10. CHAPTER 10 #2
Dear Zayne,
You're not fond of remembering, but it's part of healing. Remember and let the medication help you process the loss.
Sincerely,
Dr. Cooper.
That motherfucker. This was all an excuse to toy with him.
He guzzled a glass of water and then reached for a mug for tea. This time, he would make his own.
A creak behind him.
Zayne reached for his holster before remembering that he wasn't wearing a gun. And that he shouldn't shoot Dr. Cooper or the staff. Twisting around, he met worried green eyes and fine red hair lying over Kira's shoulders.
Shock and horror rippled through his body. Shouldn't her door be locked?
“Why aren't you in your room?” His voice sounded lethal even to him.
Kira stammered when she spoke. “Dr. Cooper… He said it's therapeutic. He said I shouldn't feel like a prisoner while I'm here.”
Guttural words crawled up from his chest. “You are a prisoner.”
Deep concern knit her brows as she walked closer into the dim room. “You're covered in sweat.”
Zayne clutched the mug tighter, furious that Dr. Cooper crossed so many lines in one night.
“Couldn't sleep.” He worked his jaw, turning his back to Kira as he continued preparing the tea. “Exercise helps insomnia.”
She knew too much about him now, and not just that he survived reprogramming here. Even if Zayne pretended the insomnia had nothing to do with reliving those memories, she wouldn't believe him. Just like she probably didn't believe he was sweating because of a late-night workout.
“You couldn't sleep either,” he said, wanting to break the silence for once. Zayne felt naked without his uniform or the clothes he'd strategically selected to hide his marks.
“No.”
She didn't elaborate. Of course, neither one of them could sleep. And of course, Dr. Cooper made sure they'd run into each other.
Damn that man.
Now Zayne was laid bare to her. She could see the sweat covering his body.
The tension in his muscles and his expression.
Worst of all, the tank top hid none of his markings from her.
Not the snakes coiling around him, the soldier's band circling his biceps, the Phaedra's towers stretching up his forearms. So many scars she had no business seeing, each one betraying its own deadly secret.
It was pointless to return to his room and get a shirt now.
She'd seen him when he wanted to remain hidden.
That meant Dr. Cooper wanted her to see.
And right now, Dr. Cooper spoke for the Phaedra.
Retreating to cover himself felt humiliating and weak, and it defied the silent order to let Kira in.
So, he forced himself to face her as he fought to ignore the flashes in the shadows.
To ignore Edwards' piercing eyes flickering back at him, wondering why he left her behind.
“Tea?” The grunt of a word sounded more unfriendly than he intended. Though she hesitated, she nodded in the end.
It required all his concentration to walk to the table, place a cup for her near one of the chairs, and sit without showing his dizziness.
For the first time, he truly looked at her since she found him out here.
She wore a lavender pajama set that seemed like the really soft material Mellie loved.
He eyed the matching fuzzy headband that held the hair back from her face.
She appeared far too comfortable for a woman at the center of the Phaedra's plot to end the uprising.
Pure madness. Someone packed these clothes for her—probably a soldier.
A soldier trained for war picked matching pajama sets to fool her into feeling comfortable.
“Does that really convince you to let your guard down?” He raised his cup toward her headband.
Her right cheek dimpled when she smiled, and she looked down bashfully. “Oh, not really. It's nice having my own things, but it feels sort of creepy. All of this feels creepy.”
That may have been the point, in truth. Dr. Cooper found joy in deeply unsettling people.
“Thank you for the tea.” Kira had a soothing voice with a slight rasp. She tended to speak quietly when she wasn't angry.
In her lounging clothes, with the need for sleep heavy in her tired eyes, she looked especially tender and vulnerable. The neckline and capped sleeves of her shirt showed more skin than her prison uniform. Zayne trained his eyes on the table. What a stupid game they played.
“Do you mind if I stay out here?” she asked.
Very much. He didn't say it, though. The Phaedra expected compliance. “Make yourself comfortable while you're here.”
“If you don't want to stay, you don't have to.”
“What the hell.” He drank. “Might as well have a sleepover.” The cutting, sarcastic edge to his voice made her wince, and he nearly did as well. He had to stop being such an asshole before everyone saw he sabotaged his own mission. “It's fine.”
Her eyes fell down his arm then, and she didn't hide her stare. A flash of her hands smoothing up his biceps that night filled his memory, and the paranoia of the drugs flooded him with fear. What if she recognized him? Or worse, wanted him like she had back then. Was that part of the plan too?
“You don't tattoo your scars,” she said, eyes back on his. “There's no gold anywhere on you.”
He swallowed down a sigh of relief, seeing nothing but curiosity. Still, he expected her to mention his double seals before his scars. She'd most certainly never seen a single seal, much less two.
No need to justify her observation with a comment.
Even if he didn't find the custom tacky, he'd never highlight that which he wanted to hide.
Soldiers inked their scars in veins of gold, reminiscent of the Phaedra's tower and of the golden tears flowing from the emperor's statue in Memorial Park—the ones supposedly shed for the dead.
At least no one forced that false badge of honor on him.
Imagine looking in the mirror to see all of his scars tattooed with gold.
“What's that one?” Her eyes lowered to his left arm, a few inches below his band.
“A scar.”
Unfazed, her stare shifted to the edge of another that he thought his shirt hid.
Damn it. She didn't fear him at all now that he had saved her from Dr. Cooper. What a disaster.
“That?” she asked, not discouraged by his previous sarcasm.
On instinct, he ignored the question until he remembered she knew. He should use his mistake to help her, just like he'd claimed to Dr. Cooper. So, what if he'd rather carve his eyes out of their sockets than reveal it all to her? It may help her.
“Reprogramming.” Zayne washed the discomfort away with the burn of the hot drink.
Sad eyes lingered on his scar. “What did Dr. Cooper really do to you?”
The dizziness and the shadows and the feeling of floating above his body made it impossible to keep himself grounded. Did she mean back then or tonight? “I don't remember most of it.”
“He hurt you.”
“He says he healed me.”
“What do you say?”
“I learned a valuable lesson,” Zayne said.
He wasn't entertaining these thoughts. It didn't help.
She needed to stop, too, if she wanted to survive.
“No one defies the Phaedra, no matter who you are.
That's the reason I told you about the forbidden.
You need to understand this, or it'll cost you your life.”
Please, listen. Please.
Kira held her mug with both hands. “When you told me about the girl, I didn't understand the extent of what you went through.”
She covered their tracks well. “I didn't want to share more than I had to. I wonder now if that was a mistake. You need to pay attention to what I'm saying.”
“Okay,” she said. Perhaps seeing his scars convinced her to listen.
“I told you this is forbidden to speak of.” Zayne wasn't prepared to share the story with her, but he'd sacrifice anything to help her. “My father and I have never discussed it directly. So, you and I will never speak of it again.”
Fear shadowed her face. The room still slowly spun. Did it unsteady her, too?
“When I was fourteen, I started shadowing. The squad I was observing received a mission to deal with a traitor and his family. Two parents. Two adult children.” His eyes went unfocused while he spoke, voice monotone. “A teenage daughter. I found out later she was only nineteen.”
Kira bit her bottom lip, eyes knowing.
“First, they killed her mom. One shot to the back of the head.” The bullet cried out in his memory. He'd never spoken this story out loud. “Next, her older sister. The girl started shrieking. They killed the brother next. When they shot her father, she still hadn't stopped screaming.”
Kira leaned against the table, a grief everyone in the empire carried blazing from her eyes. They all remembered their firsts. The first time they saw soldiers execute a person. The first massacre of an entire family. The first loved one.
Fresh sweat dampened his temples. “I stole a private's gun and fired into the couch. The girl ran, but there was nowhere to go.”
“There never is,” Kira said quietly.
Pain crept down his spine as the forbidden slipped through his mind.
“She didn't make it far, and they pinned me in seconds.
The corporal said he'd show me the cost of weakness.” The next part resisted entering his mind.
Nausea churned in his stomach. “He kicked her in the face.” His lips felt numb.
“He didn't stop until she was spitting broken teeth.”
A slideshow of the images replayed in his mind. The pieces never fit together, but he caught jagged bits of those terrible moments.
Kira opened her mouth, but when she glanced at the camera, she shut it. Whether she spoke her fury or not, her expression conveyed her feelings clearly.
“The corporal handed a pistol to me and said I could end her suffering or watch what he'd do next. I aimed for her temple and pulled the trigger.” Dampness glazed Kira's eyes. “It took less than five minutes for me to see what happens when you fight a battle you can't win.”