Chapter 3

Rose

"A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended."

― Ian McEwan, Atonement

We tend to fear the things we do not understand - and the Academy believed that in order to fulfill our mandate - we must fear nothing. It's how they justified what they did to us and, in a twisted way, how we were able to justify it to ourselves. We weren't being tortured - we were being taught how to survive. Their lessons left many scars, some more visible than others, but even after all the pain and the blood and the grief - I don't think any of us ever truly stopped being afraid, we just learned to push through it.

I learned to make myself small, to shrink behind the walls of my mind and leave my body behind. If I could compartmentalize the fear and the pain, keeping the most vital parts of myself safe - the things that made me me, then I could survive anything - sleep deprivation, mock executions, beatings.

The only time I couldn't control the fear was when they tried to drown me, though I'm not sure whether I'd been afraid of water before then. Looking back, I think the Academy gave me that fear.

We'd spent years studying the theory of torture - the methods, the psychology, and the practical effects - but it wasn't until I started putting what I'd learned into practice that I truly began to understand what any of it meant.

I thought I knew what waterboarding would be like. I knew that I would be strapped down to an inclined wooden board so that my head was positioned below my heart - but I didn't anticipate how disorienting it would be, or how much a thick strip of fabric secured across my nose and mouth would impair my breathing and compound my anxiety.

The water would come slowly at first - a few drops at a time raining down on me. I could feel it drain through the cloth and into my nose and mouth. Then the water would come faster. I would always try to hold my breath at first, to keep the water at bay for as long as possible, letting the pressure and the pain build in my lungs until I couldn't stand it any longer - and then I would open my mouth, wanting desperately to suck in cool breaths of air, only to pull the cloth and the water into my mouth. I would choke on the water and the fear and the searing pain in my chest until I finally blacked out. Unconsciousness was my only friend in that room.

Waterboarding does not simulate drowning; you are drowning.

I am drowning right now.

I can't see Natasha, but I know it's her. I would recognize her voice anywhere. She's asking me questions. She wants to know where the Havens are and how many defectors are still embedded in her ranks and whether I truly love Dimitri. I want to kick and scream but I'm paralyzed to stop her.

She's going to kill me, I realize. She won't stop until I give her what she wants. But every time I open my mouth to speak, more water rushes in. My lungs are flooded with water, my mind with panic...

I jolt awake.

None of it had been real.

It was just a dream, I think, trying to soothe myself. But my chest still heaves and I can feel my heart seizing beneath my rib cage. My cropped hair is plastered to my face and neck. If it was just a dream - then why am I wet?

"Get up!" a voice shouts at me.

My eyes sting as I blink away the water and I look up at my assailant through blurred vision. It's a woman - a very pregnant woman. I gaze up at her from my place on the dirty floor. I don't know where I am, how I got here, or why this woman is so angry with me.

"Get out!" she demands, one hand braced on her hip - the other gripping a now empty water pitcher. "We don't need any more trouble!"

I wince at her shrill voice. I don't know how much I drank last night, but it's enough to set my head spinning as I scramble to my feet. She moves one hand protectively to her belly, brandishing the water pitcher at me with the other and I fight the urge to laugh. In my current state, the only person I'm capable of hurting is myself, but I still raise my hands in a gesture of mock surrender.

"Apologies," I tell her in a low, gruff voice. " I meant no harm."

I take in the woman standing before me, then my surroundings. Dark hair and a dark fiery gaze to match. She's young, though still perhaps older than myself. We're standing in what I think is meant to be a kitchen, but housing units in this part of NAAMA are even less welcoming than Lissa's had been in the Mid-Western Province. At least she and Victor had a place to sit. I look around and see nothing but crates of food stacked haphazardly all around us, the air smelling of rot.

What on earth am I doing here? I wonder to myself.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I tell her, my hands lowering to my sides and offering up a tight-lipped smile. My words do nothing to assure her and I watch as she tightens her grip on the pitcher, knuckles turning white with fear and anger.

Then I remember that she does not see Rose Hathaway when she looks at me. She sees a scarred, filthy, broken man who managed to find his way into her home. She sees Ivan - an intruder and violator of her privacy, she sees a threat.

"How did you get in here?" she asks, and though I can tell she's afraid, her voice does not waiver.

I feel my cheeks begin to burn. "I don't know," I admit and I can tell she doesn't believe me. "The last thing I remember is…" I rack my brain, trying to remember anything - any detail from last night that might help. "Cards," I say slowly. "I was playing cards."

Her demeanor changes almost instantly at my revelation, her panic melting away into disgust. "You're just one of Rolan's thugs then," she says with a sneer. "Whatever he wants, he won't find it here. You tell him that!" She jabs a finger in my direction.

I open my mouth to argue, to insist that I'm not here on Rolan's behalf - that I have nothing to do with him - but in the end, I decide it doesn't matter what this woman thinks of me. I came here looking for answers, and so far, Rolan is the only one who seems to have them. The more people who assume I'm part of Rolan's inner circle, the more likely I'll be able to breach it.

The low, thrumming toll of a bell is all the encouragement I need to begin making my way slowly toward the unit's entrance. I cut a wide berth, not wanting to get too close to this woman and her very solid looking water jug. I'd rather work in the icy fields than face her wrath.

My steps are labored, and even this slight motion causes my insides to churn wildly and I pause at the door, trying to keep from retching all over the place. I have got to stop drinking, I think as I close the unit door. I hear the sound of quick footsteps and the clicking sound of the lock behind me. I try to take a deep breath to center myself, but the bright winter sun is blinding and the morning bell is still tolling and it's all suddenly too much. I stumble away from the housing unit, collapsing onto my knees and vomiting onto the frost-bitten ground.

My eyes fill with tears and as I stare down at the meager contents of my stomach, I begin to feel something I have not felt in months - shame. What would Dimitri think if he could see me like this? What would Lissa think?

I haven't let myself think about them - not for a long time. When I left Portum Lux to find Dimitri, I had done so with the understanding that it would require certain sacrifices. My conversation with Natasha had all but confirmed what I would need to do, and her words still haunt me.

"...if we were to cut you open and take a peek beneath the flesh and bone, I don't think we would find your heart. But that's only because it beats outside your chest, doesn't it? Only it goes by another name. Dimitri, was it?"

The sound of his name had ripped through me, it still does.

"You should know better! The Academy taught you better than to let yourself become so vulnerable - to love, but I suppose it doesn't matter now. The result of your betrayal - this love that you now bear for the people in your life. I will use it to break you."

And in a way, it had broken me.

So I had to strip myself of my emotions and with every mile I was able to put between myself and Portum Lux, the easier it became - the more I could force myself to forget. I eventually made it to the border of the Southeastern province and let myself get swept up into the Executor's population shifting initiative to bide my time while I pieced together a plan to find Dimitri. It was the only time I let myself think about him, to think about what Natasha could be doing to him, to think about whether he was still alive. My plan to track down and save the man I loved couldn't be carried out by Rose Hathaway - ruthless Risk Prevention Department Investigator turned hopeless romantic. I couldn't let my feelings for Dimitri and for my friends compromise my search, and so I had let that girl - the one who'd learned to love and hope and dream - slip away.

I mostly tried to keep myself busy, working various jobs in different compounds and provinces, trying to glean whatever information I could from civilians and NAAMA officers, all while playing my conversation with Natasha Ozera over and over again in my head.

"I'll start with him."

It was the last thing she said to me before the line on the radio receiver I'd taken from Ethan went dead. I convinced myself that it was a lead - that wherever Natasha was, that's where Dimitri had to be. She wouldn't risk letting him rot in a holding cell, he was too valuable and I had already shown my proclivity for breaking into and escaping from NAAMA military installations. I had also found a way to convince myself that Dimitri had to still alive, I would know if he was dead. Natasha had taken my actions too personally - there was no way she would let his death go unknown. She can't use him against me if he's dead.

My brilliant revelation, or perhaps more likely a feeble hope that finding the Executor would mean finding Dimitri didn't do much to comfort me. I soon realized that even despite my former position and rank within the NAAMA military, I was never trusted with the one bit of information that could have helped me: the location of the capital and seat of power for the North American Alliance for Modern Advancement.

There were whispers here and there - of old military outposts from before the Pulse being quietly repaired and renovated, of massive amounts of blue-belted intelligence officers being sent to heavily populated compounds for long-term assignments, but so far none of it had led me to the capital, to Natasha. The only thing I was able to find out for sure was that people seemed to take me more seriously when I dressed as a man. When my hair was tucked beneath a cap and my breasts bound with cloth, civilians and military personnel alike seemed more willing to divulge information, especially as friends over a tin of luke-warm beer. Though it wasn't until I'd seen my own face on a wanted poster outside a Resource Distribution Center in the Northwestern Province that I'd decided to cut my hair and adopt my latest disguise - Ivan.

It's easier to travel as an anonymous refugee, but it's also easier to think that it was Ivan, not Rose, who had drank themselves into oblivion last night, passed out in a stranger's home, and terrorized an innocent pregnant woman. But it was me - and these are my hands, Rose's hands, digging into the frozen earth, Rose's eyes filling with hot, angry tears.

Get up! I tell myself. Now is not the time to break down.

I wipe the sleeve of my soiled jacket across my face and struggle to my feet. The bell calling the field hands to work has mercifully stopped ringing and even though I'm grateful for the stillness of the compound around me, I know that the silence means that everyone has gone to work and that I am now very late.

I begin making my way toward the gates of the compound, deciding that it doesn't really matter if I'm late - the guards that man the walls are used to seeing me stumble around the compound, half-drunk and covered in my own vomit, why should today be any different? No one expects anything more of a broken man with a drinking problem. I had meant for my appearance and habits to be a cover for my true purpose - people will tell you anything if they think you won't remember. But somewhere between Portum Lux and this wasteland of a compound, I discovered that I slept a little better after a few drinks, and if I drank enough - I could keep the nightmares at bay.

"Rough night?" someone asks, their words tinged with disgust.

I smile uneasily at the provincial guard posted at the gate to the compound. "No worse than the night before," I tell him, hoping that his revulsion will overcome any desire to berate me for being late.

He glares at me. "I don't care what you do on your own time - drink yourself stupid, pass out in your own filth every night, but when that bell rings," he snarls, taking a step toward me, "You're time belongs to the Executor."

I choke back unease and bile, "Of course - won't happen again."

"If it does," the guard threatens, "Captain Kirova will be the first to know."

I do my best not to react, but the sound of Kirova's name fills me with apprehension. I nod my understanding and the guard lets me pass through the gates without further incident. My boots kick up dirt and ice as I trudge through the well-worn paths to the fields. A mixture of provincial guards in khaki jumpsuits and NAAMA military personnel patrol the fields, some of them scowl as I walk past, but most don't seem to notice - probably too busy wondering what they'd done to deserve a field patrol rotation.

I scan the rows of crops, searching for the foreman and once he's given me my assignment, I set to work gathering baskets filled with vegetation and placing them in the bed of a truck to be transported to other provinces. The baskets are heavy and I find myself contemplating how long it would take someone to notice if I collapsed or whether they would just leave me here to die.

The hours pass slowly and I do my best to avoid members of Rolan's crew for now. Though some might be able to help me piece together what happened last night, they're more likely to coerce me into another round of cards and heavy drinking. I do my best to convince myself that my body needs a break - that I'd rather face the ghosts that haunt my dreams than wake up feeling like this again. But the thought of seeing Mason smile at me under the lights of the ad Salvum warehouse, or hearing Lissa's sobs as she buried her uncle, or remembering the way Dimitri had tasted…

My mouth has gone dry and I feel my body shudder violently. I slam the basket I'd been carrying onto the open tailgate of the truck, squeezing my eyes shut.

"Shit," I mutter to myself. I suddenly don't care how terrible I feel in this moment - I'll feel better after a cup of mulled wine.

"Ivan!" a man shouts jovially, slapping me on the back. "There you are!"

The force of his hand nearly sends me crashing to the ground but I catch myself on the open truck bed. I turn to see one of Rolan's thugs and try not to groan.

"You disappeared last night," he says, a playful yet threatening undercurrent to his words. "Where'd you go?"

I shrug and begin walking toward another row of vegetation. "Your guess is as good as mine," I say over my shoulder, hoping he'll get back to his own work assignment and leave me in peace.

He lets out a low chuckle and the sound grates against my nerves. "You had to wake up somewhere," he insists, and a voice in the back of my head tells me he already knows where I ended up.

I grab the closest basket despite protests from the nearby field hand that he hasn't filled it yet. "I woke up on the floor," I say, moving past the man. "I didn't recognize the unit - must have mistaken it for my own."

He grunts, "I hope it was a mistake."

I stiffen at his words but keep moving through the fields, hoping that one of the overseers will notice he's not working and send him away. Instead, he yanks me backward by my shoulder, whirling me around so that I'm facing him - the basket of carrots now strewn across the icy sludge.

"That girl," he growls, "In the unit you mistakenly found your way into - that's Rolan's girl."

"Oh," I respond numbly - that's what this is about. "I don't know what you're talking about," I tell him, ripping my arm from his grasp. "There was no girl - just rotting food."

"One of my men saw you leave her unit," he tells me, taking a step forward.

"Well if she was there, I didn't see her," I insist. "I must have had too much to drink and ended up in her unit by accident."

The man grabs me by the collar of my shirt, drawing me to him. "Rolan used to think your shit was funny - but now it's starting to get in the way."

"Get in the way of what?" I ask, forcing a chuckle. "The card game? My losing streak makes everyone look good."

"You promised Rolan information on the investigators," he snarls, jerking me by my collar. "But you're too deep in your cup every night to do anything but piss yourself. It's time to deliver"

My conversation with another one of Rolan's thugs from yesterday suddenly comes rushing back to me. "Your friend, the one you're looking for - Rolan thinks he may know where to find him."

"Fine," I agree, trying to wriggle free of the man's grasp. I'll go see him tonight."

The man shoves me away. "And you'll be dry as a bone," he tells me.

"Of course," I say, trying to put more distance between us. "No alcohol shall pass these lips." He grunts in acknowledgement and I try not to sprint away though I desperately want to.

Rolan, despite being only a civilian, has managed to gain a massive amount of power. I've passed through compounds and provinces all over NAAMA, searching for any clue that might lead me to the capital, but its location has eluded civilians and government officials alike. It wasn't until a few weeks back that I began hearing rumors of a man who'd propped himself up in a derelict compound and found a way to gain access to resources and information that no civilian should be able to amass. People whisper about him as if he is a god - seeming to idolize and fear him in equal measure. I had decided that there was no way a civilian could gain such a reputation without certain connections and anyway I had run out of leads.

If my dealings with Rolan don't pan out then I'm not sure what I'll do, though it seems I've already managed to screw things up. Why did I tell him I was looking for Dimitri? And what information had I promised him in return?. People go missing all the time in NAAMA so it's not necessarily unusual for me to me searching for someone, but it still puts me in a weaker bargaining position. Now that Rolan knows what I want, he can use it against me. It appears that Ivan, the local compound drunk, has forgotten all of his RPD investigator training and now I have no choice but to face Rolan with all my cards on the table.

Once the final bell rings at the end of the day, I walk as quickly as my aching body will allow toward the housing unit I'd been squatting in, doing my best to avoid Rolan's men. I make it back to the row of units at the far end of the compound unscathed, but I hesitate outside the door to my own temporary home, wondering which of the doors in the row of tiny apartments belongs to the girl from this morning. The man from earlier had said she was Rolan's girl and for some reason the thought makes me uneasy. I suddenly recall the look of disgust she'd given me upon realizing I was somehow connected with him. The girl didn't seem like the type to belong to anyone, let alone someone like Ronan.

Not my problem, I think, and my thoughts turn to whether Rolan or any of his thugs would notice if I had just one drink before going to meet him. Just something to take the edge off, but when I step through the front door of my run down unit and glance around at the dust covered floors, toppled furniture, and empty kitchen cabinets – I realize I don't have anything to eat – let alone anything to drink. I turn to shut and lock the door behind me, but it catches on something. I look down to see the toe of a boot and before I have time to ponder why it's wedged in the door jam, a man barrels through the front door – knocking me to the floor.

I raise myself up on my elbows and look up into the eyes of the retired provincial guard captain who'd been at Rolan's the night before. Great, another goony sent to deliver a message.

"You can tell Rolan," I say, struggling to my feet. "That I was just about to come see him."

The captain shuts the door behind him, offering up a smile that does not reach his eyes. "That's not why I'm here, Ivan." I feel my stomach turn over at the way he says the name. "I'm here to find out what a little girl like you is doing so far from home."

I realize it has been a ridiculously long time since I've updated and all I can really say is that I'm sorry! Life can be crazy and it's been a long time since I've had the space to write, but there is an outline for this story that I want to see through so if you're willing to stick with me, I promise to keep writing.