The Test

Twenty-six

It takes him a week to find me.
Ever since mom and dad brought me to their huge manor house in the middle of nowhere, they've been over-compensating for letting me believe they were dead for months, giving me whatever I ask for, letting me have free reign of the house that's made of glass and marble, set over three stories with two turrets at the top, one of which is my room. I feel like a princess in a fairytale, but a princess that was not made to belong there. I feel out of place, edgy. All I can do is wait, and I hate it. I hate feeling powerless and helpless, and right now, trapped in a gilded cage, in which I am given free reign but am not allowed to leave, I am both.
I am up in my new room one morning, playing on the newly installed VidScreen and feeling guilty for feeling restless when I'm technically where I should be, with my parents, (where I should have been all along, had they not listened to the government and disowned me when they clearly still love me) when there's a soft rap at the window. I slip off my bed, leaving the VidScreen to play its innocuous commercials, and pad over to the window in my PJ's and slippers. I open the curtains and slide open the window, smiling at the face I see there. "Hey," I say, my grin growing as he smiles and swings up from the window ledge into the room, shutting the window behind him. "Hey," he returns, immediately gathering me to him in a hug and breathing me in, my head resting against his chest. "God, I miss you," he says, pulling back to look at me. "How are you? Are they treating you alright?"
I laugh."Of course they are. They feel like they have to over-compensate, I guess, so they've been pampering me this whole time."
Luc puts on a mock-affronted face. "Oh, so you don't need me, then," pretending to move away. I grab his arm, pulling him back. "No, are you kidding? Of course I need you. You're you."
He grins and kisses my forehead, wrapping me in a hug once more. "I wish you could stay, though," I say softly.
He sighs. "I know. But Frex and Vi would kill me-" he stops, bites his lip as if he'd forgotten something, and his face darkens.
"What is it?" I ask, pulling away from the hug in time to watch his smile die.
"That's actually what I came here for. To tell you..." he is stricken now, his face pained and aged.
"Tell me what?" I say in a worried voice.
"It's Vi. She's missing."
"What?"
"Yeah. She went on a raid to find Bianca-apparently not on false orders this time, the government know nothing of it-with a couple of the tech team, to hack into security codes and stuff, and never came back. Knox says their last update was that they'd found the building they were looking for before, when the false orders led Knox astray and you to the shooters, but then everything went dead and static-y, and he's heard nothing since."
"When was this?" I ask, heart sinking. "Is she-dead?" I couldn't take it if any more people I loved died.
Luc hugs me again, tight and reassuring, and I relax into him. "It was the day before yesterday, and I'm sure she's fine," he says softly, the lie plain in his words.
"She's dead, isn't she? Please, no. don't let her be dead..." I crumble then, sinking to the floor just as I did for my parents. That grief resurfaces, rearing its ugly head to drown me again, and I shake my head, trying to convince myself that all three are alive, and that Vi's body has not joined theirs on the floor of my old apartment in my memory.
Luc tugs me to my feet, hands on my shoulders. "No. She's not dead. Knox would have told us."
I can sense the truth in his words, even though a small part of me tries to tell me he's lying. I just wish I didn't crumble so easily, that I could stand without people having to help me, that I could be stronger.
"I know," I say. "But I can't help worrying, especially since I'm not there anymore."
Luc draws me into another hug, running soft hands up and down my back in soothing circles. "You don't have to worry, love," he reassures me. "We will find her." He pulls back to look at me. "Just like I found you."
I smack his arm and grin. "Creeper."
He laughs."You love me anyway, right?" He says jokingly
My smile fades. "I do. I really do."
He smiles shyly then. "Me too. You know that Vi gave me serious ribbing after you were gone? Teased me mercilessly about how morose I was."
I splutter. "You, morose?"
"Yeah. It's like a physical pain, remember?"
"Losing the one you love," we say softy together.
"I remember," I say quietly. Of course I do.
He sighs and hugs me tighter. "Anya," he whispers, and his voice is suddenly tortured. "I just want to stay with you. Forever." He tips his forehead down until it's resting on mine, his beautiful, deep, eyes looking into my own. The pain, longing, sadness and worry in his eyes echoes my own, and moves me enough to kiss him, once, with enough force to have him pulling me tightly to him, holding my waist in gentle but firm hands. He pulls away abruptly, breathing hard. "I thought I heard your parents," he explains quietly. I nod. "They're probably going out or something," I whisper. "Hey," I say after a beat, during which time Luc's face has collapsed into worry and grief again. I swat at him. "Don't look so sad. She'll come back."
He laughs, a hollow and heart-wrenching sound. "I wish I shared your optimism. But look at that-you're comforting me instead of the other way around."
I laugh sadly. "Yeah, well, looks like we both need some comfort right now."
"Yeah."
I brighten suddenly with a thought, jumping up and grabbing his hand, smiling at his bewildered face for the first time in what feels like months, but has only been minutes.
"Where are we going?" he asks, laughing as I pull him along the hall and downstairs to the lobby.
"I've got something to show you."
~
"What is this place?" he asks, staring in wonder at the basement-turned training room. Weapons line the walls, daggers and wicked-sharp knives, crossbows and longbows, swords of every shape and size.
"It used to be a gym, but I asked my parents to turn it into a room where I could train," I say, smiling again at his face, now delighted, his earlier sadness about Vi banished to a shadow in his eyes.
"What, and they did it that quickly?" he asks wonderingly. "You've only been here a week."
I laugh. "They have connections, apparently." Now that I think about it, they wouldn't tell me where they got the weapons from, only that they were putting them down in the basement.
"Yeah." I reply over my shoulder, walking over to the wall and pulling down a knife, flipping it over in my hands just like he taught me to one evening when we were bored a few weeks ago. I look over at him, a devious grin on my face. "Want to spar?"
He grins, walking over to me, surveying the rows of weapons on the walls and the targets in a row at the far end that I made out of sacks stuffed with straw. Well, my parents can only do so much.
"Anya," he says in an awed voice. "You don't think...you could let the compound have some of these weapons, do you? I mean, no offence, but this is a bit much for one person."
I laugh. "Of course. I didn't even think of that. How selfish am I?"
He laughs, fondly. "You're not selfish. You're the least selfish person I know."
I pretend to be shocked. "Whoa, Luc, are you feeling alright? That would have been a perfect excuse to fight with me."
He laughs. "I guess I don't want to fight with you anymore."
I smile wryly. "Me neither." I shrug. "Anyway, yeah, sure. You can have all the weapons you want. Arm the place to the teeth."
He grins. "That's my girl."
"Oh, yeah. You know me." I laugh it off, even though inwardly I'm dancing around and squealing. After a pause, I regain my inner composure. "So," I say, putting on a mock-serious face. "Best of five?"
~
Every day after that, he comes to train with me, always in the afternoon, always leaving with an arsenal of weapons strapped to his body, slowly reducing the amount of weapons in the basement. "You should have seen Knox's face when I came in with two broadswords strapped across my back and emptied several knives onto his office floor," Luc says one day, recounting the first time he came back to the compound with his new weapons, almost two weeks ago now. "He just looked at me, raised his eyebrows, and said: 'where did you steal those from?'and I said, 'I didn't steal them, Anya gave them to me.' He nodded and said, 'Well, put them in the barn then.'" he looks at me. "Is it just me, or is he being suspiciously flippant?"
I laugh and look over at him. We're lying on a blanket on the basement floor-I can't risk having my parents see him here, and my room is too close to this for comfort, so even when we're not sparring, we come down here to talk.
"No," I say lightly. "I'm pretty sure he isn't. If he had the time to inspect every weapon for explosives, he would, just to be extra cautious. But he trusts you. And if you trust me, then he does, too. At least as a reliable source of weapons. And anyway, I suspect that he doesn't really care where the weapons come from, only that you have them."
He shrugs. "I guess." Then he looks over at me, a small, wry smile curling up the corner of his mouth. "Anyway, thank you."
I laugh, faintly, already drifting away from the conversation, pulled by the thoughts in my head. "I can't believe they're really alive," I say softly, hardly audible. "I've only had three weeks, but it feels like I'll never have enough time."
Luc sighs. "I know. I don't know why they just turned up at the compound after letting you grieve for so long, and without any reason..."
I raise a brow. "Do they need a reason?"
He shrugs. "I guess not." But his face darkens. "They need a reason for why they took you away from me."
I frown. "Luc, I chose to go." I look over at him, and note that he has gone still, the planes of his face set and angry. "They're my parents," I say softly. "I had to go with them."
He turns to me, his whole body curving around mine. "No, Anya. You didn't. You could have stayed with me."
I glare at him, my voice no longer soft. "Are you saying that-are you assuming that I'd rather have stayed with you?"
He sighs. "I know you didn't trust them-I thought-maybe I'm being selfish-"
I scoff. "Maybe?"
"Ok, fine. But is it so wrong for me to want you to stay with me?"
No, my heart whispers. No.
"They're my parents," I repeat. "I couldn't just abandon them."
He scoffs, derisive. "What, like they didn't abandon you?" he says sarcastically. He has a point, and I'd be inclined to agree. But I can't tell him that, or it would seem like I could have stayed. When in reality I knew I would go with them from the second I saw them. They still have such a hold over me. That's the worst part - I would rather have stayed with Luc, of course I would, but I felt compelled to go, to give them another chance.
"Maybe they're different now," I say softly.
He shrugs. "Maybe. But they still have to buy you. They think you'll love them again after a few nice trinkets and a place to train." his voice goes soft, gaze intense. "If they think that'll work with you, they don't know you at all." Not like I do. The unfinished sentence hangs in the air-I know you better than they do.
I close my eyes and open them to find him watching me. "What have I done?" I say softly. I shift closer to him, letting his arms fold around me, my head resting on his chest. "I'm so sorry," I whisper. "I feel like such a fool - I let them have me, didn't even fight, just left you there, acting as if it didn't matter, as if it wasn't ripping out my heart to leave you..." his arms tighten around me. "I'm sorry too," he says, a whisper against my hair.
"What for?" I ask, mystified.
"For letting you go. I thought it was what you wanted. I told myself that if you were happy, I was happy. I told myself it was for the best, that if you could walk away that confidently, then it must be right and what you want and so I was willing to let you. I'm sorry." he kisses my forehead. "I'm so sorry, love. If I'd known-I never would have left you. I'm still here if you want me-if you want me with you, if you want me to get the hell away from you, then I'd do it. reluctantly, but I would. I'd stay by your side forever, if I could. I'm yours. Entirely yours."
His words echo in my head as we lie there, as I twist round in his warm, safe arms so we're facing each other, and smile when I see his face, staring back at me. "I love you," I whisper, resting my head on his shoulder and burrowing into his shirt. "I love you too," he whispers, lifting a thumb and tracing it across my cheeks, my lips, my eyelids. "You're so beautiful," he breathes, awestruck. "I can't believe I get to do this," he says, bending slightly and touching his soft lips to mine. My eyes close as he kisses me once, twice, then a third time, before bringing his hands up to my face and bringing his lips to mine again, this time smiling against my parted lips before deepening the kiss.
And that's how we stay, for the next two hours.
Until the shouting starts.