Intermix Nation (10 page)

Nazirah meets up with Cato and the others
for dinner, in unusually high spirits. Cato tells her that he and
Taj have stolen some tequilux from Aldrik’s private stash, and that
they plan to throw a party on the boys’ floor tonight. Nazirah
promises to come, but says she has some work that she needs to do
first. No one questions her, not even Cato, because Nazirah has had
so many extra assignments due lately. And she’s not lying to them …
not exactly.

Nazirah does have work to do.

Late that night, Nazirah puts on black
sweatpants. She laces up her old tennis shoes and throws on a worn
jersey top. Pulling her hair into a high ponytail, Nazirah looks at
her reflection in the mirror. She is surprised and encouraged to
see the determination on her face.

On Riva’s face.

There are traces of her old self, but they
are concealed by new stitches and bruises.

Quietly, Nazirah exits her room and tiptoes
downstairs. She pauses, listening to the raucous sounds coming from
the boys’ floor. She smiles a little, wishing she could join the
fun.

There will be time for that later.

Reaching the bottom of the stairwell,
Nazirah pulls open the door to the basement. She walks with
determination down the hallway. Eventually, she turns into a room
she has been in only once before, during the brief tour Nikolaus
gave her first week here.

The workout room is old, musty, and reeks of
sweat, but will suit Nazirah’s purpose just fine. There are the
dummy she knows Cato likes to practice knife throwing on, the
weights Taj has told her about, and even the mats that Lumi uses
for stretching. Her friends have all made a concentrated effort to
improve their combat skills. Now it’s Nazirah’s turn to catch
up.

If she could find a way to actually hit
something.

Nazirah walks past a rack of boxing gloves
and some throwing knives. She sits down at a bench. She ties her
sneakers and then reties them. No one else is here, because really,
who would want to train on a Saturday night?

But solitude is exactly what Nazirah has
been hoping for. She briefly considered asking Cato to help her
train – she knows he would have eagerly volunteered. But this is
one fear Nazirah must face alone.

“Animals.”

Nazirah wrinkles her nose at the sweaty rags
and towels piled around her. She isn’t the tidiest person, but
really, this is ridiculous. Nazirah has no idea how Lumi even walks
through the door, the princess that she is.

Satisfied she won’t fall out of her shoes,
Nazirah steps over a rag pile and stands under a small window high
in the wall. She struggles with the latch, jumping a little and
eventually reaching it on her tiptoes. Nazirah cracks the window
open, hoping for wind or rain or hurricane to wash the rancid odors
away.

Nazirah spots some protection tape lying on
a nearby bench. She picks it up, attempts to tape her fingers like
Cato has done for her countless times in class. Nazirah holds up
one complete hand and scrutinizes it. It looks more like the hand
of a mummy than anything else, but it will have to do.

Taping the other hand, Nazirah hums an
Eridian melody. It’s off-beat and out of tune, but it fills the
silence.

Nazirah does what she thinks is some
preliminary stretching, trying to drag out warming up for as long
as possible. Rolling her shoulders, Nazirah decides she’s as ready
as she’s going to get.

Then the clapping starts, and her good mood
flies right out the open window.

Adamek leans against the punching bag in the
far corner of the room. He wears a white wife-beater that
prominently displays both of his black tattoo sleeves in their
entirety. His left shoulder is still bandaged. His face is slightly
flushed from working out and a pair of boxing gloves hangs from his
neck.

“That was quite the little show,” he
says.

“I didn’t realize I had an audience.”

“I didn’t realize Grum was teaching recruits
how to bandage opponents to death,” he shoots back. “It doesn’t
seem very efficient.”

Nazirah flushes in anger, looking at her
overly taped hands. Even from here she can see that his are done
the right way. Her first instinct is to run and her eyes dart to
the door. But she is no coward! Where is the Nazirah Nation who
jumped off the cliffs of Rafu? Where is the Nazirah Nation who
tried to beat up bullies twice her size? Where is that girl, who
was once so fearless, and is now so scared and lost? And all
because of this boy, who is probably expecting her to run
anyway.

Nazirah is tired of running.

“Well, you would know, wouldn’t you?” she
says. She meets his gaze evenly, cocking her head.

Adamek’s eyes darken. Two could play this
game. “Yes, I would,” he says.

Adamek steps away from the
punching bag, giving her full access to it. Nazirah straightens her
shoulders in defiance and cautiously approaches it, keeping an eye
on him the entire time. They haven’t been alone since the day she
met him in the prison. She feels out of sorts in his presence,
apart from the obvious reasons. He is always just
there
, just
watching
. Like he’s
trying to figure out what makes her tick; like she’s his pet
project.

Nazirah stands before the punching bag. She
breathes deeply, zoning Adamek out, trying to remember the reason
she came here in the first place. She can’t back down now. She
can’t let Niko down. She has to figure out how to fight without
freezing up. She has to figure out how to channel this guilt.

Hit it. Hit it. Hit it.

Her muscles lock. She sighs
in frustration, resting her head against the bag and closing her
eyes. She clenches her jaw, willing the images of Riva and Kasimir
away. She opens her eyes, breathing hard.
It’s just a bag
, she thinks.
It’s just a bag
.

But suddenly, it’s not just a bag anymore.
Nazirah imagines that it’s something entirely different … someone
entirely different.

Just hit
it
.

And she does.

Her fist slams into the bag with a dull
thud. It hurts her wrist and the bag barely moves an inch, but
Nazirah wants to cry with joy. She hits it again, harder this time
– and again and again. She feels a hand firmly grip her back,
correcting her posture. And another, repositioning her arm. Nazirah
whirls around, her heart pounding out of its ribcage.

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

Adamek is only a foot away. The gloves that
were hanging around his neck are gone. He stares at the stitches
above her eyebrow and at her bruised face. “I think you could use a
few pointers,” he says.

“I don’t need your help!”

“I beg to differ,” he says. “The first rule,
Nation, is to always know your enemy.”

“Oh, believe me, Morgen,” she says, laughing
coldly, “that is not my problem.”

“So why have you been ballroom dancing with
this bag for the past five minutes, when you know I’m standing
right behind you?”

“You admit you’re my enemy?”

He shrugs. “You certainly seem to think
so.”

“Yes, I certainly do!”

“You’re so tense, Nation.”

“Leave me alone.”

Adamek looks irate. He takes a determined
step forward. Nazirah steps backward, past the bag, trying to put
more space between them. “Why won’t you fight?” he asks.

Nazirah wasn’t expecting that. And she
doesn’t want to go there. She takes another step backward, but he
matches her.

“Why won’t you fight?” he asks again, more
harshly. He is quickly becoming unhinged and Nazirah thinks she
should have left when she had the chance. She takes another step
backward, her back hitting the wall. There’s nowhere left to
retreat. Adamek is just a few inches away now, eyes burning in
anger. “Why won’t you fight?” he shouts. He slams his fists into
the wall on both sides of her. She flinches, can see it written all
over his face. He already knows why.

“Go away!” she yells.

“Fight back!” Adamek shoves her shoulders
into the wall, lifting Nazirah up so he can look her in the eyes.
Her feet dangle uselessly a foot off the ground. She struggles
against him and he laughs. “You’re going to have to do a lot better
than that, princess.”

Nazirah slaps him with her left hand. Adamek
growls, releases her shoulder and catching her hand in his. He
pushes her entire arm back against the wall and Nazirah goes to
slap him with her right hand. He anticipates the move this time,
catching that one as well.

Nazirah seethes. She attempts to knee
Adamek’s groin, but he presses his body up against hers, pinning
her to the wall.

“I’m particularly fond of those,” he says,
tracing the stitches above her eyebrow with his fingers. “So let’s
not try that again.”

“Fuck off!”

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“You’re a bastard!”

“That’s funny, princess,” he says. “Your
father called me the same thing … before I shot him in the
heart.”

Nazirah screams, throwing all of her weight
onto Adamek and slamming her head into his face. He staggers
backward, but she holds onto him. She chokes him with one hand,
digging her fingernails into his wounded shoulder with the other.
The pain in her head is blinding and her stitches have reopened.
Blood drips into her eye and she feels about to blackout, but all
she can think about is spilling the blood of Adamek Morgen.

Adamek hisses, wrenching her fingers away
from his shoulder. He pulls her off him. She lands hard on the
ground.

Nazirah jumps up and stands in front of him,
gasping. She notices with satisfaction that his throat is covered
with her claw marks. Nazirah glares, wiping blood from her eyes. He
looks angry, yes. He looks like he’s in pain, good. But he also
looks relieved. Like he has proven something to himself. Like he
wanted this to happen all along.

Was this his intention in the prison as
well? Had he wanted her to attack him, to fight him, to face
him?

The guilt that’s eating Nazirah up inside is
still there, but it’s different, somehow. She has finally
confronted him. And somehow, she knows she won’t choke anymore.
Somehow, she knows she can fight. And that’s a powerful
feeling.

She hates him more than ever, but she’s also
grateful.

“Why?”

He rubs his throat and rotates his shoulder
gingerly. “You needed to be able to fight. You needed to let
yourself fight.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

Nazirah sees the recognition in his eyes.
“Don’t ask a question, if you don’t want to know the answer,” he
says.

“Why did you do it?” she cries angrily,
tears streaming down her face. She is letting him see her cry, but
she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care at all. She holds her stomach in
her hands, completely losing it. Then, she pulls hard on his shirt.
“Tell me why!”

His gaze is distant. “There’s nothing I can
say that will bring them back. It was an order. I followed it. End
of story.”

“End of story?” she sobs, hoarse. “If only
my story ended there!”

“I warned you not to ask.”

“I hate you,” she says, completely raw. “I
hate you so much.”

She walks away.

He lets her.

And she doesn’t realize, until much later,
that she never asked him if he regrets it.

#

The next day, Nazirah makes excuses for why
she never showed up to the party. She says she wasn’t feeling well,
that she was swamped with extra work. And, thankfully, no one
pushes the issue. When she shows up at the emergency room, early
Sunday morning, even Bilungi says nothing. She only looks at
Nazirah staunchly, closing her reopened stitches.

Monday afternoon, Nazirah walks into the
gymnasium to find three additions to the class. Nikolaus, Aldrik,
and Adamek stand in a small circle with Grum, speaking privately.
Nikolaus seems to be reassuring Grum, who looks even more irritated
than usual.

The remaining recruits slowly file into
class, glancing curiously at them. Even Lumi, normally so aloof,
flashes them a troubled look.

Nazirah tries to ignore them completely,
increasingly nervous. She’s sure Niko wants to observe combat
training to figure out exactly what’s wrong with her. But Nazirah
already knows what’s wrong with her. And, judging from the livid
look on Grum’s face, Niko’s good intentions will backfire
spectacularly.

“What are they doing here?” whispers
Cato.

Nazirah shrugs her shoulders. She has no
idea what excuse Nikolaus has given Grum, Aldrik, or Adamek. She
doesn’t think Niko would tell them the truth … that he’s worried
his baby sister is losing her mind.

“What are you all looking at?” Grum snarls,
glancing around the room. “Get into formation!”

The class shuffles, hastily forming their
normal semicircle. Adamek, Nikolaus, and Aldrik do not stand with
them, but rather lean against a nearby cement wall.

“Commander Nation, Morgen, and Slome have
asked to observe our class today,” Grum begins lecturing. “I
initially protested, because many of us,” Grum shoots Nazirah a
pointed look, “are not yet where we need to be. However, the
Commander insists. He wants to track your progress so that we can
target and strengthen your weaknesses.”

Grum clearly doesn’t like Nikolaus
questioning his methods or jurisdiction, and doesn’t believe his
reasons. Cato squeezes Nazirah’s hand reassuringly, probably
thinking the exact same thing.

Nazirah suppresses a small smile, glances at
Adamek. She hasn’t seen him since Saturday night. Nazirah hopes
that her newfound fighting ability holds, especially with her
impromptu, deranged teacher watching her every move.

“Elder Grigori, Mays, you’re up first.”