by Dawn Norwell
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him, dazed.
“You’re falling for me?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat.
He laughed. “More than I care to admit.”
I had a million questions, but he didn’t give me the chance to ask them. Instead, he leaned down and touched his lips to mine. My heart raced as his hand touched the small of my back, pulling me closer. I found myself deepening the kiss, the dinner he brought me long forgotten.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: BROKEN HEARTS & BREAKDOWNS
W ithin the walls of the Athena Suite, I felt safe and at home. I had Zander to thank for that. He’d come into my life at just the right moment, keeping me company when it seemed like I was alone in the world, and giving me faith that even the worst of enemies could make amends. I was forever grateful to him for being my friend during those dark days.
Unfortunately, my days of solitary confinement were coming to a close. It had been three months since I’d been placed on house arrest, and my case had finally gone to trial. Athena argued that I had been behaving with the utmost propriety. With a little pressing on her part, the rest of the council finally agreed that I should be pardoned, and my punishment lifted. Though I was happy I wouldn’t be exiled from the safety of Nova to meet an unknown death, this meant that my time of solace and relaxation was over.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Zander asked, sensing my trepidation. We were lying in bed with his hand intertwined with mine, preserving a small piece of paradise before it inevitably imploded around me.
“A little,” I admitted.
I suppose it should bring me a sense of relief to finally have my verdict, to not have my fate hanging on the precipice, not knowing what the future would bring. Instead, I was anxious about leaving the protection of my suite, and apprehensive about seeing the unsuits who were still irate with me. I would become an active member of their society soon, like it or not. I suspected that they wouldn’t welcome me with open arms.
The truth was that I was terrified. I remembered Jax’s volatile reaction to learning I was a suit; that treatment would be received tenfold, now the entire community knew the truth. Just because Zander had gotten over his phobia of suits, didn’t mean that everyone else would feel the same way. They still blamed me for their lost loved ones. Some wounds never healed, no matter the amount of time that passed, and this was one of them. I knew my alleged transgressions would not be easily forgiven.
I groaned as I thought about leaving the room and joining the outside world. Things had been going well between myself and Zander in the secluded sanctuary of the Athena Suite. We had both overcome our aversions to being with someone so different from ourselves, and slowly became each other’s best friend.
I had gotten so used to the comforts of confinement in the Athena Suite- sleeping until I wanted to get up, lounging around all day, and spending my evenings with Zander as we snuggled in the massive bed. The idea of leaving it all behind made me sick to my stomach.
Zander spent so much time in my room that he had essentially moved in. He would leave each morning for a day filled with political meetings and military training and would meet me each evening, where we would talk and hold one another through the night.
But I knew those days would soon be coming to an end, and it broke my heart. I was sad that our impregnable bubble was about to burst. If it were up to me, I would be content to lay cocooned in Zander’s arms for the rest of my life, safe from the opinions of the outside world, but that wasn’t an option. Athena made it very clear that if I were to become a member of Nova, I would have to behave like one, which meant reintegrating into regular housing and being given a work assignment.
I clung to Zander a little tighter, gripping him like a vice, afraid that I would lose him if I let go. It was illogical, but I had a sinking suspicion that after tonight, things would change between the two of us. It’s one thing to choose forbidden love when it’s hidden away within these four walls, but another thing altogether when you opened it up for the rest of the world to see.
**********
I didn’t sleep well that night. My mind was racing, uneasy about the unavoidable day from hell that I was about to endure. By the time that Zander left for an early meeting, I still hadn’t gotten much rest. Knowing it was a wasted effort, I crawled out of bed and started filling the tub with hot water.
I soaked in the sweet-smelling suds, hoping the steam would calm my tense muscles, and steady the uneasy tremors that had started in my hands. But even the warm bath was powerless against my nerves.
I stayed in the water much longer than I normally would have, prolonging the inevitable. When I couldn’t rationalize staying in the bath any longer, I toweled off and began combing through my hair. I pillaged the closet, trying to find something decent to wear, as though a new outfit would make the day any less terrible. I stared aimlessly at the clothes, too distracted to take in the fabrics, finally just grabbing the first hanger I found.
I dressed slowly, biding my time until there was no time left to waste. I straightened out the folds of my black striped blouse and khaki pants, giving myself a final look in the mirror.
With a resigned sigh, I took one last look at the place that had been my refuge during my first few months in Nova, said my goodbyes, and walked out the front door.
Athena met me in the hallway and gave me a tour since I had hardly seen underground Nova beyond my room. People craned their necks to look at me, the fury in their eyes raging like an uncontrollable wildfire, but they didn’t dare say anything to me with Athena so close.
The first thing Athena showed me was my new room. Since she could not justify me to stay in the Athena Suite, nor my bunking on the lower levels with Ximea as non-essential personnel, I was given my own space in Compartment B. It was no Athena Suite, with its barren walls and poor lighting, but I couldn’t complain; it had a bed, a sink, and a roof over my head, which was all I really needed.
By the time we finished the tour, it was close to lunchtime. Athena’s presence had eased my stress, but when she had to leave for a council meeting, the nerves resurfaced.
I walked to the communal eating area alone, keeping my eyes trained on the floor, ignoring the jeers of unsuits that I passed along the way. Their hostility was tangible, their anger radiating from them like the heat from a flame. I wished that Zander was with me so I could see at least one friendly face. It made me anxious that I would now be required to eat with the rest of the community. I wasn’t sure how they would react to my being back. I hoped that people would have forgotten what happened and that I could go about my new life being invisible, but I knew deep down that was wishful thinking.
I kept my head low as I walked into the cafeteria. I tried to blend in with other residents, but I may as well have had a spotlight shining on me, and a neon sign that read ‘over here’! It didn’t take long before people recognized the suit, the woman who’d brought loss and despair to them upon her arrival. The room became incredibly quiet as every head turned to face me. Though I tried to ignore them, I could sense the thousands of eyes watching my every more.
Soon, a loud choir of booos echoed through the cafeteria. People screamed at me and called me a murderer. They threw half-eaten apples, orange juice cartons, and anything else they could get their hands at me.
I wanted to run away from the angry mob, to hurry back to my room and bury my head under the covers and never come out. But I knew this moment would come eventually, no matter how long I hid away. People were hurt, people were livid, and in their eyes, I was the cause of their pain. I had taken the blame for a decision that Athena had made, and now all of Nova hated me for it.
But I knew what I was doing when I stepped forward, and I chose to do it anyway. I’d made my bed, and now the time had come to lie in it. So instead of fleeing, I stood my ground as the people of Nova bombarded me with garbage, letting their rage be known.
It will pass. All of this will pass, I told myself, biting back t
ears. I stepped into the food line, repeating the mantra over and over, as though repetition would make the words a reality. I reached for a tray of food, but a hand snatched it out of my hand.
“No food for you, suit. We don’t feed killers,” one of the cafeteria workers spit. She was a large woman with a slight mustache, and a dark mole set into her angry cheek. Her face was fixed in determination, and I knew it would do no good to argue with her; she would rather keel over than give me that tray.
It didn’t matter, anyway, because I had lost my appetite the moment I walked into that room. Instead, I grabbed a bottle of juice from a nearby vending machine and went to sit at an empty table in the corner of the room, where I hoped to be dissimulated in the shadows.
I kept my head down as I drank my cranberry juice in silence. I could still feel the accusing glares of the crowd as they burned holes into my skin. My heart thumped violently against my chest, and the tremors in my hands were worse than ever.
I fixed my eyes on my watch, observing the seconds ticking by at an agonizingly slow pace. It seemed as if lunch would never end. When thirty minutes had passed, and the cafeteria began to empty, I bound out of my chair and sprinted from the room as quickly as my trembling legs would allow me to. I let out a deep breath, hoping the rest of the day would go by smoother.
One of the stipulations of my pardon was that I had to become a working member of the community, which meant assigned chores. Thankfully, Athena had taken my medical knowledge and training into consideration and permitted me to log my working hours in the hospital wing with Ximea.
Ximea waved to me when I walked inside the clinic. “Hey, stranger!”
She ran to give me a warm embrace, and I felt the stress of the morning fading away. This was one of the things that I loved the most about Ximea- she had never once made me feel like I was a suit. Even after the Compartment A incident and all of the months spent apart, she welcomed me back like a long lost friend. She had been nice to me from the very beginning, and I was grateful that I would be able to work side by side with her.
“I’ve been begging Athena to let me visit you, but she wouldn’t,” Ximea pouted.
My eyebrows knit together. “Really? She didn’t mention it. She probably didn’t want me to have visitors since I was on lockdown.”
“That pisses me off,” Ximea hissed in a rare display of anger. “I was there when Zander tried to warn her about the faulty ceiling. You took the fall for her, for God only knows what reason, and instead of a thank you, she locks you away in a cell!”
“It wasn’t so bad,” I muttered, guilt coursing through me.
Athena had sworn me to secrecy, and it was killing me that I couldn’t tell Ximea the truth. This entire time she thought I was sealed away in some prison cell, I was getting the VIP treatment.
“What would you like me to do, boss?” I asked, changing the subject.
She gave me a small smile and handed me a list of tasks. They were all simple, common chores that I had completed dozens of times in Concord. I wasted no time getting to work, eager to prove that I could be an asset to Nova. Maybe then people wouldn’t hate me so much.
Maybe.
**********
My first day in the medical wing was interesting, to say the least. I was excited to be able to help people once again, especially now that it was my choice instead of the Syndicate’s, but the patients didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm. Everyone in Nova knew my face now, and they made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with me.
The first two patients who walked into the clinic refused to see me, so Ximea had to take them both. Another man came in with a large abrasion across his cheek and was losing an alarming amount of blood, but after seeing that I was the only doctor available, he walked out the door, saying that he would rather take his chances than to allow me to touch him.
I was finally able to help a woman who had taken a fall and was unconscious, but unfortunately for me, she came to in the middle of my examination. She took one look at the barcode on my arm and became belligerent. Ximea had to give her medication and make me leave the room before the woman’s heart rate would return to a normal range.
After everything was said and done, my day consisted solely of sanitizing medical instruments and running labs. I hated that I couldn’t help patients, but I tried not to let it get me down. Instead, I told myself that I should just happy to get out of my room and be doing something productive, though I wasn’t sure if that was the truth.
By dinnertime, I was more than ready to be back in the safe confines of my apartment. It had been an exhausting day, and I was physically and mentally exhausted. I was so drained that I barely noticed when Zander came out of a nearby meeting room with a large group of government officials.
When I saw his face, my heart leaped with joy. Maybe this day wouldn’t be so bad after all if I could sit with him at dinner. I smiled and headed in his direction, but the moment he noticed me, he averted his eyes. Keeping his eyes on a document that was suddenly very intriguing, he walked around me like I wasn’t there.
My stomach lurched as he walked into the cafeteria and sat with his group without a second glance in my direction. I stood alone at the entrance of the cafeteria with my shoulders slumped with defeat. Residents pushed past me, muttering obscenities and glaring at me, but I didn’t care. All I could focus on was the fact that Zander was still too ashamed to be seen hanging out with a suit in public. What had happened behind closed doors was in the past, and now, he acted as if I meant nothing to him.
I turned from the cafeteria and walked back to Compartment B, biting my cheek to keep from crying. The moment I was behind the safety of my door, I let loose. I dropped to the floor as sobs racked my body, weeping into my hands like I had lost a dear friend because, in a way, I had. The tears fell down my cheeks as I lost myself in the loneliness of being an outsider, a leper, a pariah. It felt like everyone in Nova was against me. Even Zander, the one person who I thought I could trust, had proved to me that I could never shed my suit label, no matter how hard I tried.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BROWBEATEN & HEAVY-HEARTED
I ’m not sure how long I stayed this way, but it was late into the night when I heard a soft rasping at my door. I wiped my face and opened the front door in a numbed daze. Zander gave me a brilliant half-smile, but it quickly faded as he took in my red-rimmed and swollen eyes.
“Oh, Kai…” he soothed, striding into the room and trying to put his arms around me. I stepped away, refusing to embrace him. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you have to ask?” I said, anger coloring the question. The fact that he would come here and act like nothing had happened infuriated me.
I sat on the bed with a huff, crossing my arms in irritation. Zander took in my hostile tone and remained in the doorway, unsure if he was welcome. His eyes were cast downward, ashamed.
“I’m sorry about earlier. It’s… complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it for me, because I’d love to know what the hell happened.” I could feel my blood boiling.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t like you, Kai. I really do. These past few months have been the happiest of my life. But the more I thought about it, the more I realize that it might not be a good idea if we, you know, flaunt this thing in front of everyone else,” he said, motioning between the two of us.
“This ‘thing’,” I repeated, laughing humorlessly. Zander had the good graces to look contrite. “It’s funny how you had no issues with flaunting this ‘thing’ when it was just the two of us. I don’t remember hearing you complaining when we were holding each other in bed last night.”
He took a step forward and tried to pull my hand into his, but I snatched it away. I was far too hurt and angry with him to let him near me.
“Don’t be upset with me,” he pleaded. “It’s not personal. Nothing has changed between us.”
“Everything has changed, Zander!” I shouted.
“Why?” he asked, his cheeks
coloring with anger now. “Why does anything have to be different now? Why can’t we just go back to being together in the privacy of our apartment, and leave everyone else out of it? Why do we have to parade it on other people, when it’s no one else’s business?”
“How would you like it if I told you I was ashamed to be seen with you, Zander?” I asked heatedly, my voice cracking. “If I treated you one way in public and different way behind closed doors, you would be upset, too.”
Zander groaned. “It’s not that I’m ashamed. I want to be with you. It’s just bad for my image, and my Mom’s too, for that matter. You’re not exactly the most popular person around here, you know, and we can’t take the chance of pissing people off right now!”
“Do you remember why I’m so unpopular?” I asked, getting to my feet. “Or did me taking the heat for the death of your dozens of your citizens just slip your mind between our cuddle sessions.”
“Of course I remember,” he said, his voice softer now. “And Mom and I appreciate what you did for us. We know what a sacrifice it was for you, and we will never forget it. But how would it look if I was seen hanging out with the person who is being blamed for the Compartment A incident? Everyone is already on edge, living in immutable fear of another attack. Tensions are high, and people are starting to take out their frustrations on the council.
“Mom has been trying to sway people to your side, to convince them that you’re the only reason we’re even alive, but it isn’t an easy feat. They’ve been trained to see suits as the bad guy their entire lives, and what happened a few months ago only reinforces their fear of your kind,” he said. “Forcing the citizens to see the two of us together, it will only cause people to get upset.”