Untrained Eye by Jody Klaire Page A

Frei
pushed away with ease. “Make yourself useful and build as big a wall as you
could.”
    “Sounds wise.”
    Frei finished her reps the same as I did mine. My arms began to
protest at the punishment. “Where I was, yes. Where I am now, it becomes
foolish.” She leaned forward onto her knees. “The rules outside are different.
People don’t understand the loyalty being imprisoned breeds. They also don’t
get why you want to rip something apart when threatened with it.”
    She sounded like she knew, like she understood. “I can’t imagine
you being inside.”
    “ Should have been.” She started another set, driving me to
follow. “The prison I lived in was far worse than Serenity.”
    “I thought you said you weren’t inside.” I shunted up another set.
My heart started to pump harder. A welcome feeling.
    “I was a slave.”
    The bench dinged again as I stopped. “You what?”
    Frei kept her smooth motion going. I was sure she wasn’t even
sweating.
    “People . . . that don’t happen no more . . . does it?”
    Frei gave me a look as if she thought I was an idiot. “You saw the
things that went on in Serenity Hills. That isn’t meant to happen anymore
either.”
    Good point. “How’d you get out?”
    “I didn’t.”
    I finished my set and leaned onto my knees to draw in my breaths.
“You’re still a slave?”
    “I’ll always be one, at least in some ways. Same as you
will always be a locked up mental patient.” She met my eyes with her steely
gaze. “It never leaves you.”
    “It don’t?” I had pretty much gathered that. I guess, before now,
I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself.
    “That’s what most people, including Renee, will never understand.”
Frei, moved us over to work out our legs. She added my weights for me this time
before doing the same herself. “It isn’t their fault you were locked up and it
isn’t yours either.”
    “If I’d told—”
    “No.” Frei started her set. Her weights looked more than mine yet
her legs didn’t even wobble. “If you told everyone you ‘saw’ the crash or
didn’t at all, they would still have locked you up.”
    I started my set and my legs protested. She was working me. I
gritted my teeth and gave it what I had. “Least you get that.”
    “Here’s the thing about Renee.” Frei looked like she was flicking
her feet in a nice cool stream. “She comes from a happy home life. She attended
the best schools. She lost her father who was a national hero but she is close
to her mother now.” She kept her slow, steady rhythm. “Her perspective on life
means that she thinks justice comes through the courts, that injustice doesn’t
happen.” She sighed. “And she has a nasty knack of thinking she’s right, a
lot.”
    It sounded like a pretty cutting description considering Frei was
supposed to like her.
    “You confuse her,” Frei said.
    I frowned. “How?”
    “Because you don’t know much about her, yet you’re prepared to do
anything for her. She doesn’t get that it’s part of surviving inside. You bond
or you isolate yourself. Simple.”
    “If you’re isolated, you’re prey to the bullies.” That was
something I did understand. There was always somebody with bad intent,
somebody who took offense, safety in numbers.
    “Yes. Thing is Renee can’t understand that’s where you’re coming
from. Neither does anyone else. Which is why she has the whole freak out when
people like Sally sniff around.” Frei shook her head, a wry smile on her face.
“That was the extent of her biggest problem before Yannick. That is still her biggest fear.”
    “Why?”
    Frei finished her set. More so to give me a breather by the way my
heart was thudding. “She cares what people think. She has a family name to
uphold.”
    I didn’t get how somebody as heroic as Renee could think that.
    “She gets embarrassed but suffering is relative.” Frei gave me a
“quit judging her” look. “It’s a big deal to her. Now you’ve erased her