CHAPTER TWO #2
I obeyed, shivering despite the heat from the room.
Rose took a large scoop of the substance in the jar, passed it to Violet, and dropped to her knees before me.
I gasped loudly as the two began coating my body with the gritty substance, rubbing hard enough to remove a layer of skin.
They worked methodically in tandem, leaving nothing untouched.
Rose stood and made her way to the wall, pushing a button. Behind her, a shower with countless heads came to life.
“Wash off the grime of the life below.”
The shower felt like an assault as my raw skin was pelted with varying pressure of scalding water, spraying my face, shooting up my nose, bombarding me from above. Sputtering, I stumbled out of the shower.
“This way, little Fledgling,” Violet said. “In the tub now.”
A towel was pressed into my hands. I wiped wildly at my face before giving it back to them.
The Starlings perched on the edge of a small pool, and once I eased in, their hands dived into my curls.
A floral scent drifted toward me only for them to shove my head underwater.
They repeated the process, washing and drowning me until they were satisfied.
“Now out,” Rose commanded as they pulled me out of the tub.
Violet shoved a towel into my hands, and I wrapped it tightly around my raw skin, following them into a paneled room, bare except for a silver rolling tray and a black table.
The resemblance to the medical rooms I had visited for my physical caused my spine to go rigid.
For the space of several terrified heartbeats I was in the examination room, standing in a flimsy gray gauzy gown that opened in the front before three men in white coats.
Lie down and be quiet.
I had—again and again, the men never saying another word as they scanned my chip, then poked and prodded me until content.
“Towel off, little Fledgling,” Violet called, wheeling the metal tray to the table. “Lie down.”
Rose tugged my towel, and I clutched it against my body in a vise grip. “Not until you tell me what you’re about to do,” I demanded, mouth dry.
“As if you have a say,” Rose told me. I gripped the towel tighter.
“You’re livelier than your file made you out to be, Defect.” Violet’s eyes danced as she looked at me. “We are going to remove the hair from your body,” she explained. My hand flew to my long, dark strands.
“Not the hair on your head, daft one.” Rose chuckled. “Just everywhere else.” Her smile became feline as she tugged hard on the towel again. Reluctantly, I released it, naked before them once more, and climbed onto the table.
The cold metal bit into me. Within seconds, they slathered my shin with hot paste that didn’t burn. I relaxed slightly as Rose rubbed paper against the cooled substance.
“Don’t scream,” Rose warned before mercilessly ripping it off.
I suppressed a cry at the flash of pain.
They continued slowly, working up my legs, contorting my body to reach everything.
I sucked in deep breaths as they reached the most sensitive parts.
It felt endless as I closed my eyes and held my breath, only releasing it when they tore the hair from my body. Again and again and again.
I opened my eyes hesitantly when the torture stopped. “I’m impressed,” Violet said, carrying another mystery jar. “Most from below yell and cry the first time. You barely flinched.”
I scowled at her. It had not felt like I barely flinched. A woodsy, floral scent hit me, and I eyed the jar suspiciously. “It’s a balm to soothe the skin and decrease redness,” Violet clarified, applying some to my legs. The relief was instant.
I began to rise without prompting, assuming more was to be done.
“She’s learning,” Rose said, tossing me a thin robe and taking me to another room, sitting me in front of a large vanity littered with different jars, vials, and cases.
“Be still while we fix you,” Rose told me as they bustled into action.
I closed my eyes and sat silently as they touched and pulled, thankful no one asked for my robe.
Violet brushed my hair before drying it with a small handheld device.
Rose crouched before me, attacking my feet, clipping and painting.
A freckled face with flaming red hair rose to my memory. Alice.
“When we get out of here we can find a way to run away,” she had told me.
We had been fifteen, at the Academy. “The world was big before the Last War. We can go somewhere else where they don’t treat us like this, or if we can’t find anyone it can just be us, alone, forever.
We can change our fate. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, Em? ”
I had stared at her bright eyes, gleaming with hope, in the communal sleeping area. The others all slept around us. I found the moon through the window above my small bed. If only we had that power.
“It would be wonderful,” I had whispered.
I missed her so much. It was strange missing something that wasn’t meant to exist. The Academy forbade friendships and connections of any kind.
Alice hadn’t cared about any of their rules.
Whispered conversations after lights-out had become our routine.
A secret friendship. Stranger still, mourning something I didn’t know the ending to.
Deep down a part of me knew she had disregarded one too many rules.
That I would never see her again. She was gone.
“I think it’s for her eyes,” Violet was saying, bringing me back to the room.
“Have you ever seen anything like it, though?” Rose asked, clutching Violet’s arm as she peered at something Violet held.
“I have not,” Violet answered. “Her file . . . the Mate’s identity was blank, right?”
Rose nodded. “No number or preferences were listed for her.”
Violet turned toward me, a small black box in her hands. “Strange, is it not?”
“What’s strange?” I asked.
“You’ve received a gift,” Rose told me, laying a small scrap of paper upon the counter. It was too far away for me to read the meticulous penmanship on the note.
“What kind of gift?” I asked, leaning forward.
Violet grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back against the chair. “A very generous one. They sent you a film—”
“They call it a lens,” Rose interjected as she placed something on her finger. It was tiny and impossibly thin. “It says to place it over the blue one.”
“Who sent it?” I asked, my palms sweaty.
“The Illum,” they told me together.
“We aren’t often surprised, Fledgling. What have you done to win the Illum’s favor with a visual defect?” Violet asked, her eyes narrowed.
“I haven’t done anything,” I told them honestly.
The two shared a glance before Rose approached me. Violet gripped my shoulders tighter, tilting my head back until she hovered over me. “Shame they want to cover the blue. If she had two of them, it would be quite lovely. Brown will have to do.”
“It says to hold open the eye to place it,” Rose told Violet.
Her hands left my shoulders, holding open my blue eye. “Don’t move.” My pulse fluttered fitfully as a strange film obstructed my vision. I blinked rapidly as the film moved and my sight came back.
“It works. How bizarre,” Violet exclaimed, peering at my face, inches from me. “Let’s paint.”
Rose grabbed brushes, different jars, and vials from the vanity. I blinked incessantly, my eye watering. “Stop that,” Rose demanded.
Moments later, I was being pushed into another room with a small raised platform and a garment rack bursting with breathtaking fabrics and colors. Despite myself, a small thrill raced through me. I had always hated the drab, shapeless gray garments I was forced to wear.
“This is the fun part,” Violet whispered, and I jumped.
“Here. On the platform, robe off,” she instructed, cramming something in my hands.
Ivory lace panties. If you could call the small scraps that.
Dropping the robe, I shimmied into them, breasts still exposed.
I stood on the platform, clutching my chest, as the two squabbled.
They clearly had a deep understanding of each other.
A closeness as foreign to me as the procreation phase.
“The gold,” Violet claimed forcefully. “The neckline will distract her Mate, ensuring a successful contract.”
“She is going to dinner, not the bedroom, tonight,” Rose argued. “She should wear the pink gown. It will look beautiful among the blooms in the Garden.”
“And hide all our hard work with a frilly skirt and a high neckline? Absolutely not! They sent her a lens, which the Illum have never done. We make her stand out.”
Violet gently held a shimmering golden dress in her hands. The fabric was akin to liquid gold. It was magnificent. Rose gave in, and they raised the dress up my legs, leaving goosebumps in its silky wake.
“I hate when you’re right, Violet,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. She strapped my feet into simple golden heels, leaving me instantly off-balance.
“Last touches,” Violet said. Rose painted my lips one last time and sprayed me with a sweet-smelling substance while Violet combed my curls.
“There, that is acceptable,” Rose declared, turning me toward a full-length mirror. “Walked in as unremarkable as trash, and now look at you.” She grinned like she had just given me the world’s finest compliment. “Are you going to look or not?”
The dress was clearly picked to display all of my physical attributes.
Two thin straps fell over my shoulders, plunging into identical deep Vs in the front and back.
The silk bodice lay flush against my skin, as soft as a lover’s caress, and cinched tightly at my waist before sheets of silk cascaded gracefully to the floor.
The lush gold color brought out the matching undertones I hadn’t noticed in my hair.
Beautiful, unbound curls fell around me.
My lips were stained pink, and my lids shimmered slightly, light eyeliner lifting my eyes, and my lashes were darker and longer.
Two brown irises. Matching.
I didn’t know what would come next in the procreation phase, where I was going, or who my Mate might be. Dread filled me at the task ahead—that I was about to be deemed worthy or unworthy. But tears gathered in my identical eyes. I would be able to meet the gazes of the Elite. To look up, not down.
“Beautiful, right?” Violet stood with her arms crossed, smirking proudly.
“Here, take this. It has your Comm Device in it. Your bag will be sent back to your living quarters,” Rose instructed, shoving a golden oval purse into my hand. I took it from her, glancing back at the woman in the mirror one last time, my throat tight at what I saw.
Elite. I saw a girl who knew nothing of the surface and the Archives. A girl who had done this countless times. A girl her birth family would be proud of. A girl her birth father accepted.
A hard swat to my shoulder startled me.
“Quit slouching, women of polite society never slouch,” Rose scolded. “Shoulders back, head up, chest out. Poise. You’re dining with the Elite. Act like it.”
“I remember their lessons,” I snapped. Anger and nerves twisted in my chest.
Violet’s eyes went wide as a grin graced her features.
“I’d watch who you speak to like that. Two phased-out Defects is one thing, Fledgling.
Speak like that among the Elite, before your Mate”—Violet stepped closer, her voice dropping—“you’ll be eliminated before you even begin the game. Head up.” She lifted my chin.
“Come now, let’s see if you can fly.” Rose cackled wickedly.
The lecture from the Academy slithered in.
Welcome to the Grooming, your final year at the Academy.
After this year, you might find yourself Approved to be among the Elite in the clouds to attempt to produce an Elite offspring.
If chosen and the Elite male accepts this proposed mating, your status will remain the same.
You rise merely due to the compatibility of your genes with that of a male Elite.
The Illum uses these matches to eradicate the progression of your defects with the help of Elite genes.
Fail to follow these rules and you shall be in blue.
You will fall from Minor to Major, cast aside away from the Illum’s blessed light, or, depending on the severity of your misdeed, eliminated.
Would I fulfill my use? Even if I did, would I not fall right back to the ground, into the Sanctuary or even Low Town across the river?
The only real certainty was that my time in the Wastelands was numbered.
There was no real winning for me, only different levels of survival.
My insides trembled as I ran my nervous hands down the soft glimmering fabric.
I had only one choice before me: to fly or die trying.