Diona disappeared shortly before I turned eight and after that I told myself, Do not be like Diona. Just exist, Anya. Do what they tell you, and live. Buck the system and you’ll end up like all the other girls who got too old to meet Lazar’s sick, twisted desires.
My stomach rumbles again. And it feels like I’m eating myself from the inside out. Technically, you can go a very long time without food. But you become too weak to do much after only a week. And I’m on the tail end of day three. Did I even eat that night of the fight?
No. Not that day, either. I was too nervous.
I need more food. But it’s pretty clear that I wasn’t supposed to come here with Cort. And whatever food he has, it’s only enough for him.
He has to be as hungry as I am. He’s much bigger, he’s been training hard since we arrived, and his food ration was as meager as my own. He’s been splitting it equally. But he had that extra ration that I went without when I was locked on the lower level.
He could—hell, if he was smart, he would—lock me down there again and keep my food ration for himself.
He could also start feeding me every other day. Or every third day. Feed me just enough to stay alive, but not much else.
I do not like the pain of hunger. It’s a gnawing, biting, burning feeling that hollows you out. I need to be nice to him. And I was trying tonight. I tried to get him more interested in me.
He would prefer me to talk, even if he himself doesn’t say a word. I’m in his world. I should bend to his rules.
I should talk. I know this is the easiest way to stay safe. But… I don’t know what I would say.
Or, rather, I’m afraid I do know what to say. I’m afraid that if I open my mouth and utter any words at all, they will be all the wrong ones. And I know what happens to girls who say the wrong things.
And anyway, how do I know that Cort won’t just tell everyone? I don’t.
And if Udulf figures out I talked to Cort, then he will expect me to talk to him as well. And once I talk to him, I’m positively sure everything will begin to unravel.
I’ve been holding things together with my silence for a long time now.
More than ten years.
But everything seems to be changing at once and this is a very dangerous thing.
Deciding to talk now would be a fatal mistake.
So no. I will not be talking to Cort.
What I will do is be nice. I’ll be pleasant. Submissive. Demure. Get him to see me as a sexual thing again. Take his mind off my limitations and play up my assets.
This pacifies both my anxiety and my growing hunger pangs. And I settle into sleep with thoughts of that kiss.
Because that’s how I will take control of my future.
The kiss was just the start.
When I wake up in the morning Cort’s mat has been picked up and I am surrounded by curious birds. Mostly gulls pecking at my hair, like they might pull it out of my head and use it for their nests, but a few albatrosses linger in my vicinity. They are huge birds, so massive, they look fake. When I stand up, their heads are well above my waist. And when I take a step forward to go down to the training level and find Cort, hopeful that we will have breakfast this morning, one of them extends its wings and flaps at me.
That wingspan is so wide, I have to take seven steps to get safely around it.
I take my mat down to the training level and find Cort already jumping rope, his back to me as he does that fancy footwork, traveling down the length of the bare concrete. But when he turns to find me watching him, he stops abruptly and points to the building behind me.
Is he pointing to the kitchen? Hope surges inside me. Did he make breakfast?
My stomach growls so loud just thinking these thoughts, if he wasn’t all the way across the platform, he would’ve heard it. That rumble comes with a dull, gnawing pain.
But when I turn, I realize he was pointing to that small chalkboard mounted on the wall of the kitchen building. My name is still written in white chalk across the top and underneath that, it says, Jump rope. Underneath that it says, Practice drills one, two, and three.
Not one word about breakfast.
Or lunch. As if.
Or dinner.
I sigh, then glance over my shoulder to see if Cort is watching me. He’s not. He’s got his back to me. Just jumping his way back down the platform.