Ella Nicole, page 16
“They don’t need you to be their mom, Ash. It’ll never be the same. I know, I’ve lost my mom. Besides, you’re only eighteen.”
“Well sorry if I don’t want Fish to die from addiction, or Lavender to make out with every boy she thinks is hot.”
Ash doesn’t wait for my response. She storms down the third hallway, leaving me to follow behind her.
The generals are comically different. The first is a frail old woman who looks as if I could snap her in half. The second is a muscular man in his thirties. The final one is a delicate man, with an aquiline nose and thick blond eyelashes.
The elderly woman speaks first. “Sit, sit, we’re very busy.” Her voice is brisk and curt. I can already tell this woman is not patient.
I slide out one of the plastic chairs from beneath the table, one you’d find in a dining room with mashed potatoes and crayon shavings smeared on its surface. The meeting room looks nothing like I’ve imagined, but somehow the figures seated across from me still command authority.
The virile man gives me a bright smile. “I’m General Tiny.”
I snort, quickly flushing with embarrassment. He’s not kidding.
The woman gives me a deep frown, obviously a very comfortable expression, but Tiny lets out a guttural laugh. “Exactly why I picked it, son. Even a rebellion needs laughs.”
“Picked it?” I ask, furrowing my brow.
“Of course! The Restoration is a place to start over. Not many people choose to keep their names.”
I give Ash a curious look. Did she have another name, years ago? I open my mouth, about to ask, when she smirks at me, bitterness in her eyes. I broke up with her. I shouldn’t be interested.
Ash turns away from me. “May I introduce you to Xavier Ray.”
The woman nods in her direction. “Thank you, Ashley.”
My eyes go wide. Her name is Ashley? I guess I just assumed her name was Ash. Why didn’t she tell me I was wrong? How could I have never asked?
“We should get started. I am Commander Flan. My colleagues here are General Tiny and General Staffley.” Commander Flan says, speaking for the first time since I arrived.
I shift in my seat, under the steady gaze of the Commander.
“So, Xavier, is it?”
I nod.
“I hear from Ashley that you’ve become stuck in the middle of a political matter. Were you and Phoenix close?”
I certainly didn’t expect that. “I thought this meeting was about me.”
“Sir,” corrects Staffley, an eyebrow raised in my direction.
“Sir.”
The Commander twirls his finger lazily in the air, a blond curl wrapped around its base. “We are quite interested in the matter of Alga. And it just so happens that you and that issue relate. So, I repeat, were you and Phoenix close?”
“Extremely. Sir.” I answer, enunciating each sound. I immediately regret it, though, when I see Ash cringe out of the corner of my eye.
“In what way?” interrogates Tiny, no longer smiling.
I gulp, glancing around the room to look at anything besides Ash when I say, “She claims she is in love with me.”
Everyone stares at me silently, until Ash finally peeps, “It’s true.”
“Is it now?” Staffley’s skin is almost translucent with shock. I’m sure love isn’t a concept she is used to.
Tiny, on the other hand, looks ecstatic. “This could be a great advantage to us.”
“We know that” snaps Staffley.
“I’m just voicing-”
“-the obvious? Yes.”
“If Phoenix really does love him…” Tiny trails off, looking at a muttering Flan for guidance.
Realizing that he has an audience, the Commander straightens. “It might make our point more substantial if he were the one to assassinate her.”
“Or it could be seen as petty jealousy,” Staffley counters, ignoring my silent pleas for help.
“Perhaps, but if we made him a spokesperson for our campaign, per say-”
“-Stop,” I interject, silencing their conversation. “I’m not killing anybody. Especially not Sera.”
Staffley leans forward. “You do want to be part of the Restoration, don’t you?”
“That doesn’t mean I want to shoot my ex-best friend.”
“I once had to stab a man to death using his own weapon. I didn’t want to do that either.”
“But...” I whisper.
“I don’t think it would be a smart idea,” Ash says, coming to my rescue. “Xavier isn’t a trained assassin. Besides, it would be difficult to sneak him in when the most important people in that mansion know his name and face. It would be too risky.”
“Ashley is right, the boy is not trained nor would he be capable of continuing his position at the Vault,” Flan adds, oblivious to the glares of the generals. “For now, he must stay in his current position. We could gather much information from him.”
General Tiny gives me a big grin. “Your mission for now will be to slip us information on your clients. What they do. What they say.”
“How will I do that?”
Ash actually smiles. “I’m your official liaison.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
- Xavier -
It’s awkward between the two of us as we walk back. I don’t know what to say; I really don’t know where I stand with her. Just yesterday we broke up, but something has changed between Ash and me since then. Neither of us seem as angry, just sadder. Lonely, even.
The tension suddenly gets too much for me to handle, so I say, “I can’t believe I never knew your name was Ashley.”
As soon as I say it, I wish I could take it back, but she laughs, a flimsy sound, full of reminiscence. “It’s my code name, so I’m not really offended. I picked it out when I was younger. As I got older, I started to tell people to call me Ash instead.”
“Oh,” I respond dumbly. Of course, it’s just a code name.
“So, what did you think of the generals?”
I’m thankful for the diversion, so I answer, “They were, uh, interesting.”
“Fortunately, we report to Tiny and not Staffley. He, at least, is manageable. I’ve seen Staffley make her soldiers cry.”
I’m about to speak, but Ash dives into an alley and crouches, so I just nod, following her move.
Ash curses. “Pedestrians. They’re in a conversation with each other. Looks like we will be here awhile.”
“Is it safe to talk?”
She looks at me, squinting. “Should be. The people are far enough away, but they are blocking the road we need to take.
I take a deep breath, staring at the filthy ground. “Thank you for what you did back there.”
“That’s not something they should have asked of you. Sera might not have been real, but your friendship was. One way or another.”
I bite my lips, bringing the iron taste of blood into my mouth. “Ash, can I tell you something?”
She looks at me, tipping her head to the side. “Of course,”
“I think she’s going to do something about the marriage.”
“Do tell,” Ash deadpans. She obviously disagrees.
“We talked, you know, before she left. She hates the government, maybe even as much as we do, and I told her to do something about it. I think she will.”
“What makes you think she isn’t lying to you all over again.”
I run my hands through my hair. “Some insane part of me still trusts her, I guess.”
“You're quick to forgive.”
There is something more to her response, and I catch it instantly. “I’m the one that needs to be forgiven. I shouldn’t have blown my cool back at the Vault. I was so riled up-”
“Hey,” Ash says, her eyes dark, “you just had your whole world torn apart. Besides, I would have been mad if I found out you had a giant secret you never told me.”
“But-”
She cuts me off once more, putting her hand on my arm. “-Enough of this apology thing. We both need second chances. So-”
I don’t let her finish. I kiss her, hoping with all my heart I read the romantic tension right. I feel like I’m a character in one of Serafina’s books, trying to fix something broken. Me and Ash just go better together. She’s the rainbow in a world of thunderstorms, and I don’t want to lose that color in my life.
I break away from her shaking my head. I kissed her out of the blue. What if she didn’t want that? What if I just assumed that she did?
“I’m sorry.”
Ash wraps her arm around my neck. “Why?”
“I shouldn’t have assumed….” I trail off.
“Maybe not. But you're the lucky sort of idiot,” she begins, the word idiot sending a shiver of pleasure down my spine. I like the way she says it. She can have it. She can have anything, “So you assumed right. What I was going to say is that we can be friends. But this is obviously much better. As long as you can handle it.” The last part is sharper than the rest, and I can feel the bitterness in the air.
“I never should have broken up with you. I just freaked out.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “You shouldn't have done that. But I know that you were having a tough time. So maybe kiss me again, and I can start to forgive you?”
I pull her closer, kissing her softly. When we break away, I tell her “You make me very happy.”
“Good. I wanna be the person that does that.”
“Only if I can be yours.”
“Always.”
We stand like that, me holding her, Ash breathing into my collarbone. Our heights don’t match up right, and she has to stand on her tiptoes to reach.
“Xavier?”
“Mhhm”
“My name was Valerie.”
I rock side to side, my hands latched onto her hips. “Valerie. It suits you.”
“Does it? I’ve never liked it much.”
“Why not?”
“My mom was named Valerie. She left me on the streets when I was eleven. After that, it left a bitter memory.”
“What if we rewrite our histories? If only with each other.”
“Do tell.”
“You could be Valerie, or Ash, whatever you like, and I could be Xavier. The catch, though, is that we wouldn’t live here. We’d live far away in a fairytale town. As a knight and a princess.”
“I don’t like dresses very much,” Ash mumbles into my shirt.
“I never said that you were the princess. I think you’ve saved me much more than I’ve saved you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
- Ash -
I stare at the ceiling of my bedroom, smiling. Who knew I could feel this way? I certainly didn’t.
I have never really had much experience with love.
Am I in love now, though? Whenever Xavier is around, I can’t think clearly, like the universe could spontaneously combust, and all I would notice are the dimples in his cheeks. Oh gosh, those dimples.
I can safely say that I miss him, even if it’s only been a few hours since we parted. He had to go back to work. The logical part of me knows that that doesn’t make any sense, but nowadays my brain does not seem to listen to that part of myself. Instead, it tells me that I want his arms around me, so that he can kiss away the past.
I would like to forget my childhood. That’s another fact the logical side of me can’t control. Even though it made me stronger, I will continue to push away those foul memories.
I ran away for the first time when I was seven. My mother, a cruel drunk, had left the keys laying on the counter. She locked up everything: her room, the pantry, the wine cabinet. She kept the ring clipped to her belt, and I never had the courage to try to steal it off the belt. Even if she was out cold. I had this fear she’d wake up and hit me. My mother was an interesting sort of alcoholic. As long as you stayed away from her, a skill I had mastered, most of the time you wouldn’t get hurt. But, if you did anything to set her off, you better be ready to bleed and clean it up. You wouldn’t want to anger her with the blood stains.
Anyway, the keys were laying out, she’d forgotten to clip them back on after her shower. Now she was sprawled on the couch, knocked out cold. In my mind, the keys were fair game. If I put them back after I was done, she would never need to know that I used them.
After I dined on a handful of chips -only a few so she wouldn’t notice any missing- I decided it would be worth my time to engage in a little snooping.
I snuck into her room, using the keys to get there, of course. I grabbed a chair from the corner of the room, mentally noting its exact position before carrying it over to the closet, where I stood on my tiptoes to reach the top shelf. Then I turned the rusty key into the locked closet door. (Who locks a door inside a locked room anyway?).
A few wadded-up shirts and a disturbingly large number of empty beer cans later, I found a beat-up pink hat box. I hopped off the chair and set it on the floor. Sitting on my knees, I carefully untied the ratty pink bow holding the lid on. Inside I found photos. Lots of photos. Of my mom and a woman I had never seen in my life. One especially caught my eye, for it was taken in front of a house that I had passed many times on my way to the market.
Picking the photo up, I flipped it over.
“Little Valerie and Mom playing in the yard, age 5” was written on the back. “Mom”, however, was not the woman currently unconscious on the couch. And that Valerie wasn’t me; it was a tiny, innocent version of my mother.
The yard? Was the house that I had obliviously passed by on so many occasions my grandmother’s?
All those photos, all that proof. My grandma was loving. She could love me. I could leave this nightmare behind. It could be like one of the stories I’d read about. One where the main character twirls in a giant library of their once missing, now found, beloved relative. That could be me.
I would have all the books I’d like. I taught myself to read two years ago.
I snuck away to that house the very next day, waiting there a whole night before a kindly squatter told me the owner of the house had died decades ago.
My mother finally left me when I was eleven. I entered the street fights the next year. Eventually, Lavender and Fish's parents found me, inviting me to come stay with them and the rebellion.
So yeah, I’m new to this love thing. But maybe that's ok; It just makes it a whole hell of a lot more fun.
Later that night, as I enter the headquarters. I’m seized by two hands. Instantly, my instincts kick in, and I flip my attacker onto his back and place my foot on his throat.
“Arwin?” I say, perplexed. The young man, who I’ve seen hang around Lavender a few times before, winces in pain. I remove my foot.
“Guess that’s what I get for surprising you, yeah?”
I narrow my eyes, holding out a hand to help him up. “What’s wrong?”
Arwin dusts himself off, remembering what sent him to me in the first place. Dread’s cold icy fingers tingle up my spine as the arrogant boy becomes solemn. “Fish is in the infirmary.”
Two minutes later I’m sitting in a dull waiting room, staring at Lavender, who hasn’t said a word since I got here. What I can see of her face is wet and pink, but mostly she just sits with her head in her hands, a sheet of matted black hair covering her fingers.
Finally, I ask, “What happened?”
“He got in a fight with someone a lot bigger. They say he’s lucky to be alive,” Lavender answers, her voice quivering. “The man took a knife to him.”
I shudder, remembering the street fight that had given me my scars. A woman had brought a knife in, something perfectly legal in perfectly illegal fights. I was used to getting cut every so often. But that woman...it was like she enjoyed seeing the blood trickle down my face. Every slice was quick and methodical and positioned in the precise spot where it wouldn’t kill me.
“Where?”
“His stomach.”
The doctors are right, then; he is lucky to be alive.
Lavender whimpers, drawing my attention back to her. “I’m such a bad sister.”
“No.”
“That’s a lie, Ash, and you know it. Fish needs someone to raise him. I should have helped him. I should have been there for him like you were.”
I’ve always tried to protect Lavender and Fish. I met them when I was thirteen, and they were nine and eleven. I decided I was going to be the role model I never had when their parents died a month after I arrived. Yes, I was still a kid myself, but I was determined. Unfortunately, I threw myself into my work so much that I rarely saw them. Before I took the job at the Vault, I was a nurse down here. And there are so many bodies to treat when you're part of a rebellion, even one that hasn’t gone public yet. Agents and spies come back injured all the time.
“You can start being better now.”
“I don’t know how Ash.”
“Start by asking forgiveness. From both Fish and above.”
Lavender shakes her head. “I don’t believe in that stuff.”
“Well,” I say, standing up, “you should try. It helps, you know. To believe in something better.”
“Maybe.”
I sigh. “I have to go. I wish I could stay longer.”
As I leave, I think I hear Lavender mumble some words. But she isn’t talking to me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
- Sera -
I think I unnerve people. My gaze is ever cool and calculating. Yes, I believe so.
People scurry to and fro, preparing for a wedding that will take place three days from now.
A wedding that will never happen.
Servants are afraid to talk to me, not for fear that I’ll lash out, but that I won’t respond. I haven’t spoken to anyone since my mother talked to me. Not a single word. All they get is the smile I keep on at all times. A brittle, frigid grin.
I smiled when my father yelled at me.
I smiled through all the “conversations” (one sided) Raven had with me.
I smiled through all my dress fittings.
I think I smile in my sleep.
