The next three years were strange for Tamara and her newfound friend, Lee. They were taken to a huge building that had been miraculously erected since the Rift had opened, where they were sorted by age into smaller groups and brought to large, gymnasium-like rooms where they waited for a number of hours. The group of thirteen and fourteen-year-olds was the most heavily guarded.

After a long period of waiting, a team of people in protective suits came in and began scanning the children. All the children showed no signs of the curse, except for Tamara who had small traces of it on her skin and clothes from being around Marx. She pretended she had no idea where it might have come from, but deep in her heart she knew. The soldiers let her off, but kept a wary eye on her.

Next, they were taken to an auditorium with all the other children and the Enforcer stood at a podium and made a speech. During the whole process, Tamara and Lee stuck together, and when they were all moved to dormitories they ended up being across the hall from each other. Tamara and the other girls in her room were locked in for the night right after they were moved to their dormitories.

After a few days of getting settled in and being told what was going on, the kids were given identical black uniforms with a single colored stripe on the sleeve showing their age. Fourteen-year-olds were purple, thirteen were green, twelve were blue, and so on. They were tested in a large arena to decide their skills and were sorted into teams that they would train with until they were official soldiers.

There were a number of teams: Soldier, Tech, and Investigation were the main ones. Tamara was in the Soldier team, Lee in the Tech team. They were separated into groups of four or five and were given a teacher in their department that taught them from eight in the morning to five at night. The soldiers were taught how to fight monsters that came from the Rift, and the Tech team was taught how to work the many sensors and programs used to learn more about the RIft, among basic techy things.

The classes were enjoyable, the food was good, the beds were comfortable, and the bathrooms were clean, but Tamara still hated the place. She had been taken from her family without the chance to say goodbye, and it hurt terribly. They weren't allowed to visit, call, or send emails or letters, and Tamara felt very homesick and missed them more than anything else in the world.

After their day of training, they had free time and Tamara would always spend time with Lee. She tried talking to him about how she missed her family, but something about it hurt him, so she made sure not to mention it to him after that. Eventually, he told her he didn't have any family and was a foster kid. He had been moved around more times than he could count, and he never really got attached to his most recent family, or they to him, despite living with them for almost a year. Lee said he knew it wouldn't last, being with them. Tamara tried to convince him otherwise but couldn't. His mind was set.

They had many talks like that after their daily training sessions. They would do their occasional homework while sitting in a secluded corner of the giant courtyard with huge, unscalable stone walls and talk and just be kids. Tamara never told Lee Marx had been her best friend, and Lee kept his secrets to himself. It worked for them and they slowly became very close friends.

Eventually, the teams were well trained enough to be split into different teams consisting of two Soldiers, a Tech, and Investigator. Since they were two of the best in their separate divisions, Lee and Tamara were in the same group along with Jack, a soldier, and Alexa, an investigator. The four had to do everything together, and were soon friends despite Alexa and Tamara originally not getting along very well.

During those three years, monsters began regularly climbing out of the Rift and a guard had to be posted on the wall built around the Bowl. The Rift had widened and lengthened considerably as well, and as time went on the monsters came in greater numbers and it grew faster and faster. Horrible wailing could be heard on some still, moonless nights.

The soldiers were restless because the monsters weren't enough to sate their hunger for fighting, now that they had their own weapons. Some fights began breaking out, but Tamara stayed away from it. The only time she fought was when someone was when she was having a bad day and Lucas Brighton teased Lee about being a foster kid. She beat him into a pulp and no one dared fight her after that. Lee was embarrassed but grateful, and told her never to do it again.