Author's Note: This last week was my first week of school! I can't believe I'm back already! Anyway, I hope you all like this chapter! When I was reading it it felt a little rushed. If you guys feel the same way I can go back and do some editing. On a side note: how was my French? I have French III, but I'm a little rusty. Enjoy!
Sleep evades me for the rest of the night. Somewhere around 5:30 I fall into a chair by the window and watch the sunrise over the compounds.
I've been dressed for the day for half an hour and, having exhausted all my other resources, have been pondering the moving clouds ever since. Sometimes I wonder if they can see. Eternally floating across the sky, what do they think of the humans that lay on their backs in the grass to find their shapes? Do they love the couples that kiss under their downpour?
Today I have opted for jeans that I believe Warner has referred to as high-waisted and a soft t-shirt, hoping no one will come by. Warner's kiss is always on my mind, but it is drowned by my worry for Adam.
I don't want tocan't leave with Adam, but at least then I could keep him safeā¦
Will I ever see him again? Where will he go? How will he escape?
These questions plague me, but I have other problems to contend with.
Warner. All my issues bear his name. I need Warner to test my power. I need Warner to keep me from his father. I need Warner's kiss to stop replaying in my head. Exhaustion didn't make time for my feelings last night, but in the light of day they are forcing themselves back to the surface.
I begin to sort information in my head.
The kiss was amazing.
The kiss was the sleep-deprivation fueled result of a near-comatose state.
Warner is not his father.
Warner looks like his father.
Warner has tried help me.
Warner forced me to touch an innocent human being.
"Ugh!" My hands the muscles in my face. Why can't the world be black and white? Why doesn't Warner just leave me and my demons in peace?
6:00, 6:30, 8:00.
I feel like I have wasted so much time. Two hours of my life spent being entirely unproductive and repeating the same questions to myself over and over.
Then again, nothing is more deterring than 264 days of solitary confinement.
Finally, when the clock is nearing 9:00, the door clicks open, sending me flying from my chair.
A soldier I don't recognize stands before me, a cold look in his eyes.
"Juliette Ferrars? Warner requests your presence at brunch. Please follow me."
The man walks briskly, his legs nearly twice the length of mine, and I have to run to keep up. I barely recognize the path to the room Warner and I spent yesterday morning in. He thrusts the door open and falls into a stiff salute for Warner as I tentatively enter.
Warner is sitting at a table surrounded by food and papers. His face lights up when he sees me. I sometimes wonder how it can make him so happy to see me. What must life on base have been like before I was under Warner's care?
"Ahh, bonjour, mon amour!"
He waves a hand to dismiss the man as I struggle to understand his words.
"Bon-what?" I ask, sure that I sound uneducated.
Warner laughs, "Bonjour. It means 'hello' in French."
"French?" It's a vaguely familiar word, but it doesn't take root in my mind.
"It's another language, love."
For the umpteenth time, Warner's information catches me off guard. I have only ever known English. The only people I have ever known were English-speaking. Was it foolish of me to think it was the only way people communicate in this world?
"There are other languages?"
"Hundreds."
My chest tightens, but my mind begs to know more. Other languages!How large can the world be that we have so many ways to communicate?
I have the sudden urge to travel. I know the numbers, I know how many sectors there are and how many Supreme Commanders exist, but I never gave thought to the amount of space all of this would take up. The only world I have ever known is this inside of a building.
"Why? Why didn't I know this?"
Warner's face darkens, "My father- actually, the Reestablishment as a whole- wish to get rid of all current language and unite us with one of numbers."
A memory flashes through my mind of Adam telling me the same information weeks ago in my cell. Lost in my mess of a life, I had forgotten.
"But all that literature? All the understanding?"
My captors words come stiff and hard from his lips.
"Being disposed of as we speak."
The weight of the universe crashes onto my chest. Years of writing from authors, scientists, historians gone just because our government doesn't see that value in the simple pleasures anymore.
A sense of urgency sends me flying to the chair next to Warner, one I never would have chosen otherwise.
"We have to stop them!"
"Since they began burning books I have been collecting as many as possible, but it's a little difficult to-"
"Teach me." I say.
Warner stills his hands, the pen falls from his hands. His eyes flash to my face.
"What?"
"Teach me French. Teach me all the languages." My hand flies out to the fabric on his suit coat. He stays perfectly still; his incredulous glance at our connection the onIy movement. I am practically begging, refusing to let this purely human quality go to waste.
Warner laughs again, but smiles fondly. "I don't know them all myself, love."
He seems tranquil, calm, almost, acting in stark contrast to the way I feel. I cannot be deterred, "Then let's start with what you do know." I scramble for a pen and a clean sheet of paper.
"What did you say to me when I walked in?"
"Bonjour, mon amour!" He says the words quickly at first, but slows down when he notices my blank stare. I look down at the paper and begin to write.
"And what does that mean?" I ask when I have set up my page for note-taking.
Writing these words is almost comforting. Despite the horrid memories of my years in grade school, I am ushered back to a simpler time. I was never an excellent student, and certainly not very popular, but learning was an escape from the taunting and the fear. And yet this is so different. The more affluent of my peers are probably sitting in the exact same spot they were when I left, copying down the same information year after year while I am being taught French by the most powerful person in our Sector: a boy with dimples that would make any girl wish she were an abomination.
"Juliette," Warner redirects my focus. "Give me that paper."
Defensively, I clutch it to my chest. "What? Why?"
"You are butchering the French language, just let me do it."
Minutes, hours, days pass, I can't really tell. Warner patiently writes phrase after phrase in a notebook for me, teaching them all to me. He abandons all his other work, leaving it scattered about, and writes feverishly.
With each new expression learned my heartbeat slows a little more, my mind is a little more content. I finally have something the Reestablishment can't take from me.
I have seen Warner work before, but none of that compares to now. He works tirelessly to teach me this nearly lost language. If there were once moment where I could separate Warner from his line of work, from all his horrid actions, it would be this moment, right now.
All good things must come to an end, however, and shortly after an emaciated maid rolls more food through the doorway, Warner takes the notepad and pen and puts them to the side.
He meets my eyes.
"I'm sorry to cut this lesson short, but I believe there is an elephant in the room we need to discuss."
Oh.
God.
The kiss.
I am not ready to talk about this. Not now. Not until Adam is gone and things are settled and my own being is no longer a mystery to me.
I try to open my mouth, try to bite the bullet, but Warner beats me to the punch.
And he says exactly what I wasn't expecting.
"There has been a lot of talk, love, but not a lot of action. We still need to run some tests of your power."
Quickly, my mind reroutes, celebrating the avoidance of an awkward moment, but falling to its knees at his actual words.
"T-tests?"
Warner sighs, "Juliette, I do have a job to do here. Certainly by now you've realized that I am keeping you here as more than just a torture device."
He looks almost surprised at my own surprise. He's not keeping me here to abuse people? What about everything he said about the war..?
"Oh, love. Haven't you realized how little you have done since your arrival? We have at least twenty-five prisoners that come through the base everyday. We aren't exactly treating them to tea."
"Twenty-five? A day?"
Warner can hear the derision in my tone and I don't care. Everyone in the compounds is starving. Everyone steals to provide for their family. No one likes the Reestablishment. We were promised a better existence by a system that is tearing us apart. People are more beaten down than ever and the world is broken.
"There is much you don't know about the world, Juliette," Warner warns. As much as I want to yell, want to scream, want to argue, I let the conversation rest.
"So," he says, "tests."
We stand and leave the room. On our way out, I grasp as much food as I can, desperate to not let it go to waste. Warner makes his way back towards his room with me in tow. A blush creeps onto my cheeks. My last visit to this room was with a much different person.
Without a word, Warner disappears into his closet and produces a pair of shorts I never would have chosen for myself and a small tank top.
"Put these on."
"No way."
Already exasperated, he tries again. "Do you know how many exceptions I have made for you, Juliette? Put them on, please."
"I'll be practically naked, Warner!"
This earns me a glance that has me wishing I hadn't said anything at all.
"What can I do to get you to acquiesce?"
"Let me wear actual clothing."
"We're running tests that require physical contact, Juliette."
"Sweatpants, at least?"
Warner sighs. He rubs his race and brushes his hair out with his hand.
"Why do you make my life so hard? Why do I allow you to make my life hard?" He steps forward and plucks the shorts from my hands, racing back into the closet, and depositing new bottoms into my hands.
He gestures toward the bathroom. I disappear inside before he can change his mind.
I pull on the sweatpants, rolling them a few times. It comes to my attention that they may not be meant for the female form. They are a blessing compared to the tiny tank top. I don't look in the mirror, sure it will make me more self conscious.
Reluctantly, I step outside the bathroom.
All the air leaves my lungs when I see Warner.
I have seen Warner in suits, I have seen Warner in coats, but I have never seen Warner in a t-shirt.
He's glorious.
He's wearing a white t-shirt and grey sweatpants that are scarily similar to my own. Ignoring my stares, he flings at hair tie in my direction.
"You're going to need this."
Warner's hand rests on the small of my back and he guides me to another door in his room. It opens to what I can only imagine to be his personal office. Items are strewn everywhere and yet it seems meticulously organized.
We turn toward an elevator door lying flush with the wall. Warner pushes the down arrow.
The doors open to a large room, perhaps larger than any I have seen yet on base. It is filled to the brim with what I can only imagine to be exercise equipment. I recognize dumbbells in the corner, treadmills off to one side and a climbing wall.
Warner stares at the room like it is his child.
"Welcome to your first day of training."
