32. Octavia
“Up.”
I groan, patting my hand across the bed until I grasp the edge of a fluffy pillow. I fling it in the direction of the offending voice without cracking open my lashes. My head doesn’t even need to turn to know my ammunition never met its mark.
“Nice try. You’re getting better at that,” the voice drawls. “Get up. Now.”
“No.” I curl up tighter, bemoaning the sore pull of my muscles from yesterday’s training session. I used to consider joining the army for the housing and warm meals. Thank fuck I never did.
“You agreed. One hour every day.” The blanket rips off my limbs, revealing my rumpled sleep shorts and bare legs. “Come on.”
“I never agreed to the hour being at the ass-crack of dawn,” I groan, flipping my face back into the pillow. “I need a break today. Not feeling it.”
Understatement of the year.
I’ve been thinking about the act of brushing my teeth for a few hours now.
There was a time in my life when I’d have been horrified by the prospect of not brushing my teeth the moment I woke.
A toothbrush used to be one of my only earthly possessions, after all, and I was incredibly determined not to fall into the filthy and unwashed stereotype expected of those at the foster house.
If only that child could see me now, surrounded by luxury, and yet, somehow struggling to climb to her feet to complete the simple act.
I’m so sick of feeling absolutely nothing.
I feel nothing.
It’s better that way. It’s the feeling that tugs the memories to my consciousness like a stitch pulling taut. I’d much rather keep my tired eyes trained on that smooth slab of wood than feel all there is to fucking feel.
I hear Vasiliy step closer. “First of all, it’s nearly one in the afternoon. Hardly ass-crack of dawn.”
Oh.
“Second, I know you’re not in the mood, but remember how well you did yesterday?” A hand brushes over my spine, eliciting a burst of electricity. “I bet it felt amazing to be outside, feeling the sun and wind on your face.”
I shake my head, unwilling to bend to his words. “Open the window, Vas. It has the same effect.”
He tsks.
I flip over with a huff, catching my first sight of the irritating man today.
He’s so put-together. So innately unaffected by all the shit we just weathered.
Dressed in a black long-sleeved compression shirt and a pair of dark cargo pants, he also happens to look like every girl’s wet dream made flesh.
The grooves of his biceps cut addictive contours into the fabric, illustrating just how jacked he is underneath.
Maybe that’s part of his strategy. Dressing slutty enough to entice me to work out with him.
Clever.
“Vas, please,” I beg, changing my approach. “I’m exhausted. At least let me take a nap.”
“You’ve been in bed for twenty-four hours.”
“I know, but,” I sigh, seeking out that slat of wood on the wall I’ve become so dependent on. “I can’t sleep.”
Bending down, he settles on the other side of the bed. When I glance over, his face has melted into something soft and disarming. “Talk to me about it. Why can’t you sleep?”
I consider the question for a long time. Not due to obstinacy—rather, hesitation to revisit the thoughts that I work so hard to avoid. Sometimes, even seeing a certain color is enough to bring them on.
There are so many offending colors in my world.
Grey bathes the walls in shadows every evening. It doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in a cage or lounging on a lavish mattress, because that darkness always works its way in. If I look for too long, I start hearing my own stuttered breaths. Feel the scream building in my throat.
Red is the worst of them all, a silent gush that seems to follow me everywhere I go.
The color that dripped down my cheek when the guard marked my shame.
The bright hue that bloomed in the middle of those men’s shirts after I pressed the trigger, and the ooze that poured down my face last night when I scrubbed a little too hard and ripped a stitch on my cheek.
Blue is my only touchstone.
Only one particular variation, though. The same one that’s gazing down at me now with a thoughtful expression.
“When I close my eyes, I see too many things,” I start, voice lowering.
And I feel too many things.
I was an angry child. Whether or not the emotion was justified, you’d think I’d have more practice pushing that anger down by now. I have experience with extreme tolerance, and separating my ownership from my body like cream and curd. Why is this time any different?
The scar on my cheek tingles beneath the thought. Is this all because of the physical reminder left behind?
Am I that shallow?
“Tell me,” he says.
I wipe my eyes, feeling the words rise in my chest like a hungry wave. “I see all those bodies in the safehouse, littered across the floor. I see you in that chair.” I don’t have to specify which chair I’m talking about. “Except, you’re not silent or taunting the guards. You’re screaming.”
The bloodiest images always come when I watch the moon drift away, replaced by soft chirps and the abrasive streaks of morning sun. Another day marked by nature’s cycle, but nothing feels any different.
Before I know it, I’m being pulled across the bed into his lap. My legs rest over his thigh in the intimate position. His chest pulses against my back with a ragged breath.
“I see you too,” he whispers, startling me. “I see you in that chair. Coated in blood. Humming that ridiculous song.”
Dance of the Knights.
“It’s an epic song,” I reply with a small smile. He doesn’t match it.
“I hate it. I fucking hate every time it plays in my head, reminding me how much I failed you in there—”
“You did not fail me.” I turn, gripping his chin and tilting his face down to mine. A small crease indents between his brows. “You protected me. You’re still trying to protect me, even though I’m an ungrateful asshole who can’t figure out how to face the world again.”
“I see you trying every day,” he says, bending his forehead to mine. “Trying takes many forms. Even opening up to me was a massive step.”
I shake my head. Opening up to him is easy.
It’s always been dangerously easy. One of my fingers mindlessly lifts to my cheek, tracing the scabbed skin and tight stitches as I try to figure out how to get him to leave me alone.
I don’t even realize I’m doing it until Vas’s gaze catches on the action with fierce intensity.
“Don’t,” I force out, dropping my hand.
“What?”
“Don’t look at me like that.” My eyes narrow.
“I feel hideous enough.” Though hideous isn’t quite the right word.
The scar is slowly healing, but it’s still angry and red, and I know it’s the first thing everyone sees when they look my way.
Every time I look in the mirror, I see something new.
A victim. A lesson. A weakness. The only thing I don’t see is me.
The old me.
I try not to look anymore. The lights stay off when I use the facilities.
Sudden movement jerks me from my thoughts. Vasiliy tugs one sleeve of his shirt until a pale, raised scar on his bicep is visible beneath the sprawling abstract ink. Not one of his new injuries. Those are still blue and tender.
“Do you see this?” he asks, guiding my fingers to the marred flesh. I trace the thick strip of skin. I like the sturdy texture. Not because it feels like a scar, but because it feels like Vasiliy.
“When the body heals from a large enough trauma, it doesn’t just grow back,” he explains, face going uncharacteristically serious. “It grows under and over, layer by layer, until it has reinforced the wound with so many coatings that almost nothing could ever slice that spot again.”
My next swallow goes down like a jagged stone. I don’t look away from the raised line below my fingers. Not as my vision blurs and some of those wretched emotions come racing back. It’s only when his hand captures my chin that I glance up and meet his stoic gaze.
“Your anger does not fester like an infection, Octavia. It hardens like a scar. Proof of your strength and resilience despite the horror.”
He makes it sound so easy to be strong.
“I want to harden,” I choke out, searching his decisive expression. “But I think I break, instead.”
“No, moya zlaya.” His head shakes in one swift movement. “I’ve known how powerful you were from the second I saw you. My angry girl.”
“Moya zlaya.” I taste the words in my mouth, remembering all of the iterations I’d heard of it in the past few weeks. “That’s what it means?”
He finally told me.
“I said we’d get out of there, didn’t I?”
My next breath catches.
“So you’ll let me out of training today?” I divert optimistically.
He smiles. “If you can knock me to the floor right here and now, we can skip training today.”
Asshole.
It only takes him thirty minutes to get me dressed and downstairs to the courtyard, where he hung a heavy punching bag from a nearby pole.
I don’t want to admit that he’s right about the sun and wind, though he heavily underestimated the draw of having a beautiful, tattooed man kneel before me to secure my pink wraps around my knuckles. I’m sure as hell not gonna tell him. He doesn’t need any more confidence than he already has.
“That’s not the combination,” he snaps. “Pay attention: two, two, duck, three, six.”
I huff out a breath of exhaustion, stepping back from the swinging bag. “I don’t like numbers. Can you rename them?”
“You’ll get used to the numbers. Two is your cross, three is your hook. I hope duck is self-explanatory, but I’d be happy to give you another lesson on its importance.”
Hell no. I’m not falling for those kinds of lessons anymore.
“Can you say the combination again with the words instead of numbers?” I complain. “I don’t want to learn the numbers.”
I don’t want to learn anything, in fairness. I’m pretty sure every item of clothing on my body is drenched in sweat. My legs ache in places that never got used in my dance career.
“You have to learn the numbers,” he says. “You’re just trying to keep me talking so I don’t notice you’ve stopped. Go again.”
I miss my bed.
“This isn’t fair!” I deliver another hook that barely rocks the bag. “I’m right-handed,” I say, holding up the bandaged arm. “We should wait until I can use my dominant hand.”
“The best fighters train equally,” he responds simply. “You never know which direction your final blow will come from.”
“If my final blow comes from my left side, I’ll take it with open arms as a sign of divine intervention,” I say, wiping the sweat on my forehead with my pink glove.
“I said go again.”
The sound that leaves my throat is feral.
I take it out on the bag, slamming my wrapped fist against the leather as Vas yells out the combination.
“Keep your other hand up by your face!”
I lift my right fist, obliques screaming from every hook. He makes me repeat the movements until each part of the combination is ingrained in my instincts, ready to be fired off at the click of a button.
Walking back up the steps is torturous, but today, I find the will to get into the shower after our training and brush my teeth with careful diligence. When night comes hours later, I’m so exhausted that I sleep like a baby for the first time in weeks.