Vasilisa –
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them."
George Orwell
I awake to the sound of the door slamming, and the noise nearly causes me to roll off of the bed. After a quick look around the room, I realize that Rose must have left. I rub the sleep from my eyes, wandering where she could have gone.
The sheet of metal covering the window keeps me from being aware of what time of day it is; it could be twilight for all I know. Our suite is still a mess, but I don't care enough to clean up the destruction I had created after I had first arrived in Portum. Instead, I pull on my boots and slip out of the room.
I am greeted by a pale morning sun, one that provides little warmth. I find myself wondering the streets with no particular destination in mind. I pass a few people on my journey to nowhere, but one person in particular draws my gaze.
It's a child. She seems impossibly small; tiny hands, tiny features, even her laugh is startlingly diminutive. How large must the world appear to someone so small? I find that I want to run to her, to sweep her into my arms in an attempt to shield her from this life of intolerance. She deserves better that NAAMA, better than Portum, better than this world.
The girl turns and smiles at someone, and her smile is like a miracle painted upon a dreary canvas. She starts skipping down the sidewalk, skirting piles of rubble until she reaches a man. He kneels in the shade of a building, a smile on his face and his arms outstretched toward her. She throws himself into his embrace and he lifts her into the air, shrieking and giggling in delight.
It's the first real sign of humanity I have seen since arriving here, and I can't bare the sight of it.
I turn away, something like jealousy and grief roiling in my gut. It reminds me too much of Victor. The image of him floats on the outskirts of my mind, an incessant reminder that the more you love someone, the more power you give them – the more it hurts when they betray you. It's like a sliding scale of love and torment except I'm not measuring anything tangible, just the misery that lays coiled in my own heart.
My fists are clenched at my sides and my eyes dart down the streets, searching for an escape. I settle for a fire escape that barely clings to the side of a tall building. I drape my body on the rusted ladder, arms hanging over the bars and my chin resting on the top rung.
My chest is heaving with every breath, and the air feels more like fire as I pull it into my lungs. I hate Victor; because of him I can't even look at something as innocent as a girl hugging her father without feeling like someone is ripping me apart at the seams.
A hand on my shoulder pulls me from my thoughts and I whirl around faster than I thought possible. I let out a small scream at the sight of Christian Ozera, his blue eyes hard and his face contemplative.
He cringes slightly. "What was that for?"
"You scared me!" I snap, smacking his arm. "What do you want?"
He narrows his eyes, appearing to debate whether or not he's going to tell me now that I've assaulted him. "What are you doing in this alley?" he asks, sounding genuinely curious.
"None of your business," I tell him stiffly. "Now what do you want?"
"I just thought you'd like to know how Rose's appointment with the physician went," he tells me, sounding as smug as ever.
I smack him again. "Of course I want to know how it went!"
To be honest, I hadn't even known that Rose had gone to see a physician, but I suppose it makes sense that an examination would be a stipulation of any agreement she had made with Tatiana. It would also explain why she had left our room at the crack of dawn this morning.
Christian's expression is caught between a scowl and smile as he rubs the spot on his arm where I had hit him. "Now I don't think I want to tell you," he tells me, sounding devastatingly wounded.
"Fine," I huff, starting to walk away. "I'll just ask her myself."
Christian's eyes widen minutely and he reaches out to grab my wrist, holding me back. "Wait."
A part of me is screaming to pull away, to wrench my arm free of his grasp, but I don't. I remain rooted to the spot, and for an instant I can't remember why I had wanted to leave in the first place. Christian's grasp feels like a bracelet of electricity and it's like a wave of energy passing through me and frying my senses.
"I spoke with Tatiana," he says, and the mention of her breaks the spell.
"And?" I demand, finally drawing away from him. "What did she say? How is Rose?"
"Rose has been cleared for combat, she'll start training with the ad Salvum soon."
His face is a mask of chiseled indifference, his tone completely devoid of feeling. I search his eyes for a trace of emotion – this is what he had wanted, what he had been campaigning for. Shouldn't he be more relieved?
"That's a good thing, right?" My words are laced with hesitation. "It means she's expected to recover."
Christian's impossibly blue eyes darken. "According to Tatiana."
The way he says her name is unnerving, each syllable drips with something I can't quite discern; like there's something more to what he's saying.
"What about according to the physician, what was her name? Sage?"
"Sydney Sage." He glances over each of us shoulders before returning his gaze to me. "She lied," he says in a low voice. "To Tatiana."
Christian might as well have sucker punched me in the gut. What had she lied about? Why had she felt the need to lie in the first place?
"Why would she do that?"
He rakes a hand through his hair, dislodging a few dark strands. "Not everyone here supports the council. There are those who believe that intelligence and strength manifest themselves differently in different people."
"And Sydney is one those people?"
Christian nods. "She wanted to give Rose a real chance at a future here."
"Does Rose know?" I ask, trying not to chew on my bottom lip.
"No," he admits. "Sydney didn't tell her, Tatiana kind of put her on the spot."
I grip my head between my hands in an attempt to keep it from splitting apart. "Why would she keep something like that from Rose?"
Sydney is a stranger. She doesn't understand how much Rose values her strength, what a false diagnosis would do to her.
"Because I asked her to." Christian struggles to find the right words. "To keep her safe," he says finally.
"Which one?" I ask bitterly. "Sydney, or Rose."
"Rose," he says quietly. "She's a walking open wound, it's written all over her face…she isn't the same because of what happened. If she knew the truth, she would act accordingly. Tatiana is already suspicious, already looking for a reason to send Rose packing. One wrong move, one wrong word or expression could be the difference for Rose."
"So she can't know." I'm not sure if I had meant to ask my words in the form of a question, and my voice doesn't sound like my own.
Christian nods, and a flicker of pity flashes behind his carefully constructed mask.
"But she's going to start training with the guard…if her injury is permanent, training could make it worse." Pieces start to come together as I consider the impact of Sydney's lie. "She could hurt herself. Christian, you have to help her."
Christian shakes his head, slow and deliberate. "I don't know how, that's why I came to you."
"Train her yourself." I had meant my words as a suggestion but they come out desperate and forceful. "You have to."
Christian frowns. "I don't train with the ad Salvum any more, the council is going to hand the position over to a new guy…" His voice trails off, and his eyes widen as if he had finally found the answer to all of his problems. "That's it."
"What's it?" I demand.
"Mason Ashford," says Christian, sounding almost excited. "He's the new captain. He went to the Academy with Rose, we can trust him."
My expression darkens. I still have trouble accepting that not everyone within the military is a monster. "So everyone but Rose will know the truth?"
"It's for her own good."
"I still don't like it."
Christian eyes me meaningfully. "You don't have to like it."
"Fine." I turn on my heel and begin walking away; away from the alley and away from Christian.
The sound of footsteps tells me that he has followed me.
"Is there something else I can help you with?" I ask, my words filled with a forced sweetness.
"There is actually," he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. "You have to take your test today too."
I keep walking, willing myself not to betray any emotion. "Lovely."
"But first," he says reaching out once more to take my hand. "I want to show you something."
I try not to concentrate on the way his hand feels as he leads me down a series of narrow streets and then up a slight hill. He finally releases me when we reach an open field, surrounded by scorched brick buildings. At the end of the stretch of grass are the remains of what looks to have been a particularly large structure. Now, the only thing that remains are blown out windows and crumbling walls.
"What are we doing here?" I ask, scanning the rubble. "Did you bring me out here to murder me?"
He laughs softly, but doesn't answer. Instead he kicks at the ground until he hits something solid, the sound reverberating and bouncing off of what remains of the walls. He bends down and pulls open what looks to be a trap door. I take a few steps forward until I'm close enough to peer down at whatever Christian wants to show me: it's a staircase.
"Ladies first," he tells me with a wicked grin.
I stagger back. "No way."
It's pitch black down there and I feel my pulse quicken, my heart fluttering beneath my ribs like a caged bird.
"Please," he says, and the request sounds strangely foreign on his lips.
I force myself to put one foot in front of the other, and follow him down the steps. Before we become completely immersed in the darkness, he pulls out a lantern – exactly like the one Rose had given me.
The light casts strange shadows along the walls and across the steps. We haven't ascended too far beneath the Earth's surface when Christian comes to abrupt halt in front of me. He holds up the lantern so that the rest of the room is illuminated. I gasp at the sight of it all.
The stairs open up into a wide room filled with books.
Books.
There are books everywhere, lining the slanted shelves and littered across the dusty floor – more books than I have ever seen in my entire life – more than I had ever dreamed existed. When Victor and I had escaped to the Midwestern Province, it had been with nothing but the clothes on our backs. We'd been forced to leave everything behind, and so the only books I've ever known are the ones that Victor had written himself on scraps of paper, bound with string and staples.
I take a tentative step forward, dust rising around my boot in tiny puffs as I do.
"How?" I croak. "How is this possible?"
Books aren't supposed to exist, not any more, not in NAAMA. Executor Ozera had started off small, banning only certain kinds of books; books about science and a few particularly damning history books. It had escalated quickly from there; soon the citizens were instructed to turn over anything written before the Pulse.
Then the libraries were burned.
The schools were bombed out of existence.
The written word wiped away from the world; a blank slate for a blank society.
"This is Florida," says Christian, as if that should be enough of an explanation. "The water table and the topography here don't make digging underground easy. Most buildings don't have basements, but this particular library did."
"She didn't know," I breathe. "When she had it destroyed, she didn't know this level even existed."
"Exactly," he turns to offer me a knowing smirk, but I can't focus on anything but the books.
I wander over to the nearest shelf, one hand outstretched to stroke the spines. I pull one of the books off of the shelf. The volume is made of leather and even though it's cracked and the words are worn, it's still one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It's strange to think about how books are just different arrangements of the same 26 letters, in the same way that our bodies are just different arrangements of the same 11 elements. We are all made up of pieces, and like pieces, we are all apart of something bigger than ourselves.
But I don't want to be the sum of my parts. I want to be more than the atoms that comprise the cells that make up the bones that hold up my body, in the same way that books are more than just the ink and the pressed pages and the letters.
I hear a soft chuckle and realize that Christian is now standing less than a foot away from me.
"What's so funny?" I demand.
He shrugs casually. "Your face."
I feel heat rising up the back of my neck, threatening to creep its way onto my face and color my cheeks. "What's wrong with my face?" Even as I ask the question, I feel myself turn away.
"You're smiling," he says. "It's adorable."
The heat might consume me.
"I knew you would like it here," he continues. "You look like the book sort."
"Oh yeah?" I ask. "And what exactly does the book sort look like?"
He furrows his brow, pretending to consider my words. "It's not anything physical," he says, sounding surprisingly serious. "I can just tell."
"Right," I say, widening my eyes in mock disbelief. "I forgot you're all knowing."
He scoffs and takes a step toward me. "How could you forget?"
He's close, so close that I can feel the warmth radiating from him. Christian is everything fiery and fierce, burning with the heat and intensity of a dying star. I look closer at his eyes and the curve of his jaw and the fine lines of his face and the softness of his lips. I want to reach out and touch him, but keep my fingers curled around the book for fear of being burned.
He seems to be regarding me with the same deep concentration. I can't help but wonder what he sees when he looks at me, surely there is none of the devastating beauty that I see whenever I look at him.
"Lissa," he says, a hand waving in front of my face. "Anyone home?"
Apparently this is not the first time Christian had tried to get my attention.
"S-Sorry. Were you saying something?" I stammer.
A slow, knowing smile starts to spread across his face, his mouth curving upward and his tongue running across his teeth. I'm not sure what I want to do more; kiss his stupid, annoyingly arrogant face, or punch him in it.
He leans down slightly and I force myself to remain perfectly still despite the fact that I'm almost positive that if I were to look down, I would see my heart lying at his feet.
He's closer now.
Impossibly, achingly, tormentingly close.
The alarm on his watch beeps and he reels backward into one of the shelves. My cheeks burn with embarrassment and I shove the book back into its place.
I hear him curse. "You're going to be late."
…
Christian leaves me outside of what looks and feels like a classroom. It reminds me of the long years I had spent at the provincial schools back at my compound, complete with wooden desks and a scornful looking instructor. I find that Dimitri and Adrian have already arrived and I end up sitting in front of Adrian, who feels the need to yank on my ponytail in the same way he had when we were children. Dimitri sits next to me, looking as serious as he had the first day I had met him. Everything about the situation is familiar and foreign to me all at the same time.
A man sits behind a heavy oak desk at the front of the room, shuffling a pile of papers and glaring at the three of us every few minutes or so.
"Where have you been?" Dimitri asks, turning in the tiny chair to face me.
The sight of him folded up behind the desk is almost amusing and I cannot even begin to imagine how he had managed to get his massive frame into the seat.
"I was just…" I try not to fumble too much with my response. "Ya know, walking around."
Smooth, Lissa. Real smooth.
Adrian yanks down on my ponytail for what feels like the millionth time. "You're not fooling anyone. I saw you with the Ozera kid," Adrian speaks with his usual lazy contempt, not sounding as if he cares very much about what he's saying.
I slide down in my seat, careful to avoid Dimitri's gaze. "He was just escorting me to the test, that's all."
The man at the front of the room rises from his seat just then, taking special care to make as much noise as possible as he does. He clears his throat and the three of us turn to face him.
"My name is Jared Sage, and I will be your test proctor," he says, his brown eyes passing over the three of us with cold consideration. "You will have one hour to complete the test."
He hands a stack of papers to Dimitri, and two sets to me. I reach around to hand a set to Adrian and he lets out a sigh of boredom before taking them from me.
"What if I have to go to the bathroom?" Adrian asks.
Jared Sage's expression is thunderous. "Hold it."
He scoffs. "But I had like, four cups of coffee this morning."
The proctor chooses not to dignify Arian's comment with a response. "Begin."
The scholar in me can't help but flip through the papers with interest. I see everything from reading passages, to essay questions, to mathematical equations. I reach for the pencil that sits at the edge of the desk and set to work.
The test is broken up into sections, and I find that know the answer to almost every question. A part of me silently thanks Victor for teaching me so well, another part curses him. Nothing feels out of place until I get to the final page of the exam and find that there is nothing on it except for the outline of a square. The directions tell me to put anything I want in the square – a drawing, a poem, anything that I feel represents a part of my intelligence that has not been tested up until this point. I feel myself starting to panic, they want me to be creative.
Instead of sketching a brilliant representation of my imagination or writing an expressive short story, I draw the outlines of the period table. Victor had drilled the elements into my mind when I was 11. It's not creative, but I hope that whoever grades my test will at least be slightly impressed.
I hear the sound of paper tearing from behind me and I fight the urge to roll my eyes. That sound can only mean that Adrian is up to no good. I glance over at Dimitri and see that he has already finished with the test. His hands rest in his lap and there is an uncharacteristically bored expression on his face.
"Time's up," comes the stern voice of Jared Sage.
He gathers our materials and ushers us out of the room without another word.
"Wasn't he delightful?" gushes Adrian as soon as the classroom door shuts behind us.
Dimitri shakes his head and leads us out of the building and onto the sprawling lawn that Christian had led me through earlier.
"Adrian," I say, slowing down my pace to match his lazy march. "What did you do to your test?"
"Ah," he says, flashing me one of his boyish grins. He reaches into his pocket and then withdraws a crumpled piece of paper. "I thought that last bit was ridiculous, so I tore out the square and left a ransom note at the top of the paper."
Dimitri smacks himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand, muttering something in Russian before asking, "You did what?"
"I told them if they ever wanted to see their precious square again, they had to give me a perfect score."
Dimitri bites down on his lip, and for a moment he looks like he might explode, but when he opens his mouth it isn't to yell - it's too laugh. His laughter is infectious and soon the three of us are all doubled over, wishing we could see the look on Jared Sage's face when he saw what Adrian had done.
It feels like we're back at the compound again, too young and too naïve to care about the world beyond the stone walls. That feeling is short lived though, and reality creeps back in as we make our way into the dining hall of the Duval. Dimitri scans the crowd and I don't need to ask who he's looking for.
He weaves in and out of the tables with Adrian and me in tow until he reaches a table at the back of the room. Rose is sitting beside a boy, his hair the color of a sunset with freckles dancing across his nose. Christian sits across from them, his blue eyes ablaze with amusement. They all look strangely comfortable with each other, and it unsettles me for a reason I can't quite discern.
"Hey!" says Rose, leaping up from the table when she notices Dimitri and the rest of us.
Her eyes are bright, her face is slightly flushed – and she's smiling. She looks more alive than I have seen her look in weeks, so completely content with the world. My stomach begins tying itself in knots when I realize why she's smiling.
She doesn't know Sydney lied.
She thinks she's fine.
"Did you hear the good news?" she asks, gesturing for the three of us to join her.
I sit down next to Christian, and I feel him kick me under the table and I try not to glare at him. Dimitri sits on the other side of Rose, and I notice that he hasn't taken his eyes off of her since we'd walked into the room.
"What is it?" Dimitri asks.
"I had an EMG done this morning and I'm expected to make a full recovery," she declares triumphantly. "I get to start training with the guard soon."
A look of pure relief washes over Dimitri and he leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead in a rare showing of public affection. "That's wonderful."
He pulls away to study her, not seeming to care that there are other people in the room. Dimitri stares at her like he's seeing color for the first time.
Christian squeezes my knee under the table and I nearly leap out of my skin. I'm not sure if the gesture is meant to comfort me, or to remind me to keep my mouth shut.
Adrian clears his throat loudly. "Glad to hear you'll be back to your old, ass-kicking self again."
"Yours is first on my list," she tells him, breaking away from her staring contest with Dimitri to smile menacingly at Adrian.
"What did you do to get on her bad side?" asks the boy with the red hair, smiling good-naturedly.
"I turned her down," says Adrian, shrugging casually.
Rose rolls her eyes, "This is Mason, by the way. We…we went to school together."
Mason.
The new captain of the guard.
"That," says Rose, pointing accusingly in Adrian's direction. "Is the one I was telling you about."
"All good things I hope," Adrian drawls, staring at his cuticles.
Mason chuckles and then looks at Rose. "He's not nearly as pretty as you said he was."
Adrian looks appalled. "Lies," he seethes.
Adrian and Rose continue trading insults, and I use it as an opportunity to lean in to Christian. "Is that him?" I breathe. "The captain?"
Christian nods, but doesn't look away from the spectacle that Adrian has created.
"What are you two over there whispering about?" asks Rose.
I feel my entire body go rigid, but Christian doesn't miss a beat. "I was telling Lissa about the time you threw a book at Stan Alto's head and called him a fascist bastard."
Rose looks horrified for a moment, but her expression quickly turns into a scowl.
"Is it story time?" asks Adrian, sounding excited for the first time all day. "I bet you two have loads of dirt on Rose."
Mason's face lights up. "Did she tell you about the time she scaled the administrative building in her underwear?"
Adrian leans in. "Go on."
"It was the night before graduation," says Christian. "It was a part of her RPD initiation.
Everyone at the table stares at him with interest, but when I look over at Rose I see that she has gone white as a sheet. Her glow from earlier has been completely extinguished, but no one else seems to notice. They're too busy listening to Christian tell his story.
She stands up suddenly. "I have to go," she whispers.
Before any of us can react, she bolts away from the table. Dimitri isn't far behind her though, and the two of them disappear into the lobby, the door to the dining hall swinging shut behind them.
So on my other fic, a few of you asked about my future projects. I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to update that story, so I figured I would answer some of your questions now. The outline for Haven is done; it's just a matter of expanding on that so you will definitely get to see the end of this story.
The outline for To Forgive and Forget is under construction but my goal is to have that one finished before I start on Awake (which is the conclusion to Pulse).
And because I'm, ya know, a psycho – there is another project in the works. It's going to be magical and I could not be more excited because it's a collaboration with Gigi256, who I absolutely adore. She's the reason I started writing and I'm pretty much just a crazed fangirl and this project is an actual dream come true.
So there it is folks! I hope you enjoyed this update and that you're as excited as I am for what the future may bring!