And I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us. – Khalil Gibran

She chased after amethyst lights. Despite her frantic advance, the paired, round lights receded. Everything around her was winter-white, severe and soft, oppressively brilliant. There were sounds, gasps that felt urgent, distressed. None of it stirred her focus from the lights. The deep purple flames melted the white around her and silenced the noises. If she could only reach them, she knew there was safety, there was peace. She was closing in, and she reached her hand out to touch them.

Suddenly, her arm was ripped away, and her whole body followed it, and though she tried, she could no longer see the light, only blinding white. She heard a cry, and knew it was her own.

Katia clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound. It had been ten years since she'd dreamt the dream that had haunted her childhood. Every night, her father came into her room to wipe away her tears, to soothe the terrible emptiness that remained after the nightmare faded. When Katia was seven, and the dreams made it difficult to stay awake at school, Ninel had given her medication that put her to sleep. The dreams had stopped then, and never come back, even after Ninel stopped the drugs. Not until tonight.

She rubbed the memory from her eyes and rolled out of bed. It was no use dwelling on dreams. She locked herself into the bathroom before Irina woke up.

After showering and dressing quickly, she headed down to the most important sequence of the morning: breakfast. She took the stairs three at a time, the last echoes of her nightmare muffled by the grumbling in her stomach. In the kitchen, Katia made three turkey sandwiches for her lunch and one for Irina, and then spread cream cheese over a bagel for her sister's breakfast. She scowled as she stared at the pantry. They were out of Honey Nut Cheerios. She poured half a box of Cocoa Puffs into a large salad bowl, filled it with a litre of milk, and turned on the television.

The television was always switched to the news channel in the Yazykova house. As the cereal turned her white milk a sweetened brown, the television anchor reported a story about an incident in Iraq involving a private military company two weeks before. Seven insurgents had been killed. Katia slurped her milk disdainfully as she watched the US Secretary of State explain exactly why the deaths of seven men somehow accounted for the deaths of twenty civilians.

Irina stomped down the stairs, buds in her ears streaming awful music loudly.

"Did you finish all the Cheerios?" Katia accused, turning off the television.

"I don't even eat cereal. You probably finished it." Irina answered. As she followed Katia out the door, she muttered, "Always so pleasant until someone messes with your food."

Katia tossed the keys in the air, and slid into the driver's seat. She flashed her sister a wicked grin. "I toyed with the engine yesterday."

Irina fastened her seatbelt, and gripped the passenger door. "How fast?"

"Let's try for two-hundred."

"In a Jetta?" Irina crossed herself backwards. "Angels save me."

Katia laughed and hit the accelerator.

They pulled into the school parking lot; after Irina had recovered some colour they said quick good-byes, heading to their respective classes at opposite ends of the school. Irina had taken a year longer to complete her courses, so they would both be graduating that year. However, the sisters hadn't taken a class together in two years.

Katia preferred to slip from class to class, walking so far to the edge of the halls that she could run her fingers along the locker doors, head down, hair draped in front of her face, doing her best to disappear. Her locker was easily recognizable by the word psycho burned onto the door. When they'd done it, the principal had pulled her out of class, at a loss for who could have done it. In truth, it could have been any one of them. She crammed her backpack into the locker and headed to her first class.

Katia tossed her binder onto her desk at the back of the physics class. With two empty desks on either side, she was the only resident in Reject Row. Her kingdom of one, alone and out-of-sight, remained the same no matter the classroom.

There were a number of reasons for her social isolation, some worse than others, but with only a few months of high school left she really didn't care. Soon enough, she'd be at university somewhere else, somewhere no one had ever heard of Haidala, and certainly not of Katia Yazykova.

As the other students waded in, she began- and finished- the homework she never did at home. She stood up, just as the bell rang, and made the harrowing walk to the teacher's desk.

She turned as soon as she'd tossed the hastily scribbled equations onto Mr. Young's desk, desperate to make her time at the front of the class, where twenty-three pairs of eyes were directed, as short as possible.

"You know, most students at least feign illness," Mr. Young murmured.

Katia slipped her lower lip between her teeth, and faced her teacher.

Mr. Young picked up her work, squinting as he examined the calculations. He set it down again and handed her a single sheet of paper. "There's really no point for you, though, is there? We try to keep students in the building in order to teach them something. So see if you can finish this."

She nodded, and half-smiled. He returned the gesture. Trying, and failing, to take a deep breath in a subtle way, she steadied herself for the journey back to her desk. Five years since the incident, they still whispered when she passed.

"What do you think he gave her?"

"I don't know. Location for a meet-up later? She sleeps with the teachers, that's how she gets perfect grades."

"Gross. No one would sleep with her."

"I heard she threatened to kill a couple of them. Went crazy when she got one answer wrong, and now they're scared to give her anything but one-hundred-percent."

The paper shook in Katia's left hand. Slumping into her seat, she pulled out her iPod and drowned their hate in Tupac's anger. Mr. Young wouldn't mind. He'd given her a Millenium Prize problem. The page-long proof would take all year to finish. She picked up her pen, and worked until the bell rang.

Katia remained silent in every class, attracting as little attention as possible throughout the seven hours each day that she was forced to be within the confines of those walls. As long as the teachers were kind enough not to call her name, the days were almost bearable.

After the last bell rang, Katia made a quick exit across the still-empty parking lot and slipped into her car. She tapped out an impatient beat on the steering wheel as she waited for Irina, who would no doubt take her sweet time. A familiar pair of eleventh graders strolled across her line of vision, hands in their pockets; expressions fixed with that unconvincing look of strained ease all deviants wore.

Katia watched a younger boy shoulder his bag nervously as he crossed the lot to meet them. Shaking her head, she plugged her iPod into the car. If he wanted drugs, that was his choice. Regrettably, curiosity drove her to look up just as she watched the shorter, redheaded dealer grasp at a knife in the pocket of his jeans. Her hand reached for the door.

She hesitated. No matter what, this would not end well. The boy fumbled through his bag, his face flushed with terror. Katia realized he must have been a delivery boy who'd messed up his drop. Now they were coming for payment.

Idiots. She shoved open the car door with an irritated grunt. Maybe if they just see me, they'll walk away.

The taller, brown-haired one glanced up and nudged his friend. The redhead smirked and brandished the knife. "Stay out of this, psycho."

Katia took a careful step towards them. "Leave him alone."

"Do you think I'm scared of you?" the redhead taunted. "Where's your baseball bat?"

It wasn't a baseball bat. It was my bare hands.

Katia bit down on her cheeks, glancing toward the school. Students were slowly starting to file out the doors, but none had taken notice yet. "Leave him alone," she repeated slowly.

Instead, the redhead sneered and turned back to the boy. In a quick, spiteful move, he kicked the boy just under the chin while he knelt, still searching through his bag. With a cry of shock and pain, his head arched back, and his body followed. The tall one grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up.

"Where's the money?" the redhead yelled, flashing the knife in front of the kid's face.

The kid shook with fear, a tear trickling down his cheek. The redhead laughed, and pressed the knife to his throat. The boy's trembling caused the knife to dig in, and a trickle of blood matched the tear.

Pure instinct peeled away at Katia's thoughts, so that all she saw were her hands, moving in a blur. In a motion too quick for them to react to, she'd advanced and caught both the wrist that clutched the blade and the wrist that pulled the hair, digging in with her nails and twisting so hard that they separated from their target with howls of pain. Both bullies fell to their knees. She loosened her grip, leaving them clutching their wrists in agony.

The younger boy trembled before her, and she reached down to gather the strewn innards of his backpack before handing it back to him. He snatched it from her and flinched away. "Get away from me!"

Katia blinked and looked around. The students had filled the parking lot; hyenas circling a wounded lion, waiting for her next move. Her chest filled up with panic as they sniped and snarled, and she found she couldn't breathe or speak. Unable to stand their stares, she turned away, her gaze falling on the black SUV across the street.

The young man with shaggy dark hair leaned against the hood with his arms crossed, an entertained leer spread across his features. He laughed at her, a low, husky chuckle that she should not have heard from that distance.

Not you. Not you too.

Her fingers curled into fists at her sides, and she backed away to her car. Irina was already there, gripping the passenger door handle.

Katia got back into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut, jolting Irina into action. Her sister jumped into the seat beside her and fastened her seatbelt as Katia slammed on the accelerator. The Jetta screeched out of the parking lot, and raced away from the school. By the time it tore into the driveway, Irina's knuckles were white from holding the passenger door. Whether out of fear or pity, Irina had said nothing the entire drive home.

"That was... exciting," Irina said carefully, loosening her grip on the door. "Did you hit two hundred?"

"Yeah. Sorry." Katia stared at her hands, hating them for betraying her.

Irina went inside, leaving her alone in the car. Feeling dangerously restless, she took ten deep breaths before following her sister. Katia was not calm, though. She slammed the front door shut and stomped up the stairs into her room. After changing into running gear, she knocked on Irina's door.

Irina was flat on her stomach, another thirty pages through Austen's classic. Irina took in her sister's attire. "Going out?"

"I won't be long."

"I don't think they'll be back till six," Irina offered.

"Thanks," Katia smiled, and felt a little better. "You're awesome, Irina."

"I know." She turned back to her book.

Katia wasn't supposed to be running. Suffering a heart condition that could be aggravated by heavy exercise, Katia had even been barred from taking gym class. She'd never understood why Ninel had allowed her to surf; that adrenaline rush had her heart pumping harder than any run ever would.

But running was her respite, and despite the fact that she was otherwise the antonym of rebellious, she ran. Even if it killed her. Irina knew about the running, but the sisters maintained a truce of silence, despite each one's uneasiness with the other's clandestine habits.

Katia pulled on her sneakers and headed out the back door. Before long, she was racing along the familiar game trail that wound its way up the mountain that loomed behind her house, to a lookout point that she was certain only she, with the possible exception of a few deer, knew about. Self-loathing drove her to a furious pace, and she flew along, letting the pain in her legs and the crush of her chest make everything else disappear.

It took forty minutes to reach the top, where an old red cedar had fallen, creating a gap in the trees that allowed her to look out over the big rocks and small islands that jutted beyond the beach until all land finally gave way to the vast Pacific. This was her place. Often, she would stop for a rest. That day, she turned right back around.

On her way back down, she stopped at a stream. She knelt to drink the cold, clear water from cupped hands. Hearing a crack of twigs, she twisted quickly into standing. Her eyes searched carefully for a grizzly or a cougar. She saw nothing.

Confident in her ability to outrun what was behind her, she continued on, down the treacherous trail, through the wall of giant cedars that guarded her back yard, and into the garden.

The colours of spring and summer had faded into early autumn. For most of the winter, everything would have a dead, frostbitten look. When it snowed, the pale sun reflected off the white, and though the garden was dormant, it dazzled with bright hope. In the time between winter and spring, the waiting period, everything was muddy brown and stirring, not quite ready to bloom. Then daffodils would push through, opening proudly before flopping over, bowing deeply to their tulip successors. At that time that the cherry blossoms bloomed, a centrepiece of soft pink, eventually darkening and falling to the grass, a blanket of bleeding petals. The violets would burst forth, water lilies covered the pond again, and tadpoles grew into croaking frogs. For now, every plant was in dusk, the final stretch before winter.

She heard her cell phone ring through the open window of her bedroom. Glancing around and seeing no one, she climbed up the wall of the house and swung herself through her second-story window. She picked up the phone from her bed and glanced down at the screen before answering.

"Hey, Ethan," she said, smiling.

"Hey, K," a low voice replied, "What's good?"

"All's good. How's your dad?"

"Same old Joe. He's changing up the shop."

Katia coughed. The shop hadn't changed in, well, ever. "Oh yeah?"

"The Little Mermaid theme. A singing lobster here, a talking fish there, girls wearing nothing but seashells –"

"If you want decorating advice, you're probably calling the wrong person." Katia cut in.

Ethan cleared his throat. "Are you coming down Saturday?"

"No, just Sunday. Babysitting." Every few Saturdays, Greg and Linda Louis would leave their four kids with Katia, giving them time to "regain their sanity." Conveniently, Irina always found a way to disappear on those days.

"I have some news."

"Is everything all right?" she asked, sitting up.

"It's good news," he laughed.

She relaxed, but not entirely. "You can't tell me now?"

"I wanted to talk about it... in person."

Katia could already guess what his news was, and she didn't want to be inside to hear it. "Hold on." She swung her legs out the window, and let herself fall to the ground.

"What was that?" Ethan asked.

"Nothing. When are you going?"

Ethan sighed. "As usual, you're getting ahead of yourself."

"And as usual, two steps ahead of you," she retorted feebly.

"Just come over Sunday."

She hung up and walked back towards the house. Her eyes swept over the garden, and she saw something out of place: a tiny bit of soil strewn where her bamboo plant had fallen. Her mind went over the events in quick succession: the twigs of ivy snapping on the wall, the plant falling off the sill as she leaned out to listen, whacking her head on the window frame, and the low chuckle that she could now place.

School became miserable again. The two dealers were found by a teacher- one had a fractured wrist- and their product was confiscated. The student body would have to find alternative sources of drugs, and for this nuisance Katia was blamed. Defaced Sports Illustrated photos were plastered to her locker every morning, each one more lewd and cruel. Psycho, freak, nasty, bitch; the familiar epithets were spray-painted across her locker door. Every day, she ripped them down and scrubbed them off, the expression of indifference harder to maintain.

Adding to her distress, she saw him every day that week, lingering across the street from the school. He was always watching her, always seeming to enjoy her discomfort.

Irina slid into the passenger seat on Thursday afternoon, her face a mask of indignant rage.

"They're so awful," she griped, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Thanks, Irina," Katia smiled, her hand on the gearshift. "But you don't need to stand up for me. They're not worth making yourself miserable over."

Irina bit her lip, and looked up at her sister. "Why won't you tell me about Jason? I know it's not like they say."

Katia calculated the consequences of telling. Deciding they were too costly; she bit down on the soft skin inside her cheeks, and pulled out of the parking lot.

Katia could smell her locker before she opened it on Friday morning. She approached it cautiously, wrinkling her nose against the stench of decay. She knew exactly what they had done, but there wasn't much she could do other than to open it. Eventually, the locker door would have to be opened, and she couldn't leave this in there for the janitor to clean. He already spent half his job cleaning her locker. A group of students were lurking inconspicuously twenty feet away, waiting.

She stepped aside before opening her locker.

Dozens of fish tumbled out of a bucket that had been precariously positioned on the top shelf of her locker. They spewed all over the floor and stained her shoes, still swimming in amber liquid. She knew from the distinct smell that the fluid was formaldehyde, and from the label of the bucket these were the fish that Mr. Harrison kept for dissections. The students burst into a riot of laughter. The smell of fish and chemicals stung her eyes. She choked back her disgust, and turned to face them.

They jeered and laughed, but their cruelty didn't bother her nearly as much as they would have liked. They were anonymous in numbers, but not a single one would consider threatening her on their own. They were afraid of her. Their fear didn't please her; it was the worst part. Then she noticed something. Ashley Manzini, a particularly popular girl, clung onto Peter Hein as she cackled. Katia met Peter's eyes. Red coloured his cheeks, and he looked away.

As the bell rang, the students dispersed, while Katia went to the janitor's closet to retrieve cleaning supplies before any teachers noticed. She didn't want a scene. Unfortunately, by the time she came back, Mr. Harrison was standing before the fishy mess.

"What is this, Yazykova?" he yelled.

She leaned the mop against an adjacent locker, but said nothing.

When he spoke again, his voice was cruel and calm. "Put them back in the bucket. I don't want them going to waste."

Katia stared at him, trying to gauge if he was serious. He was. She reached for the gloves she'd taken, when he snatched them from her. "Those aren't yours."

She understood. She knelt down, and with bare hands, Katia put the fish back in the bucket. Mr. Harrison watched while she mopped up the mess, and when she was done, he watched as she scrubbed out the inside of her locker. Students from the class he was meant to be teaching trickled out into the hallway to watch.

She handed Mr. Harrison the bucket of fish, catching his glare. Neither would ever articulate the reason for his antagonism. If she told, she doubted anyone would believe her. He snatched the bucket from her and strode back down the hallway, yelling at his students to get back to class.

As the crowd dissipated, she saw him at the end of the hallway by the doors. It was the first time she'd seen him inside the school. For once, he wasn't smiling.

The boy opened his mouth, as if to say something. Instead, he shook his head and walked out the door.

*******

"You know why I don't buy this?" Colton said as he rifled through the room.

"Mmm?" Holden grunted as he stared at the books sprawled over the desk. He pushed aside manuals on Volkswagen auto mechanics and a textbook of neurology, and picked up a novel. He smacked it, and a plume of dust puffed forth. He coughed and wiped the grime from the cover, revealing the title. Fluke. It looked promising.

"Because this room is a pigsty?" Frankie guessed, unnecessarily inspecting a pair of black underwear.

"Astute, but no," Colton continued as Holden slid the novel into his jacket. "They don't even lock their doors."

"I doubt they think it's worth it," Holden theorized lazily, glancing around the room. His eyes landed on something hanging on the wall.

"Not worth it?" Colton exclaimed. "They're hanging onto what might be the most advanced military technology since... well, since Omega-one?"

"Perfection perfected," Frankie muttered the familiar phrase. "Not that the state of this room would give you any such indication of it." He unravelled a lacy pink thong from his pocket, and compared the two undergarments. "I'm going to go check out the other room. I think there might be some documents hidden in there."

"Probably in the underwear drawer," Colton called after him. Holden was no Kappa, but even he knew there would be no documents hidden in that room.

Holden pulled the framed text down from the wall, and stared at the words. Invictus. He ran his fingers along the matte black frame. "They don't think it's worth it," he clarified as he replaced the hanging, "because they know that when we come, locks won't keep us out."

"True enough," Colton agreed. He noticed the poem in Holden's hand. "Is that – ?"

It was. Holden knew they were in the right place. He'd known since he'd first laid eyes on her, and yet he vacillated. "Could just be a coincidence. I'm not sure this is the right place."

"I'm no Delta, but you are a terrible liar." When Holden said nothing, Colton asked, "Are you having second thoughts?"

"I can't understand her."

"She does seem strange," Colton agreed.

More than misunderstanding held him back. "It's nice here," he commented. "I like the rain."

"You're not serious," Colton began to realize what Holden was saying.

"Of course not," Holden snapped. It was wishful thinking, mixed with a twinge of regret.

"Good, because Jackson already jumped. He's sending in an escort to bring us back."

Holden resisted his urge to hit something. Of course they wouldn't trust the youngest Paragons on their own for more than a week. "When?"

"Sunday," Colton answered. "Aldous is coming with them."

The regret became more than a twinge. It became inevitability. "It's too soon."

"We've used up almost our entire annual leave in this hole. You haven't even gone up to her?"

Holden thought about the girl. Her life wasn't perfect, but when he imagined her at war, he couldn't say it would be much better.

But he wanted her with him. That's the way it was supposed to be.

He turned away from the window. "Fine. Sunday."

Frankie came back into the room, munching on a bowl of cereal. "I like how the cereal makes the milk all chocolate-y." He mixed the cereal with his spoon. "But not as good as the other kind."

"Cheerios," Holden replied. "Not that you were supposed to be eating their food."

"Not that you're supposed to be stealing her books," Frankie retorted, pointing his spoon directly at Holden's chest.

"There's nothing here," Holden evaded, "and I have an appointment with the fine law enforcement officer of Haidala."

****

Katia left early that day, fleeing under the pretext of filing patient records at her father's office. It was a tedious task, but Ninel paid her well, the income affording her gas money for trips to Jack Creek.

Dr. Yazykova's office was just off of the town's tiny main street, next to Valentina's sculpting studio, a kitschy art shop selling fake native art, and the police station. Pulling up, she wondered vaguely if she should report the young man. Granted, she couldn't say he was stalking, not with any sufficient evidence.

Insufficient evidence was a term she was familiar with. Insufficient evidence was the reason Jason couldn't press assault charges against her. Officer Collins, the town's police chief, was the only person to whom she'd given the full account. She still wasn't sure if he believed her.

She got out of the car just as Officer Collins opened the station's front door. A slim young man stepped out. He wore a tie, and an identification badge on his shirt. His shaggy hair had been combed and parted, and a pair of aviators disguised his youth. Under his arm he held a thick file. He shook the policeman's hand. Officer Collins nodded gravely before turning back into the station, and the young man turned to Katia, a smirk crossing his face, shedding the years. He raised his hand in greeting, but he was holding up the file. And on the top corner of that file, was written her name.

Katia half-ran into her father's office.