubt that Juan found me but he didn't find me first. His frame was too small. I remembered someone... bigger. I closed my eyes and tried to remember but all I saw was blurred shapes and echoing voices in the dim light.

"I can't remember, Elyse!" I wailed.

"Shhh, shhh, it's okay."

Her hand stroked my hair and I looked up at her. Perhaps, she wasn't so bad after all. Sometimes it was people with personalities too similar that clashed

I so badly wanted to tell her everything, how I really got hurt, the fire in the abandoned wing, Rachel's injuries. All this secrecy was driving me insane!

"Verity, there's something I need to tell you," Elyse said. I sensed that it wasn't good news.

"Last night, while you were missing, we still had to go and try to intercept the NukeFusions delivery for the rebellion. Except it didn't work out, again. Everyone was in position, exactly like Lucas had ordered, by half thirteen we were ready and waiting for midnight.

"We had expected it to take a while for the hover truck to come but it was taking too long. We kept waiting and waiting for this truck to come but it just didn't. When we tried to reach Lucas in the WalkTalk, there was no reply and we couldn't communicate with anyone else either. I believe that was the same issue you and Rachel had with the prisoner truck the other day? Anyway, it still didn't come and by this point over an hour had passed so it was like way past midnight and there was still nothing. It wasn't even like the truck had changed route because we know it was coming from across the Plains, there's no other way to reach Zyphia.

"So we knew it was risky, since we have all heard about the perilous Plains but we set up a camp to stay there the night. We were already in squads so it wasn't hard to set up and  we had a rotating watchman throughout the rest of the night.

"It was really early morning when the WalkTalk suddenly came alive again and Lucas told us that the delivery was happening in the next couple of minutes. We were concerned but there are a number of reasons for the truck to be late without it involving us. Like fuel or breakdown and stuff. We cleared the camp and got ready to intercept from our location, just many hours later from when we expected, when we were all drained.

"So a couple minutes later, this hover truck was sighted  right up off in the distance, except we also spotted two hover cars and a hover plane as security for the truck. Then, as they were drawing close and we were preparing for a lot of added security after calling for backup, all the crafts veered off to the right and headed right around us. They were just too far out of reach and we missed the delivery."

"I'm so sorry, Elyse. I know we really needed that delivery."

The idea of us having nuclear weaponry was pretty horrific but it was an unimaginable concept with the weapons in the government's hands.

"No Verity, you are missing the point!" Elyse exclaimed, earning a stern glare from the nurse.

She apologised and lowered her voice to a whisper.

"The truck was supposed to be alone and it came with three other crafts as security. The truck was suppose to come at midnight yet it was delayed until very early morning when it knew that we would be exhausted. Then the truck just suddenly veered off course and went around us?! It's like it knew where we were."

"Elyse, what are you saying?"

"Verity, I think there's a spy in the Resistance. Someone here is corrupt and is feeding the government real information."

I thought back to Rachel and here ominous 'trust no one '. Did she know about this? Did she know who it was? Was that what she was trying to tell me?

My head started spinning again and suddenly I felt all woozy and dizzy. I fell back on my pillow and breathed in a few ragged breaths. I looked at Elyse, there was still something bothering her, something unsaid.

I paused and made absolutely sure that I was fine before slowly sitting up again.

"Elyse, what is it?"

"I probably shouldn't say, the nurse wouldn't want me to worry you."

"Elyse," I said, more sternly now, "just tell me."

She hesitated, trying to decide on the outcome of an impossible battle.

"I'm just going to put it out there first that I don't agree with them nor believe them."

"Elyse, you're scaring me. Agree with who? Believe who?"

She looked me dead in the eye as she spoke so I knew she wasn't lying. Shame was written all across her face.

"The Resistance, Verity. They believe the spy... is you."