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The first time?
A boy had been killed. I had been terrorized.
It was the only time I’d been told to sit on his fancy white couch—only sixteen, certain my death was being ordered and the noose was already strung up.
Over a stupid misunderstanding. Mixing genders after hours was strictly prohibited. It didn’t matter if the reason was innocent or well-intentioned.
And as I mentioned, a boy had been killed.
Because I had tried to secretly tutor Private Cullen in math, so he might pass our next test and not be executed for failure to perform up to standard.
Being caught after hours, pouring over books with me, he was dragged to execution on the spot.
I was towed to General Cyderial’s office for punishment. He’d ordered me to sit on the beautiful couch, yelling me down for a solid ten minutes about the importance of following the rules. I had never seen him so manic, ranting about the dangers of young men and how there was no room for foolish female compassion for unworthy boys.
Meanwhile, sweet Private Cullen was being strung up in the yard.
I’d dared to start crying, and that had sent the man from manic to full-blown insanity.
Tearing at his hair, he gave me such a look. “There had been incidents before I took over this position. Incidents where girls were harmed, Lorieyn. It’s a harm we cannot undo.”
But the harm, the fear, had all come from the general. Life had been better before he’d taken over leadership of the academy and begun disposing of students—my brothers and sisters—as if they were trash. “If he failed trigonometry, you were going to kill him!”
“Has your interference changed the outcome in any way?” He scoffed, letting the question go unanswered. “It isn’t your job to save these kids. It’s mine! This is not a charity. This is a training ground that will decide if you live or die.”
As I was well aware. Dysregulated, angry at the injustice of it all, it was my turn to raise my voice. “Kill me already! I hate it here, and I don’t want to listen to you anymore!”
“You are very young. Lorieyn, you would gain so much if you would just focus and absorb everything we are trying to teach you. This is a dangerous world full of desperate people. Equip yourself with wisdom. Private Cullen could have gone to his instructors for help. Instead, he asked you to meet him in the dark, knowing he was going to die anyway. Do you understand what I am saying to you?”
I understood that this man was horrible. “You killed a boy who did nothing wrong.”
Exasperated, he hardened his voice. “I saved you from rape.”
“I don’t even know what that word means.” And I didn’t care about General Cyderial’s assumptions or brooding. I just wanted to go to my room and cry.
Releasing an extended, shaky exhale, the general pinched the bridge of his nose, swearing under his breath.
I watched him collect himself, watched when he stood taller and straightened his jacket, as I hunched into myself on that damned couch. My arms wrapped tight around my middle as if it might hold in all the grossness I felt inside.
“You will be severely punished for your lapse in judgment. If I catch you outside the female dorms after dark again, you will force me to do something you are not ready for.” A strange change came over the man, as if he was trying to speak reasonably and gently. “I am asking you to please take better care of yourself.”
My lip shook as I asked, “You’re not going to kill me?”
“No.” He let out another exasperated breath and made damn sure I was looking him dead in the eye. “But I will kill any boy you are caught with. Remember that next time you want to help a failing student study for math. Their death will be on your hands.”
He may not have beat me, but the general kept his word. I was heavily punished for my part in the late-night escapade. One full year of extra labor every day after classes—time I used well. Always, an armed watcher supervised my work, yet they never engaged. And as I scrubbed the halls on hands and knees, day in and day out, I found something close to privacy for the first time in my life. Time to learn the secrets of my prison.
Mapping out surveillance devices when you had reason to linger in one place wasn’t as complicated as one would think. I knew exactly how I’d been caught last time.
I watched the instructors’ habitual movements and schedules. I discovered the best hiding places. Within five months, I began to sneak away from the females’ dorms simply out of spite. Just to see if I could.
Twice over the following year, I had run into a boy doing the same. Both times, I had let them kiss me in the dark.
After asking the older girls what the word rape meant, I had a better understanding. It meant boys kissing without permission. Well, it wasn’t rape if I asked them to do it.
In an awkward fumbling moment of foolishness, I even let one touch my breasts—a redhead who looked a lot like the boy I had tried to teach trigonometry to. They may have even shared the same birth mother.
We didn’t quite know what we were doing, groping in the dark, and I’m not sure either of us enjoyed it the way we were supposed to. But it had been my moment in that dirty alcove, using my body the way I wanted to use it. And he had kissed me a great deal.
