Twell and the Rebellion (17 page)

“
I’m sorry,” I
whispered.

“
What for?” Avin
grimaced.

“For the effect my actions
are having on you,” I mumbled, avoiding his gaze. Avin reached the
female quarters. Without asking for permission, he walked over the
little bridge to the gazebo in the middle of the water feature. We
sat under the watchful eyes of the officers, with only a slight
distance between us.

“
You got in a fight with
some girl over the partnering?” Avin’s tone held a hint of
amusement, but his eyes were tight with concern.

“
She wanted a fight,” I
protested. “I didn’t have much choice. They didn’t come and get me
until tonight.” Avin clenched his teeth, staring coldly over my
shoulder at the officers.

“
I had no idea you’d been
there all day…that you’d been suffering…” Jumping up he paced in
agitation around the small enclosure. “Why are you doing this?” His
voice was laced with anger. “Why can’t you just accept we’re
designed to be together and stop fighting it?”

“
I just can’t.” I hung my
head, ashamed of the pain I was causing him.

“
Before we came to camp,
after the first time I met you, I worried about how I’d protect you
if the Abwarzians attacked again.” Avin suddenly spun to face me.
“But I had no idea I needed to worry about your safety from our own
people!”

“
Avin, please don’t,” I
urged in a hushed tone. “You can’t protect me and I don’t want you
to. I make my own choices… and I’d never forgive myself if you got
hurt because you were distracted by worrying about me.” As I said
it, I realized how much I meant it. He was a nice person who didn’t
deserve to get hurt because of my beliefs. The idea of my actions
endangering him distressed me and the realization filled me with
confusion. I stood up and felt the blood rush too fast into my
legs. A wave of dizziness washed over me and I closed my eyes,
taking a deep breath to steady myself.

Avin instantly closed the space
between, cupping my face in his hands. “Are you okay?” His face was
awash with new concern.

“
Yes,” I stammered. “I’m
sorry I’m hurting you...I don’t want that.”

Avin was silent, but his
eyes spoke volumes. His thumbs gently stroked my face and I froze
in his hands, shaky and breathless. Leaning his head down he tilted
my face up, forcing me to meet his gaze. Deep longing and
frustration swirled in his grey eyes, reaching inside me to pull at
my heart. Unconsciously, I raised my head a little higher until his
mouth was close to mine. I felt myself falling, tumbling into
something that frightened me, while my heart beat against my chest
in frantic warning. My eyes began to close just as I heard a very
deliberate and distinct ‘
ahem
’ coming from one of the
officers. The moment was broken, and I pulled away from Avin in
dismay. Guilt wrapped around me like a dark heavy cloak. What had I
almost done?

“
I’m worried about you,”
Avin said tensely. “People are already agitated at the moment; they
could take it out on you if you keep stirring things
up.”

“
Noted,” I replied
solemnly. He was right. Immature pranks to get noticed had
certainly got me noticed, but if it just painted me as a trouble
maker, who would take me seriously?”

“
I care about you, Twell,”
Avin said suddenly. “Not just because you’re my match.”

My heart skipped a beat as I
stared at him. It made it so much worse that something so lawfully
right for me, had to be so painfully and fundamentally wrong. The
knowledge was like a shadow passing over me, and his face fell in
dismay as he read my expression.

“
Time to go,” the grumpy
officer barked.

“
I won’t give up Twell,
not yet,” Avin promised stubbornly.

“
So…all is not lost?” I
smirked, unable to help myself.

“
It’s not over until the
fat lady sings, you know.” Avin grinned.

“I don’t know that one.
You are so weird!” My laughter startled us both. It also irked the
guards who shifted irritably on their feet.

“
Here, before I go, I
wanted to give you this.” Avin dug into his pocket for a moment and
then taking my own hand he opened my palm and covered it with his.
Something light tickled my skin and his hand lingered over mine for
a moment too long before he withdrew it. “It’s my district’s
flower,” Avin looked hesitant as he explained. “I wanted to give it
to you earlier, but I couldn’t seem to find the right moment, you
know…where you didn’t want to flatten me.”

I stared down at the flower in
my hand. Its eight delicate petals were long, as large as my hand,
and velvety to the touch. But more interesting was the
colour—almost the exact same hue as my own purple eyes.

“
You see, this flower
looks delicate and fragile. It seems unenduring. When actually it
can survive without water for almost a dozen moons. It has both
beauty and strength…and I guess it kinda reminds me of
you.”

I looked up at Avin in
sudden pleasure. No one had ever given me a gift before in my life.
It just wasn’t a Comian trait. But if it was a quirk of the old
world that Avin had learned from his grandfather, I had to admit I
liked it. A lot.

“
It’s beautiful…thank
you.” I smiled at him, feeling inexplicably shy. Avin beamed back,
his eyes lighting up with delight. But the officer coughed in
warning again and with a sigh he turned and walked into the
shadows. Tucking the flower carefully into my pocket, I felt the
officers watch me all the way to the front door of the dorm.
Letting myself in, I closed the door as softly as I could and made
my way through the dark. I crawled into bed and then nearly had a
heart attack as I connected with a body. Two bodies.
Three.

“
Guys!” I gasped, my heart
hammering. “Waiting in my bed is not cool!”

“
Are you okay?” Kina and
Lavi gasped in unison.

“
You are now officially my
hero.” Shanna’s white teeth appeared, grinning in the
darkness.

“
Was it awful?” Lavi
breathed grabbing my hand. As my eyes adjusted, I saw Lavi gawking
at me with her eyes popping out of her head. Kina looked
distressed, her hands clenched at her sides and she kept darting
nervous looks at the door. Shanna looked hysterically happy,
obviously the sight of me unharmed enough to quell any guilt she
may have felt over my ordeal.

“
We were all forbidden to
tell anyone outside of our training group what happened,” Kina
whispered. “What’s going on?”

“
I don’t know how to
explain,” I replied with exhaustion.

“
Allow me,” Shanna said,
slapping her thighs with glee. I fell wearily back against my bed
rest as she explained the whole situation. I realized it was the
first time I’d seen Shanna look anything other than bossy or
scornful. Her face positively glowed with conviction and she
squeezed my leg hard when she got to the part where I’d been taken
from the arena.

“
Weren’t you there?” I
interrupted suddenly to Lavi and Kina whose mouths were hanging
open in shock.

“
We came in just after but
no one was allowed to tell us what had happened,” Kina replied.
“The officers were watching everyone too closely.” She frowned at
me in a way that left no debate as to how she felt about my
actions. I hadn’t expected her sympathy.

“
Here.” Shanna produced an
energy vial from nowhere and thrust it into my hands. “You need the
sustenance.”

I tipped my head back and
swallowed it in one long, grateful gulp.

“Let her sleep,” Shanna
ordered Lavi and Kina who were still watching me closely. “I hope I
don’t need to ask you to keep everything I’ve told you to
yourselves.”

Kina snorted angrily in
response. “I wish you hadn’t told me,” she snapped. “You’re a bad
influence and I don’t like you using Twell for your own purposes.”
Whoa. Kina was shrewder than I’d realized.

“It’s okay, Kina.” I
sighed as Kina and Lavi removed themselves from my bed and went to
their own. “I make my own decisions.”

“Humph!” Kina grunted in
the rudest tone I’d ever heard from her. Throwing herself down on
her bed, she turned her back on the rest of us. Lavi was quiet as
she lay down, but I could still sense her large eyes trained
thoughtfully on me.

Shanna remained on my bed for a
moment, and seemed to hesitate before she spoke. “I’m sorry for
what you went through today.” She spoke in a low voice. “But I
think it’s a good thing it happened. People will really think about
what they believe when they eventually hear about this.”

“If
they hear,” I reminded her through a yawn. I was
so tired I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

“
Don’t you worry about
that.” Shanna became more serious. “But I will be more careful in
how we go about it from now on.”

“
Oh, thanks so much,” I
mumbled sarcastically as Shanna got up and returned to her own
bed.

As I undressed, I didn’t
feel the slightest bit of comfort by Shanna’s promise and the
unknown day ahead already plagued my mind with worry. Taking Avin’s
flower from my pocket, I cradled it in the darkness, enjoying the
sweetness of its scent for a moment. It was a simple gesture, meant
with honest intentions, but I knew my life was never going to be as
simple as accepting a flower from a boy. I stowed it back in my
pocket, away from my heart, and put it out of my mind.

Chapter
Eight

I experienced the slightest
sensation of peace upon waking, in the tiny moment before
consciousness kicks in and all feels right with the world. Then
everything flooded back over me like a shadow over my soul and I
fought the urge to roll over and sink back into sleep. I sat up
slowly and saw Lavi and Shanna were not there. Kina, however, was
standing at the end of my bed with folded arms, her mouth curved
down disapprovingly.

“I just want you to know,
I
do not
support your antics, or your ideas one little bit, Twell
Anar.”

“Ummm, okay?” I mumbled as
I got up and stretched. Kina
continued to
stand there, as if waiting for me to look at her so she could
continue her lecture. I couldn’t resist making her wait while I
braided my hair and generally took my time. She huffed impatiently
until I finally turned, facing her expectantly.

“But as it’s not in my
nature to be judgmental, and as long as you don’t involve
me
in any
of your scheming, we can still be friends.”

I stared at Kina, struggling not
to laugh. Not judgmental? She meant well of course, and she was
gazing at me so earnestly I couldn’t be mad at her. Befriending a
rebel was obviously such a big moral decision for her I was kind of
touched.

“Thanks, Kina, that means
a lot to me,” I replied sincerely.
Kina’s mouth lifted into a slight smile, but she remained composed.
“Good. Well. Let’s walk to morning meal then.”

Leaving our room, I was
unpleasantly surprised to find two female soldiers waiting to
escort me to breakfast. Obviously, my punishment for yesterday’s
antics was to be continued.

Kina baulked. I could
practically see her mind churning, considering what the impact of
being seen with me and my chaperones might have on her own squeaky
clean reputation. However, I was fast learning that although Kina
was loyal to the G.B, she was also loyal to her friends. She stuck
to my side like lint the whole way to the meal hall, her chin
defiantly raised, and her strides almost as stiff and regimental as
the soldiers who flanked us. I tried to think of it as having my
own personal bodyguards and fixed what I hoped was an unconcerned
expression on my face as I walked into the hall. It didn’t help.
The moment I was noticed, it was like a wave of awareness rippled
through the entire room. Word of what happened had clearly leaked
out. My skin prickled as I felt hundreds of eyes settling on me.
The noise in the hall died down to the swishing sound of a thousand
tongues whispering and, I feared, judging.

“You will come and report
to Officer Maza,” one of the officers
stated brusquely. Great. There was no way Maza wouldn’t be
ticked the incident had leaked out before she could stop it. My
stomach churned with nerves rather than hunger as I reluctantly
followed the officer.

Maza was standing on a
podium in the very centre of the room, her strategy clear. Public
humiliation. Her eyes stabbed into mine as I climbed the stairs and
I pressed my hands to my thighs to keep them from shaking as I
walked to stand before her.

The moment she opened her
mouth, the sound travelled clearly throughout the hushed hall, so
that every cadet could hear her addressing me. “Twell Anar. And
what do you have to say for yourself?” she said calmly, as though
she didn’t much care for my answer. But I knew she did. I also knew
I needed to answer very carefully. She clearly meant to show
everyone the rumours were indeed true, but on her terms, as though
making an example of me would give her the upper hand. A spark of
anger revived my spirit, and my fingers clenched into fists at my
sides. Brazin, who sat at the officers’ table, stared at me hard,
conveying a clear warning not to be impertinent at this moment.
Message received.