A/N: I'm still taking note of people's choices on pairings for the story.

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Chapter 2: Ten Thousand Rubles

The sun sets and brings warm, orange light to the tiny cabin she shares with Robert. She is leaning listlessly to the side, head pressed against the wall, book open. She still has Lord of the Flies in her possession and can only manage to read a bit at a time. She's incredibly seasick and so is Robert. They've been on the boat for days. Hermione's seen four sunsets, and a part of looks forward to this fifth. Sunset means dinner and toilet break.

The door soon opens and one of the crew, not Alexi who Hermione met at the dock, ushers her and a weak Robert to the cantina which is just two small tables and a door leading to a kitchen. She and Robert have to share a chair which she hates. He tries to still her food—dry brown bread, canned veggies, and fish. It's hardly tasty, but like her, he's starving. They eat twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night.

The crew ignores them which Hermione wonders if she should be grateful for that or not. Robert is affronted and has tried to cause a stir with some of the men. Yesterday, he got backhanded. Tonight, his lip is still swollen, and he's not so chatty. He tries to nick her bread, so she shoves him off the chair. The men who notice laugh and speak to each other in Russian. Hermione thinks it's Russian, anyway.

"I'm hungry!" he yells, scrambling to his feet.

"So am I."

"I'm a boy! I should get more!"

"You want more?" The vegetables aren't doing anything for Hermione tonight, so she scoops them into her hand and throws it at him. "There you go, you pig!"

"Wasteful little girl," a man accuses, spitting in her direction.

Robert clenches his fists and then stalks off. "Just you wait," he says.

Her heart drops low in her stomach, and she runs after him. She knows what he's going to do. She reaches the cabin, and he throws himself on top of her book and then jumps to his feet, tearing at the cover and the pages.

"Stop! Stop, please!"

He ignores her and continues ripping the pages. Wrinkled and shorn paper litters the floor, and tears burn her vision. Hatred boils within her, and the lamp behind her flickers. With a slicing jerk of her hand, she screams, "Stop!" one more time.

The bulb in the cheap lamp on dresser bursts, and Robert freezes in place. The book falls from his hand, and she covers her mouth, cautiously walking towards the boy. He's perfectly still. His eyes stare straight ahead, but she can hear his breath.

What has she done?

She looks at her hands and then at him.

"Impressive."

Hermione whips her to the doorway, and sees Alexi standing there. His girth takes up the frame, and he steps into the cabin, his shoulders hunch almost instinctively. His gaze sweeps across the room, lingering on the lamp, on her, and then settling on Robert.

"I-I don't know how to fix it," she stutters.

"Why do you want to fix it?" He's next to Robert now and places a hand close to the boy's mouth. "You did not kill him. You should."

She stumbles as far away from him as she can get without leaving the room. She shakes her head, horrified he even brought it up.

Alexi shrugs. "It'd make your journey more pleasant, no?"

Hermione says nothing, opting to turn and press her face into the neighboring corner. She hears the floorboards creak underneath, and the soft thump of his boots. He's a few feet behind her, she can sense. Something glimmers in her peripheral, and she looks out of curiosity. It's a knife.

She snaps her face back into the corner. "No," she states.

"It is a gift, small one. Don't use it against the boy if you don't want, but we still have nine more days. You may change your mind."

She says nothing and does nothing. He stares down at her impatiently and then grabs her hand, wrenching it open and placing the handle of the blade in her palm. He coaxes her to curl her fingers around it. At first, she resists and then reluctantly obliges.

The knife's not big but has a weight to it and still looks comically big in her small hands. Really? What is she going to do with this?

"I'm going to move you," expresses Alexi. "I cannot trust you will use the knife on the boy when he comes seeking petty revenge, and it's you I need to deliver. Not him."

Hermione swallows and finds her voice. "Where are you taking me?"

The man lets out a long sigh, and he offers her his hand. He wants her to take it, she thinks. She doesn't necessarily want to. He's a bad man. She knows it. He's offering comfort, though, and guidance to better protection from Robert. Her free hand slips in his, and his are rough and nicked and not at all like her father's.

But they are warm, and she's been cold since she left the institute.

Alexi walks her out of the room and down the narrow hallway. "I've delivered many children. Younger than you, even."

Something settles sickly on her chest and slithers its way down to her stomach. "Have you ever seen them again?"

"No."

"A-Am I going to die?" Her voice sounds so quiet. She can barely hear it over the sound of her erratic heartbeat.

"I think some of them have left this world, yes." He leads her down a creaky metal stairwell. "I am not reaper. Where you are going, you will need to be strong. You will not survive if you cannot bear the brute of what's to come."

He takes her into a cabin, and she thinks it's his. It's a tiny bit bigger than the one she and Robert shared. On the walls, there are shelves of books, and Alexi lets go of her hand to examine the spines of some adjacent to his bed. He rubs his scruff and then pulls one down. He offers the paperback to her, and she takes it, her curiosity momentarily overruling the heavy words he just dealt her.

She studies the front and the back, the simple illustration informing her of the incomprehensible title. "This is Lord of the Flies. Is this in Russian? Is that we're going? The Soviet Union?"

"Yes, and you will be taught Russian first."

Taught? And he speaks as if there'll be more. Is she going to school? Is this what it's all about. She's being sent to a school for children like her? Alexi said he delivered children. Were they like her?

Then what of Robert? He isn't like her at all. He's not unique just like Alexi said back at the dock in London.

"Do you just speak English, child?"

She lifts chin, feeling a moment of pride. "I speak French and Greek."

"Useless tongues, but you may pick them back up when you're older."

He lets her keep the book and takes her outside of the room, pulling at a shift in the wall and sliding to expose a bunk. Hermione catches the scent of dust and mildew but doesn't care, and there's a hanging-down bulb for light. She wasn't expecting a luxury cabin to herself. She'll be by Alexi and…not safe, but at least safe enough from Robert.

A few days later

Closing the book, Hemione sighs, frustrated. She can't read Russian, and yet she's bored with nothing else to do but stare at squiggles. She had finished her stolen copy of Lord of the Flies before Robert destroyed it, and her parents had once told her and others proudly she had—what is it?—photographic memory. Yet, she struggles to apply her memories to what's in front of her.

She wants to sneak into Alexi's cabin and have a gander at his other books. Maybe one might not be in Russian. Gnawing her lip, she slips out of her bunk and quietly opens the door of the cabin. She finds the chain to the light and pulls, dully igniting the room.

Alexi doesn't have a load of books, she decides, and they all look to be in Russian or something similar. Except of a bible she found on his bedside table. It's in German, she thinks. There's a thick layer of dust on it, she can hardly make out the cross. She wonders why he keeps it next to him if he's not going to read it.

Hermione turns of the light and leaves the room. Alexi must be up on deck, and she doesn't want to go up there. He finally gave her clothes to stave off the chill which worsens each day. The clothes are boyish and big as are the boots, but they beat bare feet and the soiled Snow White nightdress.

In some ways, she's accepts her situation. Mostly because she's built up a fantasy for herself. She's being whisked away to a special school for special children like her. They can do all the things she does, and she'll have friends and mentors who care about her.

This is a rather thin fantasy, but it helps her cope. She can't keep crying all the time, and the crewmen hate the sound of her wails. Aside from Alexi, they favor Robert over her. He doesn't cry, and he doesn't whine. Even when he's forced to help on deck sometimes. Probably because he gets extra rations for it.

The crewmen want her to help. She's not an eleven years old like Robert, but she's an able-body. Alexi forbids it. A part of her hoped in his own way, he'd come to care about her, but then she heard him tell his crew they'd be out of ten thousand rubles if she didn't make the trip.

Ten thousand.

That's how much she's worth.

Hermione climbs the stairs and hears noise from her old cabin. Robert must not be on deck, and she thinks about going back down to her bunk. She then shakes her head. No. She can't keep avoiding him. Yes, he might try something, but she has the knife Alexi insisted she keep on her. The blade is sheathed now and tucked underneath her sleeve.

She won't kill him.

She might cut him, though. She can't trust her abilities will show again in a time of crisis.

The cabin door is ajar, and she almost walks passed it, pausing because she hears a strangled no coming from Robert.

"Quiet, boy!"

There's a ripping sound, like cloth being torn, and Hermione presses against the door. What she sees…she doesn't understand completely. She does know that Robert is being hurt, and Dmitri, one of the crewmen, is responsible.

"Stop it! Get off him!" she shouts.

Dmitri stills and then looks at her over his shoulder. "You're next, brat."

Hermione glares at him and unleashes a scream for Alexi, and Dmitri scrambles off Robert. He pulls up his trousers and storms towards her. Hermione runs down the hallway, but he catches up to her, pulling her hair and using it as leverage to get her in a tight, lung-crushing hold. She screams for Alexi again, and he covers her mouth, so she bites his fingers hard. He yanks his hand away and throws her down on the ground, her head hitting the floor. The knife in her sleeve dislodges. She hears it clatter. Black dots appear in her vision, and she feels out of sorts. She blinks and sees the knife in her peripheral.

She makes a grab for it.

Dmitri's quicker.

"No, no," he chides. He unsheathes the blade and touches a fingertip to the point. "I wonder how badly I can hurt you without killing you, little witch."

A flicker in his eyes tell her he's got a plan, and she tries to crawl away, but he's got her anchored to floor now with her sweater rucked up to display her tummy.

He carves.

She thrashes. She screams. She begs but to avail does he show mercy until he's done. Then he touches the bloodied blade to her nose and says, "To remember me by as reminder to mind your own business."

He's inches from her face, the knife between them, and on their own accord, Hermione's hand grabs Dmitri's gripped hand—the one holding the knife—and pushes. The blade lodges in his left eye, and he's the one screaming now. He stands and fumbles backwards, and Hermione sees Robert behind him. The boy walks up to Dmitri and removes a small handgun from his front pocket, aims at the back of Dmitri's head, and pulls the trigger.

The sound is deafening, and there's no more screaming.

Dmitri falls to the floor, and Hermione uses the wall for support to get to her feet. The man's blood is coming at her, and she feels so many things but not the tears running down her cheeks.

Robert steps over the body towards her, and she can't help but think she's next.

She doesn't relax when he stuffs the gun in the back of his trousers.

"You tried to stop him," he says.

She can't speak. Dmitri's body is so still.

Robert comes up to her and lifts the hem of her sweater, and she pays no mind. She saw someone die, and she doesn't think she'll be able to ever unsee it. The image of Robert blowing out Dmitri's brain is going to stick with her.

She vomits.

She turns from Robert and heaves until there's nothing. Then she dry heaves, and Robert goes to Dmitri's body and rolls him over. The knife is still lodged in his eye but much deeper than before. Without so much as batted eye-lash, he pulls the knife and uses the dead man's shirt to clean it. The sheath is on the floor, so Robert picks that up, too, and unites them both before offering it to Hermione.

She shakes her head.

"Take it," he hisses. She flinches, dropping it the moment it touches her hand. Robert exhales impatiently and picks it up, shoving the blade underneath her sleeve. "Keep this on you, okay? Dmitri wasn't the only arsehole on board into kids."

"I c-can't..."

"For God's sake, stop crying, Hermione. There's no point." He tugs her sleeve down, and she swears she sees his own eyes red and glassy. His face is dry, though, and there's no tremble of his chin.

He's stronger than her, and she's envious. He's right, there's no point in crying. No one on the ship cares about her problems. Her fears. Her wounds. They only care about the money and nothing else. They must have such sad existences, but she's jealous of them, too.

She rubs her eyes. "We should tell someone what happened."

Robert's face colors angrily. "You can. I don't owe anyone on this boat an explanation. Neither do you. Let them find him like this."

He stalks off and goes downstairs. Soon she hears voices coming from the other end of the hallway, and she follows in Robert's wake. Her feet pick up in pace when hearing the shouts and curses of shock. She returns to her tiny hovel. Not to hide but to make it look like she'd been there the whole time with her book when Alexi seeks her out. Staring blankly at the pages, she mulls over which reaction would work best, but mostly she festers and worries. She's not a good liar.

Alexi comes, and she tells him everything.