The V Girl: A coming of age story

by Mya Robarts

  The ex-cop uses his uninjured hand to shoot at us, but his aim is off. We are advancing in the fight, and now we’re surrounded by trees.

  Gary seems astonished when one of Cara’s arrows hits its mark, disarming him. Divine catches the handgun and shoots Gary, but she misses.

  My balloon reaches Gary’s head, and he howls when alcohol drenches him. He loses his balance and falls headfirst. Divine shoots him at the same time Joey’s stone hits his skull.

  We don’t have time to see if he’s dead. The soldier, even with Poncho’s powerful jaws enclosing his arm, manages to shoot at us. We seek refuge behind the trees, barely avoiding the incessant fire. We can’t attack. Divine’s gun skills are limited to theory and instinct. She has Joey, though. A silent message passes between them.

  Joey’s sling tosses stones toward a nearby tree, deceiving the soldier into shooting in that direction. Joey repeats this tactic several times, giving Divine enough time to carefully aim and shoot. The bullet reaches the soldier’s forearm, which, thanks to Poncho’s attack, is no longer covered with armor. His groan tells me that he’s in pain, but he’s a soldier, trained to fight until death.

  Cara and I climb the trees at full speed for a better vantage point. I throw another balloon toward the soldier, and Joey follows with a stone to burst the balloon in the air, soaking our attacker. The soldier staggers, and Poncho throws him to the ground. Cara and I aim at him again. Some of Divine’s bullets bounce, but our combined force is enough to finally incapacitate the man.

  A manic, adrenaline-fueled smile spreads across my face. We did it! We defeated a soldier!

  I climb down the tree at top speed. Gary doesn’t have the full powers of a soldier, but he must have recovered by now. I find him crawling, trying to escape, so I kick him. Repeatedly.

  We restrain and gag our prisoners with torn pieces of the soldier’s shirt. The soldier is unconscious but still alive.

  I kneel beside Gary, retrieve my knife, and echo his contemptuous words back to him. “You don’t qualify as a person. You aren’t more human than a bitch in heat. You aren’t better than a pig. Do you know why?” I point my knife at his heart, but I intend to hurt him in a different way. “Because your penis is ridiculously small.”

  I laugh maniacally. The three Comanches look at me like I’m crazy, but I’ve guessed what Gary’s weakness is. If I’m right, my words will cut through him as much as my knife.

  I reach for his groin and squeeze forcefully. He screams.

  “You’re not as big as your comrades,” I sneer. “The Accord Unit learned this and made fun of you all the time, not to your face, but you knew. I laughed at you, too. You’re small. A pathetic excuse for a man.”

  I’m not an expert, but Joey isn’t big, and he’s fantastic in bed, so size shouldn’t be that important. But I noticed Gary’s reluctance to show his body in front of Rey when he attacked us. His size must be his Achilles’ heel.

  “You used to hire visitants frequently,” I continue. “But when you got older, you couldn’t get it up. You got tired of making a fool of yourself in front of them. And you still can’t get it up. Not even with oral. Your wife cheated on you because—” I take a breath to yell, “YOU CAN’T GET THE DAMN THING UP.”

  He tries to spit in my face, but I dodge out of the way. It’s clear that my guesswork has hit a nerve.

  “You’re old, and afraid to get older. Oh, poor Sergeant Sleecket, comparing himself to younger, better endowed cops all the time. That’s why you molest girls, isn’t it? And the older you get, the younger the girls you attack. You’ve even been eyeing my sister.”

  Cara puts a hand on my shoulder. Perhaps the other Comanches are worried about my sanity.

  “You’re pathetic; you’re a creep. I’ve thought about castrating you to avenge the girls you’ve attacked.” I point my knife at his groin. His eyes widen in fear. “I won’t. There’s practically nothing to castrate in the first place.”

  I slap his face like he slapped mine. “I’ll kill you.”

  Cara glares at Gary, as though all the abuse in the world is his fault. “Not yet. He has to tell us about the bugs. And as for me—” She kicks his groin. “That’s for my daughter.” Her next attack is aimed at his face. “That one is for me.”

  Divine soaks Gary’s groin with alcohol. “How many bugs have you planted?”

  Gary shrieks but doesn’t answer.

  We haven’t ever tortured anybody, and now that I see him defeated, I’m having doubts. I harmed his manhood both physically and—I hope—emotionally. I don’t think he’s a threat to my family anymore, so I wish things were different. I wish we could expose him to the world as the rapist he is. I wish that a court would punish him. But in a place where some parents are cajoling their daughters into enlisting, and where cops deliver food, who’s going to punish Gary for his acts?

  “Let’s kill him. More soldiers might come,” I say.

  Poncho growls at the inert mass of the soldier, who must have regained consciousness. I approach the soldier and put the gun to his forehead. “This one first.”

  “Careful,” says Joey. “Remember that the bullets might rebound.”

  The soldier struggles against his restraints. He has long brown curls, and his tattooed, gray face is dimpled. He can’t be older than fourteen. A tattoo on his arm tells me that he was expelled from a military academy. This boy never completed training, although his genes must have been engineered for combat—perhaps before he was born. His Patriot armor is as fake as Gary’s, which means he’s also acting against military laws.

  No wonder it took only four of us, and Poncho, to defeat him. He’s massive, but he lacks the power of a well-trained soldier. The weather is still scorching, but I’m shivering. I force myself to put the gun to his chest.

  There’s something about the way he’s fighting his restraints, about the way Poncho barks at him. Perhaps … No!

  “Watch out!” Divine yells. But by then I’m already fighting for my life.

  I fire the gun as the soldier throws his body against mine. My bullet rebounds off his armor as I fall to the ground beneath him. My head throbs as I try to scramble away. He has something in his hands that I cannot see, and he is lashing me with it.

  “No! I need her alive!” shouts Gary.

  The soldier stops moving, at which point an excruciating pain rips through my thigh. I scream in agony as my body jerks violently on the ground. I order myself to get a grip, but I’ve lost all control. The pain spreads quickly from my thigh to the rest of my body. It feels like a fire is burning through every single nerve ending.

  Between the convulsions, I catch a glimpse of my leg. Something with two fangs is buried in the back of my left thigh. A genetically modified snake—like the ones the troops use to inject themselves.

  The black snake detaches from my body and moves away. I’m in so much pain that I barely register the sound of a moving vehicle. More soldiers? Through a fog of agony and darkness, I hear shouts and stomping feet.

  The pain worsens with each second. My eyes are open, although my consciousness has begun to drift away into a sea of darkness.

  Firm, strong muscles scoop me up. Why is the soldier holding me to his chest? I struggle to push him away. My arm trembles upward an inch before falling limp at my side.

  I’m about to pass out when I hear a taut, deep voice.

  “Don’t die.”

  27

  Near death experiences

  “If you hear me, move your leg.” The voice sounds distant and distorted. My leg doesn’t move an inch, and the pain is killing me. I want to beg the speaker to take away the pain. Am I dying? If I’m going to die, I wish he’d stop the pain like Petrov stopped Sara’s agony.

  The hoarse, slightly accented voice is clearer now. “Sergeant Wong, go after Sleecket.”

  My eyes ache when I open them. A scowling, pained face looms above me. The darkness engulfs me, but I fight unconsciousness, struggling to hear everything.

>   “Her heart has stopped,” someone says.

  “She’s so cold,” says a feminine voice. “Her muscles are so rigid. Is she alive?”

  I’m lying on my back on a flat surface. Someone cuts my trousers around my thigh wound. “Oh no!” says a second woman. Cara?

  “Prince Aleksey, look at this!” says another accented voice.

  Aleksey? It can’t be. He’s far away. Is he already back from his commission? I want to tell him to take care of my family, but my voice fails me. All that I manage is a garbled mess.

  “Shh, it’s okay.”

  Tristan’s voice is desperate. “He injected her with tonics.”

  With all my willpower, I open my eyes, again. Everything is dark, but somehow I see Aleksey’s long, blond hair.

  The next thing I know, I’m on my stomach. In a swift movement, he shreds my trousers to pieces. His lips find my thigh and suck harshly.

  Stop! It hurts! But the pain starts to dull little by little as if Aleksey is sucking it out of my body.

  A warm hand caresses my forehead and slides to my cheek. Aleksey whispers in my ear. How can he make his voice sound authoritative, worried, and gentle at the same time?

  “Meine mutige Kämpferin. Fight death with all you have.”

  I can no longer stay conscious. I let the darkness envelop me.

  * * *

  I catch glimpses of my body lying limp on a clinic bed, attached to a tangle of tubes. I hear voices telling me that it’s not my time to join them yet. Mom, Angie Weaver, Rey’s mom. It doesn’t matter whether I’m having a near-death experience or losing my mind. All I know is that I can see and hear everything that’s happening around me. That’s how I learn that the Comanches and Poncho sustained only minor wounds.

  I’ve read once that people feel peaceful during near-death experiences. Sometimes they see dead relatives. Not me. I’m all by myself, desperately fighting to return to my body and afraid that I’ll die if I don’t. Plus, the pain doesn’t match my idea of peace. My heart has stopped four times, and the pain of the electric charges they use to make it beat again is excruciating.

  I float over my inert body. My family is here, and so are Rey and Aleksey, leaning against the tiled walls. Rey is openly concerned, while the brooding general conceals his emotions behind a scowl. I need to make sure that Aleksey helps my brother, but I continue watching the clinic’s ER from above.

  Olmo pats my shoulder, his voice hopeful. “Come back to us, Lila. You can do it.”

  Azalea looks from me to Aleksey as she holds my hand. “You really like your drama, don’t you? Wake up, idiot, so I can kick your ass for frightening us.”

  “Hey! Her mouth twitched. Are you smiling, Lila?” asks Dad. “Are you listening?”

  I want to answer him, but the drugs drag me back into a dark tunnel.

  The drugs have another undesired side effect. They give me double dreams. I’ve had dreams within dreams before, but the tonics have made them more frequent. My dreams are vivid, a combination of every recruitment ceremony I’ve ever witnessed. Gary stalks me in my dreams, but nothing wakes me. I’m lucid. Completely aware that I’m dreaming, but the terror is still there until darkness engulfs me again.

  Among darkness and recruitment scenes, I dream about Aleksey. When no one is around, he lets himself reveal a wounded expression. He grabs my hand and speaks quietly.

  “Kämpferin. Meine kleine Kämpferin. I don’t want to lose you.”

  The darkness overpowers me, but I’m awake. Time loses its meaning, and I’m no longer sure what’s real and what’s not.

  When I open my eyes, I don’t recognize my surroundings. Then I realize that my hospital cot has been moved into Aleksey’s room. I give myself a once-over. My wrist is connected to an IV line rather than to multiple tubes, and I’m naked beneath the hospital gown.

  “Finally, you’re awake,” says Dad brightly. He shoots me the kinds of questions a doctor needs to ask his patients to gauge their health.

  I look at the door wistfully. I need air. I yearn to escape this room, but my eyelids feel heavy, and I’m not sure I can get up.

  I force myself to sit and scan my surroundings. I slept here once and hardly remember the spacious room. The large walls are bare except for a digital torch. Aleksey’s double bass leans against an abnormally high chair. There’s a mirrored wardrobe next to a door that leads to a bathroom, and a nightstand that wasn’t here a few nights ago. No pictures, no personal items.

  What stands out is his gigantic bed—perfectly made and covered by one of his red capes. How can a soldier’s bed look so proportionally similar to a regular single bed? I measured it that night, out of curiosity. Height: fifty inches. Length: eighty-eight inches. Width: forty-four inches.

  “Why am I here?” I ask, still staring at his bed.

  “You were delirious and kept screaming about soldiers coming,” dad answers calmly. “I thought that the drugs had worsened the symptoms of your post-traumatic stress disorder, but you were right. We’ve had plenty of injured troops. I didn’t want you to wake up surrounded by them.”

  “The bugs … Gary threatened us—”

  “Shh. It’s okay. Mr. Fürst has a battalion hunting him down. The young soldier was found dead. Sergeant Sleecket was tried in absence by a Patriot court and sentenced to death.”

  “Death? Why?”

  “Sleecket stayed in the country illegally, stealing and faking army items. He coerced an underage Patriot citizen to attack you. When he left the hospital before his deportation, he disobeyed a direct order from a general. That’s equal to desertion and treason.”

  “Where is Aleksey? What about his promise? And Olmo?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Lila. It’s been arranged, but don’t ask him until you thank him. We owe him so much already. He read your note and found you in the nick of time. And he’s been taking care of you as much as his Accord cop duties allow him.”

  “It was … close … my death.”

  Dad nods. “You were lucky, Lila. Soldiers using tonics on regular people is something I’ve never seen. I didn’t know how to treat you. They don’t use drugs indiscriminately. Genetic engineers prepare their bodies for years before receiving those drugs. They keep strict control over the chemicals that enter their bodies. Anything that alters that balance, like alcohol particles, could have—” his eyebrows knit together. “I was afraid of even starting the IV.”

  He removes the catheter that connects the IV line to my wrist. “Rey took care of you, too … until you sent him away.” Dad looks at my puzzled expression and explains, “You were screaming for him to go away. Extremely rudely, I might add.”

  “Oh, no! I didn’t mean to—”

  “Shh. Don’t worry. My godson knows you meant no harm. I explained to him what PTSD means, what you’ve been suffering since that day. The drugs might worsen your symptoms. I can’t tell for sure.”

  I lie down, looking at Dad. Long moments pass in peaceful silence.

  His eyes take in the cop’s bed before falling on mine. “Rey doesn’t know you’re here, though. He is overprotective, so let’s keep this sleeping arrangement a secret, shall we?”

  I sit up, ignoring his question. “I need air.”

  “Not yet. Take it one step at a time.” Dad crosses the room in his cart and takes in the bed again. “You should never act against yourself.”

  He always says that when he thinks I’m not taking care of my health. I collapse back onto the bed, staring at him in wonder. For some reason, I think he may be talking about something else.

  Dad changes the subject. “You know, the twins will be so happy to hear you’re finally awake.”

  Am I, though?

  * * *

  The soldiers have inspected the clinic, but didn’t dare check Aleksey’s room. He clearly intimidates them.

  The only window in the room reveals a ruby-red sunset. I know I’ve been awake enough to feed myself. To go to the toilet and to fool the twins. But Dad keeps
giving me sedatives, and the grogginess never goes away. He says three days have passed since the incident, but it feels like years. The out-of-body experiences have stopped, but I have false awakenings all the time. I dream that I’m sleeping on this bed, then I dream that I wake up feeling dazed … but it’s all still a dream. Dad says the soldier’s drugs led to “mild schizophrenic symptoms.”

  I get up woozily, surprised to find myself alone. Where is everybody?

  As I make my way to the door, an angry voice stops me.

  “Don’t. The soldiers are still around.”

  I flinch in surprise. I didn’t notice Aleksey’s seven-foot, one-inch frame at first, as the sedatives make me inattentive. He’s in a chair, his bass between his legs, adjusting the strings. He’s wearing black slacks and a white shirt that opens at the chest.

  I continue my slow walk toward the door. I need air. Badly.

  Aleksey storms over to me, irritated by my defiance. “Stop! Return to bed.”

  He sounds so commanding that the grogginess disappears. “Nobody will see me if I’m careful.”

  “I’ll drag you to bed, Miss Velez,” he growls threateningly.

  I’m almost at the door now, more awake than ever. I’ve just remembered how much I like him. Defying him creates a special energy between us. He wants me to obey him, and I want to see how far he’ll go to stop me.

  I barely have time to turn the doorknob when he scoops me up and carries me to the bed. His voice is angry. “If you’re going to act like a brat, I’ll tie you up.”

  He lays me on the bed softly, checks my blood pressure and temperature, and returns to his seat. He plays a fast and furious melody, his eyes closed, completely engrossed in his music.

  Disappointment curls through me. That’s it? The way he’s just treated me makes me feel as if, to him, I’m just a little girl.

  I sit up and look at him. The way he skillfully works the strings makes me aware of the contrast between us. He’s older than I am in more than one sense. The man is not only the leader of his unit, but also well-traveled and skilled at music, medicine, and the art of seduction. I’m just a regular girl and hardly a leader. I have yet to seduce anyone, or even leave my hometown. For me, attending medical or music school is only a dream. In short, he has lived his life. Whether he has led a good life or a bad life, at least he has lived. My life is based on survival, which means I have yet to live at all.