Weeks passed. Ashelin and Torn did not see each other. Ashelin and Natasha were kept apart for much of the time. Ashelin suspected that her father might be up to something, but she kept quiet. There was no one except for Natasha that she truly trusted. She simply had to stay cautious.
She was assigned mainly to basic patrols in the slums area. This was a fairly quiet part of town. The people were very poor. Hardly anyone was ever out on the streets. Anyone not out on official business was either shot or forced to join the Krimzon Guard.
Once, Ashelin stopped by Torn's apartment. No one answered, and she realized she'd be more apt to find him in a bar. She didn't know which one of Haven City's many bars he frequented, however, so she was content to think that they'd meet up someday.
Ashelin's personal favorite bar was one near the Port: the Hip Hog Heaven Saloon. She did not like this bar because of the company she kept there, or because of the helpful and friendly service. She liked it because when she was there, no one knew who she was. She could engage in casual conversation, conversation that was never expected to go any further, then get up, go home, and never see the same people again. It was comforting, this feeling of being anonymous.
"Ashelin?"
It was Baron Praxis calling her on her Krimzon Guard radio. She was reading the Eco meters in the slums, and she rolled her eyes before replying, "Yes, my Lord?"
"Go and find Errol."
"As if I'm his fucking babysitter!" she fumed after she turned off her radio. "God-fuck-damnit! He's probably in some brothel, getting laid!" But there was no disobeying Baron Praxis.
She called Errol on his radio, but there was no answer (as she had expected), so she dialed another number. "Vin?"
"Y-y-yes? Who is this? Are you friendly?" came a nervous voice. In the background Ashelin could hear the clicking of the machinery that operated the city's Eco grid and the shield walls.
"It's Ashelin. I need you to trace a KG radio for me. Can you do that?"
"Of course!" he answered hotly. "I can trace anything from here!"
"Good. Trace Commander Errol's radio, please," she said. For once, Ashelin was glad that the annoying little man was her friend.
"He's in some bar in the Port. The Hip Hog Heaven Saloon, owned by a guy who's been arrested seven times for smuggling and selling on the black market."
Ashelin left him rambling and got into her vehicle.
She had no intention of finding Errol and forcing him to go to the headquarters to meet Baron Praxis. The best she could hope for would be that either he'd be too drunk to argue or that he'd at least turn on his radio so that Praxis could summon him personally.
It never got completely dark in the Port. The bright lights of the search towers and the neon signs of the waterside businesses made sure of that. This was the time when Ashelin truly saw just how far their city had fallen. Gunshots rang out and there were screams: two men were shooting at each other. Whores on the sidewalk showed their 'wares' to passing men. A group in an alley was passed out, apparently stoned. There were curses and yells as people were thrown out of bars. Ashelin locked her Hellcat securely in the Krimzon Guard parking lot and entered the Hip Hog Heaven Saloon.
Pot smoke burned her eyes. The air was a shimmery blue from the drugs being used. Ashelin didn't see Errol at first; he was in a corner back booth with another man and a whore, seeing who could drink the most.
A familiar jingling laugh caught Ashelin's ear. She looked around and saw a certain blue-haired individual sitting at the bar beside a cloaked man. What the fuck? she thought. Natasha doesn't drink.
Dismissing the thought, she turned to Errol. "Praxis wishes audience with you," she murmured to him. "It would be unwise to keep him waiting."
With a drunken sigh he tossed a bill on the table and staggered out of the bar. He was followed by Natasha and the man in the cloak. Ashelin went back out, took her Hellcat, and went back to her apartment in the Palace. Her bedroom closet adjoined to Natasha's. She opened the doors on both sides so she would hear when Natasha came in. They hadn't seen each other for several days, and even then it had been in passing.
Ashelin waited for what seemed like hours. At last she closed the doors and went to bed, hoping to speak with Natasha first thing in the morning.
Ashelin slept fitfully, first by nightmares and then by dreams of Torn. She woke up, sweaty and confused, only once. She laid on her side with her legs tight together, trying to ignore the achy wanting she felt. She went back to sleep, and did not wake again until morning.
Ashelin heard deep, even breathing on the other side of the door. She knocked softly, not wanting to wake Natasha if she was actually asleep, although she often was not. When there was no answer to her questioning knock, she opened the door a crack and peered inside the room.
She turned back and shut the door, a furious blush rising in her cheeks. Natasha lay on her bed, but she was not alone there. Sleeping next to her, holding her, was a man. Ashelin guessed it was the man Natasha had left the bar with the previous night, although she didn't have any idea who it would be. She didn't understand how Natasha could be with another man, after what Wendel had done. Didn't it pain her? Didn't she remember terrible things the way Ashelin did? Or had she found what Ashelin sought: to forget.
She returned to her apartment for breakfast. She did not expect to see Natasha again that morning, so it surprised her when her sister entered the room less than a half hour later.
"You needed to talk to me?" Natasha said teasingly, laughing kindly at the blush on Ashelin's cheeks.
"Sorry… I didn't mean to walk in on you," Ashelin muttered.
"Hey, it's not like you caught us in the act. He left," Natasha informed her.
"Because of me?"
It was a dumb question, evidence of her insecurity and embarrassment. Natasha only smiled. "No, silly. He had to go to work."
"Is he the guy you were with at the bar last night?" Ashelin asked.
"Yeah. I was going to come over and talk to you, but Torn wanted to leave – What?"
For she had noticed that Ashelin's embarrassed blush had seeped away, and her face was now a ghostly white.
"You were with Torn?" Ashelin choked out.
Natasha smiled. "Yes. We're going out – didn't you know?"
"No, I must've missed that… how did you meet him?" Ashelin asked carefully. An inside part of her was throwing a tantrum.
"I work with him a lot," Natasha explained. "He's a really nice guy. He mentioned that he knows you?"
"Yeah," Ashelin replied. "We've met before." She hadn't told Natasha about Torn's involvement in their little escapade – if word got out, it could mean Torn's arrest. No one was allowed to leave the city except on official business, and certainly rescuing someone Praxis wanted dead would hardly qualify as official business.
"I have to go," Natasha said. She seemed to be all smiles this morning.
"Goodbye," Ashelin murmured. "Talk to you later, Natasha."
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...
All day she walked around numbly, all pale skin, shallow breath, and shock. She ignored everyone, and did her best to ignore herself. The city was quiet, far more quiet than usual, but she didn't notice; to her, everything was quiet and everything was numb.
The announcement came in the late afternoon. She heard it as though it came from a great distance away, rather than from just down the street a few blocks. "All Krimzon Guard recruits are to report to the Fortress. Immediately. Repeat, report to the fortress immediately."
A blessed break in monotony. She sighed and walked toward the towering, ominous building that was the Fortress. She hated going there. Sometimes she had to, but for weeks after she would have nightmares of ghostly faces, scars and endless screaming for release. Prisoners held there never came out. They never lasted long; shock, and at last blessed death, came within a few weeks or even days.
The directions on the loudspeaker told her to go to the Auditorium. That was not surprise; it was the only one room in the entire city that could fit the entire Krimzon Army into it, and even then it was a tight squeeze.
Ashelin sat in the back, hoping for a quick escape at the end of whatever they had been called here for. She looked around for Natasha at first, but pangs of pain and even jealousy overtook her, and she sat alone, surrounded by a crowd. She just wanted to sleep, but that was impossible right now. She saw a familiar face, and remembered….
There was a time when pollution was less, and the trees and grass were still green in the summer, and the water was clear and cold. Summer was hot, and swimming was the prime activity for anyone who had the ability to leave the city.
It was a blistering day, but there was a poll going on in the city and Ashelin was in the forest, alone with Pablo. Pablo had been her first boyfriend – and her last – and her only. She was thirteen years old. Pablo was seventeen.
She stood in the cold water, naked and shivering despite the heat of the day. The water reached only to her thighs, and she had no desire to go in any further.
"A little cold, there?" Pablo's teasing voice called. Ashelin nodded mutely, but screamed in terror as he lunged toward her.
She slipped on the mossy rocks and fell, landing on the sandy bottom of the river. She lunged up for air, but Pablo pulled her down again and kissed her underneath the water, a fierce, hot kiss that lasted until they floated to the surface and at last had to breathe again.
Pablo scrambled up onto the bank of the river and pulled Ashelin up beside him. Water dripped off of her flaming red hair and sprinkled cold drops over her pale shoulders and into the hollow between her breasts. Pablo gazed at her for a moment, a hungry, rapturous gaze, and then kissed her again.
It was a different kind of kissing than she had ever felt before: urgent. Pablo waited only a few moments before lowering himself on top of her…
She shook her head rapidly to clear it. She didn't want to remember the humiliation and pain she felt when she realized that her first time would not be gentle, not be tender, not be the way it was described in books.
The man who had been Pablo, who had changed his name, moved up in the Krimzon Guard, and utterly forsaken his old identity, walked across the stage amidst polite applause: Errol, Head Commander of the Krimzon Guard.
"I regret to inform you," he intoned gravely, "that one of our number perished this morning."
Ashelin immediately stopped listening. She didn't care if someone she didn't know was dead; but then again, why had they all been called here? People died every day; it was sad, but it wasn't any big deal.
"One of our Elite rank was killed this morning in an accident in the Palace."
In the Palace? What the fuck? Ashelin thought.
"Natasha Praxis is dead."
