She passed Blackburn in the corridor the next day, as she made her way to lessons and they shared a look. It was a significant exchange. He narrowed his dark eyes at her, she held his gaze. Then someone shoved past her and it was over.
Anna pulled her uniform right up to her neck to cover the finger marks that glowed purple against her skin. They had faded slightly in the last three days but it was still imperative they were not seen. She had been summoned to Blackburn's office and was frankly dreading it. She wound her way down and hesitating slightly, knocked on the door. He opened it and gestured for her to enter. "Ah, Faeilr you're here, good." She scanned the room nervously. It was the first time she had seen him since their encounter three days before and she was jumpy. All that filled her head were his dark eyes and his fingers tightening, tightening around her throat, squeezing out the air, his body crushing her. BAM! She crashed down, noticing with shock that she had tried to back away towards the door, instinct causing her to flee. Her knee was scraped and her uniform ripped, revealing the dark handprints on the soft skin of her neck. He simply raised his eyebrow. Her body was in full flight mode, her heart racing, hands sweating, adrenaline coursing through her like molten gold. Her face flushed, she felt embarrassed, she didn't want him to know the effect he had on her.
"Why did you want me Sir?" she muttered, still blushing.
"Faeilr, you have become a burden to me, you know that? You are a risk and I am not the sort of man who tolerates them. So here is what we are going to do." He leaned forward. "You are going to do whatever I tell you to do. You will, as usual, not tell a soul about what has happened. You will come here whenever I need you. You will not leave the Spire without my permission" he smirked, "don't worry, you can still leave with the other Plebes but you have to let me know beforehand. I've set up a secure channel on netsend so you can message me". She glared at him, appalled. He was to be her babysitter. "Finally, you will not contact anyone outside the Spire, you will not speak to any officials and if you do, you must tell me everything. Do you concede?" Concede. As if this was a war. She supposed, sourly, it was, and she was losing.
"Yes. Sir." Her voice sounded hollow, defeated. He grinned.
"Excellent thatta girl. Sensible option. One more thing. You will wear this." With that he pulled out a small electronic device the size of a pin-head. She had no idea what it was for.
"What is that?" Her eyes narrowed as she noticed how his shoulders tensed, muscles clenching slightly signalling he was about to make a move. "I can't trust you and I know you lot have ways of tricking the locators in your processers. This, is a tracking device that is a little more reliable." Anna wasn't sure what to say. Did she protest or did she accept the added imposition? "It will go into your foot so it cannot be misplaced." That did it. There was no way she was having that done without a fight. She moved, he pounced. He wrapped his arms, bear-like around her waist and forced her arms into the dreaded straps of the bench in the corner of the room. She kicked out, slamming her shin into his leg causing him to cry out, but he recovered monstrously fast and forced her round, tightening the straps. "You would be wise, girl, just to lie down and let me do this. You're only making this harder for yourself" he grunted. Still she struggled. Her arms were now pinned, but her legs kicked. It was brutal. He took a knife and held her foot and leg to the side at an angle so she could not kick at him. He sliced through the skin of the underside of her foot and carefully pushed the device in. Then, still holding her thrashing foot still as she clenched her teeth in pain, hoping not to wail, he slowly sewed up the wound. Once he was done her eyes were smarting with tears. She had yelled out every curse word she could think of and even made a few up but she could not stop it. He dabbed the wound with anti-septic and covered it up, then he pressed some painkillers and a cup of water to her mouth, making her swallow. At least they dulled the pain somewhat into an unpleasant throb. "Right, now that that's dealt with I shall get back to my thrilling work of planning the next lesson. And you. Don't touch that foot, any problems, come straight to me. That thing will track you for at least the length of this country so please don't think you can outrun the signal. It is an encrypted signal and you cannot remove it without cutting open your foot. I also wouldn't recommend trying to tamper with it due to a very clever little command I put in there. You try and remove that without the right electronic signal and it will explode. You'll survive but your foot will be shredded. So do yourself and everyone else a favour and leave it." She was gobsmacked. He'd put explosives inside her! "Don't worry, it won't go off accidently. Just don't tamper." He'd let her go after that. She'd resisted the urge to smack him and had limped on, trying hard not to let the pain show on her face.
The next day she had a lesson with the man. They were required to do stretches and exercises as a group before trying on the exosuits again and she was not looking forward to it. She knew he was going to make her pay for talking to Olivia, even if he couldn't do it as he'd originally wanted to. She was right. The exercises all seemed designed to put pressure on the feet, making it excruciatingly painful. But she refused to let a sound pass her lips. After a particularly intense stint she caught his eye roving her form, panting from the effort of a full press-up, which pressed down on her wound. "Come on Faeilr, you can do better than that!" he called cruelly. Mockingly he answered her death-stare. "Come on girl, want to give up?" She clenched her jaw and continued. "Thatta girl. Keep going. Just your right foot, go on. Do it!" She closed her eyes as she was forced to put all her weight into a press up on her injured foot and opened them to see him smirking. "Thatta girl!" She sent him the ugliest, most tremulously threatening look she could muster.
So it continued, eat, sleep, download homework, fight in calistenics simulations, pretend each fake enemy you cut down was a certain Professor, ignore people or any attempt to make friends, walk on in a daze. The days seemed to merge into one. Anna avoided everyone, answering questions on auto, doing everything she was expected to do but she seemed dull, she had no fight in her. The only time she ever showed some spark was during the simulation sessions where they had to fight virtual enemies. She was vicious then and dismissed any chidings to try and make her work as a team. Instead she fought with brutal efficiency until she was either killed or the session ended. If someone tried to talk to her she either answered briefly, discouraging further conversation, or she ignored them entirely. Some plebes had called her out on it but the excellent thing about ignoring words is you can keep doing it, until someone physically tries to attack you. Then you take them down but regardless you don't have to say anything. You are in control that way. That was what Anna found.
There had, at one point, been a bit of a game amongst the trainees to make her talk. They competed with each other to send her viruses that might make her say random things but her firewall was too strong and none succeeded, bouncing off it pathetically. She updated it every night, sometimes getting tips from Wyatt but generally keeping her work secret. Wyatt was too close to Blackburn. She saw Tom all the time but mostly they acted like they were strangers. He was with his friends, she remained alone. This didn't bother her, she had long since detached herself from what she did. Her emotional part, her soul was hidden where it could not be hurt by the hurtful remarks of others or loneliness. They weren't about her, they were about the shell, the act she was putting on in order to protect herself and others. Anyone close to her could be used as leverage.
Tom, as far as she knew, was keeping his agreement with Blackburn not to say anything. But he was impulsive, that much was clear. He struggled with his temper and always wanted to be the best. It was ridiculous, pathetic but he cared so much about what other people thought of him. Anna knew many of the girls fancied him, giggling about his physique and bad-boy attitude. But even they admitted he riled people up on purpose. Particularly that one kid, Karl Masters. He was a beefy guy, very testosterone-fuelled and he and Tom had been instant rivals. But Tom really didn't help himself.
He was also a problem for her. Tom repeatedly messed around in class, he was belligerent and it made her nervous. Blackburn had said Tom had to do as he said or he would neutralise her, but Anna was unsure what he meant in context. He couldn't have meant Tom had to obey him in class because Tom was not doing that and there were no consequences for her. As far as she could see, everything was carrying on as normal, except Blackburn had leverage using her. But she was still acutely aware that Tom's actions had a direct impact on her well-being. Sometimes the knowledge pounded her head until she couldn't take it anymore. Sometimes she screamed. She'd go out, as far away as she could to some deserted corridor and screech, trying to get rid of some of the anger and frustration she felt. It was the not knowing that got her. She was well used to having threats held over her head that could be carried out at any time, but at least on Stow there had been no future. Here they were constantly working towards the future, to improve themselves and fight a war, and she knew that it was pointless, that anything she did would be wasted.
It was roughly six weeks since Tom had threatened Blackburn and Anna was at the end of her tether. She couldn't take the unending uncertainty of it all. She needed someone to talk to. She couldn't talk to Daisy or another Plebe obviously and Tom frankly lacked the maturity, so that left one person. It was late and she shouldn't be up but at that moment Anna didn't care. She felt impulsive, reckless as she carefully made her way down to Blackburn's laboratory. He was still there, working even at this late hour. It was a Friday meaning they could lie in the next day but Anna knew he could function on comparatively little sleep if he needed to. She banged on the door. He opened it, looking surprised, a frown on his face. "What are you doing here Faeilr? It's late. You know the consequences of being out of bed." Anna ignored him and pushed past, sitting on one of the desks, her feet dangling above the cold floor. She didn't care that she was in her pyjamas, she'd faced him in worse. "What are you doing?" he asked again, furtively shutting the door behind him.
"So here it is Blackburn-"
"You will call me Professor or Sir, Faeilr", he interrupted her. "At all times."
Anna narrowed her eyes. She didn't care. She didn't care. There would be consequences for this. "Listen, Blackburn, I-" she didn't get a chance to finish as he marched towards her, staring down, menacingly.
"Faeilr you call me Sir or I will report you right now to General Marsh for being up out of hours. He will revoke your liberties and you will be forced to spend your weekends in the Spire. More than that, I will put you in detention for a very long time meaning any so called free time you get, you will be spending with me. Decoding. And before you ask, I do not need a good reason for continuous detention, I can just make something up. It is one of the few privileges of teaching you lot. Now do I make myself transparently clear?" She didn't want that. Any amount of time she spent with him was a chance to mess up, and reminded her of Stow, a place she'd rather forget. She was only here now because she had no other choice.
She nodded, growling, "yes Sir." It tasted bitter on her lips.
"Good. Now why are you up at this stupid hour?"
"Listen Sir, I really don't want to talk to you about this, but to be honest you've made it very clear I have no one else to talk to and I have to talk to someone or I'm going to break, so you are gonna sit here now and listen." She felt her tone change as she took charge, her eyes glued to the floor, hair falling in front of her face, but her voice full of urgency and authority. He said nothing so she continued unabated. "I feel like I am gonna break down any second. I feel like the world is so irrelevant. I think about that girl all the time. Heather Akron. I didn't like her, she had no time for anyone who wasn't useful, she had it all and manipulated people but she was alive, she had opportunities, family and hope and you sir, took it away from her!" The words were spilling out. After years of controlling everything she said she no longer could. She had opened the tap. This was not strictly true, she could hold it in if she had to. But she didn't want to and was too tired to pretend she was trying. "She is dead and I know what happened. I still don't know why you had to kill her but the fact is that every second I stay here with you is a second where I am withholding the truth from her family who are probably in misery not knowing. I am a criminal and I am so so guilty. I should've said something the moment I knew." Blackburn twisted and gripped her arm hard, right hand curled around her hair pulling, forcing her head up to look at him, her eyes swimming with tears." What have you done?" he breathed.
She froze in his grasp. "No-nothing. Nothing, I haven't said anything. I just wanted to get it off my chest, to talk about it. Well, for you to listen actually. I just – the guilt is consuming me. Whatever I do I can never ever make up for it. I am so so selfish, I care more about my own safety than anyone else's. I deserve to die. Because every second I remain silent, is another second where you could one day kill someone else. Like Olivia." Tears were streaming down her face now, her body was wracked with sobs as she wept. Blackburn released her, a strange expression crossing his face. "I just can't take it anymore. I am only human. I can't handle this. I think about it every day. Go through the options in my head and the worst thing is that I can't tell anyone and if I did they would hate me." She took a deep, shuddering breath and whispered, "and it's all your fault. I hate you. What you've done to me. What you have done to Olivia and Heather and Tom. You've ruined my life, you've destroyed everything. If you hadn't done that I wouldn't have this huge burden, I wouldn't have to make these choices. I would still be innocent. But I'm not. Because of you." She spat out the last word but when she looked up at him it was with pity and confusion, not ire.
"Anna," he breathed heavily, looking rather weary. "One thing I want to make perfectly clear. This. Is not your fault." He paused and took a deep breath. "You couldn't have stopped me killing the girl and the counsellor. You are highly irritating, impertinent, belligerent, foolish and can't keep your overly large mouth shut. But you are also single-minded, patient, resilient and resourceful. You didn't do this, so stop wasting your time and energy blaming yourself." She shook her head, hair flaring around her face, sniffling in wretched woe.
"I am, I could stop this and I don't. I don't. I should."
"You are blaming yourself because you care about what happens to those who cross me but also about yourself? That makes no sense. You are allowed to have a sense of self-preservation, you are allowed to be afraid, to look after yourself and the only reason that lady had to die was because you told her, because you wanted to stop me." She let out a strangled gasp. "It wasn't your fault girl, but by saying something you led to her death, and yet you are blaming yourself for not saying something. You can't do anything about it. You tell someone and there are consequences. Oh I don't blame you for wanting some release, for wanting to save yourself from this but telling someone is not something you, or the person you plan to talk to, can afford and you can't do anything about this."
"You're lying".
Blackburn stood up angrily. "You are feeling guilty because whatever you do hurts someone. Including yourself. But this situation is out of your control. And even if it was, you should not be beating yourself up about this. You have good motives, you've been thrown into a situation you not only know nothing about, but you also should not have been put in. you've had to make decisions. And you will endure it. Because if you do not, I will kill you, whomever you tell, and maybe I will even leave a little explosion in the Spire before I leave, just because." Even with the roaring in her ears she noticed he'd left Tom out of his list of death. His voice softened slightly. "You do not deserve to die, you are not a bad person, you have been put in a bad situation, you have had to make difficult choices but your action or lack of action as you see it, is not wrong. Sometimes it is about survival too."
Anna was exhausted, she didn't know what to think, and could not face it any more. She stood and stumbled to the door, her bare arms closed around herself, goosebumps prickling against the chill. She felt vulnerable, exposed and drained, knowing she had just given him a huge emotional weapon against her, and yet she felt lighter. It was his word she was listening to, he had motives, but just the act of talking to someone about her feelings, despite the cost, had given her some release and a way to make some sense of the endless circle of thoughts that plagued her. "I, I'm going to bed now. Thank you", she murmured, stifling a yawn. Blackburn tilted his head, his hawkish face illuminated in the light of the room against the darkness of the corridor. "Don't blame yourself. But don't forget about what I will do if I think you plan to carry out that thought of talking." She nodded, eyes cast downwards and felt his eyes watching her until she turned the corner.
.
..
...
...
...
Reviews please :) Pretty please - etc. :P