⧗ CHAPTER THREE ⧗

"So," the blonde girl with the chilly gaze finally looked at Dmitri, forking some carrots into her mouth. With porcelain skin, red-painted nails, and a slim frame, she had the appearance of a fierce doll. Dmitri never thought anyone could chew with intimidation, but this girl certainly pulled it off. "Are you just going to sit there and pretend we don't exist, Dmitri?"

He flinched, surprised she knew his name. And Dmitri didn't want to get off on the wrong foot, he was still reeling from… literally everything else. "Sorry, I just — I don't remember you. Any of you."

"Hm," the blonde girl lifted her lip in a sneer. "Typical."

Dmitri didn't like the tone of her voice, but aside from scowling he didn't make a retort. He didn't want to pick a fight, especially when he didn't know what this girl's problem was. Aside from the obvious, he supposed. He was a boy at an all-girls school. It wouldn't be all that surprising that more than few probably wouldn't want him in their space.

"Where have you been?" the auburn girl asked. With ruddy cheeks and hazel eyes, she seemed softer, kinder than the blonde one. "It's been years since we last saw you."

Dmitri wasn't sure where to start. He didn't even know when he left. Years? How many? But until very recently, his life had been very predictable. Normal. "Living with my father, mostly. But he's gone now."

"What happened?" Asked another, a brunette with her hair in a braided crown. "How did you hurt your arm?"

Dmitri hesitated, looking down at his food. He didn't want to think about it, much less relive it in front of six strangers. Their concern felt mostly genuine, though. Maybe. Without looking at any of them, he said, "My father and I were in a bad accident. I made it out alive. He didn't."

It was remarkably easy to lie about, Dmitri found. Much, much easier than having to tell the truth. Having to tell them that he had to watch his mother die, tried to stop his apparently brainwashed girlfriend from killing his father, to not only fail but get shot for his trouble. Then endure an agonizing six-month hospital stay where the drugs dulled the pain but not the incessant hallucinations and nightmares that plagued him. Dmitri knew Mia wasn't like that anymore. He'd read his mother's notebook, he understood why HYDRA had Mum killed, what they had done to Mia, too.

But that was a long way off from ever being able to forgive Mia. From ever being able to let go of the terror that gripped Dmitri's heart, whenever he thought about her. From the moment he met her, Dmitri's life had been set on a course heading towards destruction.

Five months. He'd known Mia for less than a year. That's how long it took for her to ruin it.

"And so the Madame let you back in after all that?" The blonde asked skeptically. "Surprised you're still in one piece after re-education."

At the mention of the word, all the other girls went stiff. The blonde smirked, like she knew this would happen and enjoyed it immensely. One girl with box-braids whispered, "Don't say it so loud, Ksenia!"

"Why not?" Ksenia, the blonde, shot back. She didn't raise her voice, though, and it wasn't loud enough to carry to any nearby tables. Her cold eyes locked back onto Dmitri, and he felt like a fox caught in a bear trap, pinned in place. "That's obviously what happened if he's acting this way. Like he doesn't even know what's going on."

But he had no idea what she was talking about. "I didn't go through re-education."

All six girls stared at him. Even Ksenia looked disbelieving. Apparently, that seemed even more shocking than the word itself. Dmitri didn't know what re-education was, but he was fairly certain that unless it was that tour he just took, he didn't have to take it. "What? Why would I need it?"

None of the girls immediately jumped to reply, and Dmitri felt a distinct uneasiness in the silence. The girl with auburn hair, sitting closest to him, frowned and asked, "It's for extreme cases only. When you've been gone a long time, it can be hard to… readjust. Especially for the ones that are…" she drifted off, trying to think of the correct word. "Troublesome."

"Oh," Dmitri isn't sure what she meant by that, but he didn't think he qualified for that anyways. "Well, I wanted to be here. Come back, I mean. The Madame never mentioned it to me."

"Huh," the auburn girl said, baffled. She glanced between the other girls, then back to Dmitri. "Do you don't remember any of our names?"

Dmitri shook his head, and the girl with the sleek dark hair and olive skin leaned forward, looking a little hurt. "None of us?"

He shook his head again, so one by one the girls introduced themselves. Ksenia, obviously, her blonde bob as severe as her regard for him; Sabina, with her black hair of small plaits pulled into a larger one, and dark umber skin; the auburn with pink cheeks was Oksana. They said their names with such warmth and smiles that it seemed they truly hoped Dmitri would remember, maybe it would ring a bell, but it did not. The others were Annika with the crown braid, Rada with the loose waves cut to her shoulders, and Elizaveta with her box braids (She insisted Dmitri call her Liza, as everyone else did).

"Will you be alright?" asked Rada, nodding towards his arm. "You won't be able to dance the way you are right now."

"No," Dmitri agreed, glancing past their table, up to the Madame in her seat of honor. The woman looked down over them all like a queen surveying her domain. "The Madame said I'll be able to make a full recovery, though. Eventually."

"It'd be nice to have a male partner to dance with," Sabina offered, smiling shyly. "We don't get as much practice with that as we should."

"They usually have to bring in special instructors for that," Liza added, making a face. "Or we practice with each other. But it's not the same. We have to memorize choreography for a pas de deux we'll never have to use on stage, which is obviously pointless. And there's the height difference to account for, not to mention the lifts."

These were all things Dmitri could do. Most of the dances he had performed were almost exclusively partnered dances. Lifting was half his entire job, and he was good at it. Had been good at it. Maybe he will be again, even if he still doubted the Madame's claim that he could somehow recover from a bullet to the shoulder. Dmitri's heard of dancers with less grievous injuries who could never return to the stage.

But he smiled and said, "I can't wait until I can join you."

"What will you be doing until then?" Oksana asked, frowning. "You won't be in our classes, surely."

"Of course he won't be," Ksenia snapped, just as Dmitri opened his mouth to answer. "You think he's anywhere near the same level as us? Even you, Oksana, lowest rank and you could still outperform him in every way. I don't know why the Madame's even bothered, you'll never catch up with the rest of us. It'd be more merciful to put you down now."

Dmitri recoiled like she'd slapped him. Put him down? What, like a rabid dog? It was such a strange turn of phrase, like the Madame would actually just kill him for the sin of a busted shoulder. He refused to be intimidated by her this time. "If you think its stupid, then go tell the Madame that. It's her decision, not mine. And unless she changes it, I'm staying."

Ksenia glared at him, but the way she had paled slightly said Dmitri must have said something right, because she had no further comebacks. Just a disgusted sniff before turning back to her plate. "You won't make it. She'll see that soon enough."

Dmitri watched her for one more wary second, before finally answering Oksana's question, "The Madame said I'll be placed in the younger classes until I catch up. Besides that, I don't know."

"For combat, too?" Rada giggled, and it had just the edge of teasing to it. "Aww. Those girls are going to eat you for breakfast."

"What?" Dmitri glanced over his shoulder, at the grades he imagined he'd be practicing with. Girls no older than ten, perhaps, caught his eye. "They don't look so bad."

But when he turned back around, all the other girls were shaking their heads knowingly. Sabina patted his hand. "That's what they always say."

"That's what who always says?" Dmitri asked, but he never ended up getting an answer, the six girls descending into laughter, sharing some injoke he wasn't a part of. Well, fine, he could find out for himself when it came time. He simply focused on finishing his meal and hoping the rest of the day wouldn't go too badly. This lunch had been a mixed bag, mostly because of Ksenia's hostility and his continued lack of memory leaving Dmitri feeling distinctly left out. He could ask them, he supposed, and risk some more teasing. But then the Madame called the meal to an end, and all the girls rose up at once to depart. Dmitri lagged behind, stumbling against the bench he'd been sitting on.

As promised, the Madame escorted him to his first class. "Mandarin," she says, gesturing to what appeared to be a standard classroom filled with typical accoutrements — world maps, shelves of dictionaries and encyclopedias, a chalkboard filled with characters and conjugation breakdowns.

Except the seats, which were filled with six-year-olds. Twenty little round faces, all turning in unison to stare wide-eyed at him. One leaned over and whispered into the ear of her companion, and they broke down into giggles, before the snap of the instructor's ruler on the desk silenced them.

"Play nice, my dears," The Madame called after them as Dmitri entered the room, feeling like a giant amongst the Lilliputians. The desks were at least adult-sized, meaning the girls' feet swung above the floor. It was adorable, but for Dmitri, humiliating. But what did he expect? He didn't know a damn thing about how to speak Mandarin. Of course he's placed in the elementary class.

Comrade Liu, a small woman with sharp dark eyes, taught the class. Thankfully they were going over basics, introductions, greetings, basic sayings. The girls laughed when Dmitri had to introduce himself in halting, broken Mandarin, and Comrade Liu made him repeat himself until he got the pronunciation correct. It was the longest five minutes of his life.

He just wanted to bury his head in his arms when it was over, but there was still another hour of class left to complete. They could take notes, but Dmitri was at a disadvantage, having to write with his nondominant hand. At least with his current classmates, his script quality more or less matched theirs. But learning an entirely new language, alphabet (not even an alphabet, just thousands upon thousands of individual characters to learn), and grammar structure. Not even English had been this hard. But Dmitri told himself to take one step at a time. If a six year old can figure this out, then so can he.

His new notebook already had multiple pages filled with notes by the time the class was finished. It was grueling, but at the same time Dmitri knew he would have to study — he'd have to learn at a quicker rate if he wanted to impress the Madame. The next class she took him to was on the base floor, an etiquette class with what appeared to be twelve-year olds.

Dmitri thought this would be better, with an older age group. He was wrong. Six year olds were sweet. But twelve year olds, as he had once learned in middle school, could be the meanest creatures that ever existed. On top of the instructor criticizing his posture at a dinner table, the girls themselves did not hesitate to tell Dmitri he picked up the wrong fork, that's for fish, idiot, or that he's supposed to wait for the hostess, obviously. Even the way he crossed his legs was wrong.

The pedantic rules were aggravating, but Dmitri reminded himself this was for a good purpose. He needed to know this, he's been to fine dining before, he knew how to behave then. He just didn't have strict teachers smacking his hands with rulers every time he used the incorrect one.

His knuckles were red and sore by the time that period had ended. There was no dancing yet, as much as Dmitri wanted a class where he was actually good at the subject. That would wait. No, in its place, the Madame brought him to physical therapy — a room in the medical wing where a stoic middle-aged woman with arms like tree trunks gently manipulated his arm. It was no longer in a cast, but movement was still limited and his right hand had no strength.

Most of the exercises were just testing the breadth of his mobility and stretching his fingers, opening and closing them, trying to make a fist. Dmitri couldn't, not unless he used his other hand to close his fingers together. He hated it, but gritted his teeth and bit his tongue when Nurse Blatova pushed his arm until it hurt. He'd endured a bit of this before, knew the pain wasn't to be alarmed about. But that didn't mean he had to enjoy it.

She also gave him a shot. Didn't even warn Dmitri, just jabbed him with the needle when he wasn't paying attention. And unlike the nurses at the London hospital, hadn't exactly been gentle, either. "Ow! What was that?"

"Vaccine." Nurse Blatova said.

"For what?" Dmitri asked, bewildered.

"Vaccine." the woman repeated, and refused to elaborate when Dmitri pressed her, or explain that he already had all his shots. In the end, all he could figure was that the Madame wanted to keep all her bases covered, just in case.

Now both his shoulders ached, for two entirely different reasons.

He left the session utterly exhausted — and Dmitri didn't even do much, he was sitting down for most of it. But it was a relief to put his sling back on and forget he had a useless arm for a while. Dmitri could've sobbed in relief when the Madame told him it was time for dinner.

"Afterwards, you'll have a couple free hours before curfew," The Madame said. "I recommend you use that time to get to know your sisters better. They'll show you to the dormitory."

Sleep. Dmitri couldn't wait. The Madame must have sensed his relief, because she smiled and asked, "So what did you think of your first day here?"

"A little rough," Dmitri said honestly. Between the mild humiliation and the physical therapy, not to mention whatever vaccine was making him feel a little loopy right now, Dmitri definitely had better first days of school. "But not as bad as I thought."

"Good," The Madame nodded approvingly, as she gestured down the hallway. "Tomorrow will only be harder. But I'm sure you'll be able to handle it, Dmitri. You've already managed this far with such grace."

"Thank you," Dmitri murmured, pleased even if he didn't feel particularly graceful. But it was nice to feel that his effort so far was noticed, appreciated. He didn't want to let her down.

Dinner was a sedate affair. Just like earlier, the entire hall waited for the Madame to arrive before they could begin eating. Dmitri didn't speak as much this time, too exhausted and just wanting to shovel food in his mouth before he finally got to crash in bed. The other girls talked as if he wasn't even there, in good spirits. Ksenia, with her barbed tongue, reminding about ranks. Whatever those were. Maybe like the Red Room's version of grades or something.

And, at last — the sky black outside the windows, the curtains drawn to keep the warmth in, girls filing off in groups, all in one direction.

"We all sleep in the same dormitory," Sabina explained to Dmiri as they walked down the corridor together.

"Even me?" Dmitri asked, doubtful. Certainly they wouldn't allow co-ed sleeping situations, even if he was only one boy. It seemed… inappropriate.

"Yes, even you," Sabina laughed, patting his arm.

"No one gets their own room until they graduate," Oksana added, with just a hint of envy. "Get their own furniture and clothes, too. Besides, you slept in the same dorms as us when we were younger. It'll be just like before."

She said this with a warm, nostalgic air that Dmitri wished he understood. At least he had a bathroom to himself, as Dmitri discovered during their bedtime routine. Showers, change clothes, brush teeth, bed. When he came out of the shower stall, there was a spare set of clothes for him waiting on the bench, in a communal bathroom with no other occupants. Dmitri supposed he should appreciate the privacy, and not worry too much that he hadn't heard anyone enter or leave.

The dormitory for the Year Elevens (as he learned he was technically with, adjusted syllabus notwithstanding), was a long room with a two rows of cots, with the outer wall interspersed with tall, narrow windows looking out into the dark expanse of siberia. Each bed was set with a nightstand and a small chest to fill with one's belongings.

Of the seven of them, six were lightly decorated. There wasn't a lot to tell them apart; one chest had some initials carved into the leather. One nightstand had a book resting on top, another had a glass of water. Only one had nothing at all; that one was his, set between Oksana and Sabina's beds. By their hopeful smiles, it seems they may have arranged it this way. Dmitri decided it was better than sleeping anywhere near Ksenia.

Dmitri didn't see the handcuffs until he sat down on the mattress.

They hung from the bedpost, one loop locked in. The other cuff dangled open, like a set of jaws open and waiting. At first, Dmitri thought it was some kind of stupid joke being made on the new kid. Trying to scare him or tease him or something. He wasn't exactly sure.

But before he could question it, the lights dimmed, curfew called. And he watched as each and every girl laid down on their bed, lifted one wrist, and snapped the cuff of their own individual handcuffs into place.

The lights went out. Dmitri froze.

"Dmitri, what's wrong?" Sabina whispered in the darkness. It wasn't completely quiet, the other girls were whispering to each other. But Dmitri was the only one remaining upright on his bed. "You should lay down soon, before they come to check on us."

But Dmitri didn't understand. "The handcuffs. Am I just supposed to — what are they for?"

"Just put it on," Oksana whispered from his other side. Both she and Sabina lied on their sides, one arm raised over their heads. It didn't look comfortable, but their faces were pinched with something other than pain. More like worry. Fear. "It's not a big deal. We've been doing this since we were little, remember?"

"No," Dmitri admitted, frowning. "How do you unlock them?"

"We don't," Sabina replied. "The monitor does it for us in the morning."

"But what if I have to go to the bathroom?"

"You could hold it in." Oksana offered, then pointed to a thin wire that traced along the wall above their cots. It appeared not unlike a cord one might find in a bus when you wanted to signal a stop. "Or you can pull on that. It rings a bell somewhere and someone comes to unlock you."

"I can't do it myself?" Dmitri tried to keep the rising fear from his voice. Lock himself to his bed, with no way to free himself? What if there was a fire?

"No," Both Sabina and Oksana said in unison. Sabina frowned, adding, "Don't worry, it's completely safe. If there's an emergency, they'll come and get us. We have an evacuation system and everything. Just put it on before you get in trouble."

Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Dmitri finally obeyed. Maybe it was their combined pressure, maybe it was the fear that he might actually be punished for doing this one simple thing. And maybe having the cord to signal for aid was a nice reassurance, too. It was just one little thing. One little thing he had to do for this school, so they'll teach him what he needed to know, so he could survive in the outside world. A world that would want him dead.

Just one small thing. Nothing more.

Still, Dmitri had one more question, just as he struggled to snap the metal cuff around his good wrist with the clumsy fingers of his right hand. "But what is it for?"

"To keep us safe," Oksana replied, as though this were obvious.

And Dmitri had just laid down on his back when the door to the dormitory opened, and in strolled a darkened figure, who passed each of their cots. Saw that each of their hands was appropriately restrained, before leaving again. The door clicked shut, and the room fell quiet.

Still, Dmitri did not find it easy to relax; it was an uncomfortable position to rest like this. Couple with his injured shoulder, the other raised over his head, Dmitri had no idea how he was going to get comfortable. "You guys can sleep like this?"

"Just try to relax," Sabina whispered to him. "You'll get used to it."

Dmitri hoped so. He'd get used to whatever he needed to if that's what it took to graduate from the Red Room.