Strive to discover the mystery before life is taken from you.

If while living you fail to find yourself, to know yourself,

how will you be able to understand

the secret of your existence when you die?

- Farid ud Din Attar

The following morning after breakfast, they practiced assembling guns for the first time. For once, Katia was at a disadvantage. Most of the men were already skilled marksmen, and only a few would fall short of the standards for the elite team. On the other hand, apart from Greg Louis' hunting rifle, Katia had never even seen a gun up close, and she suffered doubly from having no desire to touch one. Now she was faced with dozens, of varying shapes and sizes. Unlike the hunting rifle, these firearms were designed to do one thing, which was to kill other human beings. Biting back the aversion that crawled up her throat, threatening to coil into words that might slide out into sound; she reprimanded herself for being so weak and tried to focus on Holden's instructions.

Holden, for his part, was a surprisingly patient teacher. He showed her how to assemble each type of gun, and how to take it apart. He showed her the difference between submachine guns, pistols, and rifles. He demonstrated how to hold each one, and more importantly, he taught her how to handle them safely. In fact, before he let – or rather, forced – her to touch a single weapon, he sat her down at the table and swept his hand over the array of weapons.

"First, always assume that a weapon is loaded, no matter where you find it, or if you unloaded it yourself. Got it?" She nodded. He never had to repeat anything with her. "Okay. Second, never point a weapon at anything you aren't willing to shoot. Third, never put your finger on the trigger unless you are going to shoot. And fourth, know what your target is, and know what's behind it."

"So that you don't accidentally shoot someone?"

"Exactly. Now repeat what I just told you."

She did.

Jackson was there, watching her with hawk eyes and conferring occasionally with Aldous. She began to notice that whenever possible, Jackson spoke preferentially with Aldous over King. The latter had left them alone for the morning. It seemed that they had given Katia and Holden some degree of freedom for the time being, for perhaps they recognized that the two worked best together, without the hindrance of other instructors.

By the end of the morning, she knew from memory the inner workings of an M4 rifle, a Sig Sauer P226, the more powerful FN Five-seveN, a Steyr TMP, a PP-2000, and a Magpul PDR. According to the excited exclamations of the brown-haired young man she'd advised in the icy ditches, the Magpul wasn't supposed to be on the market yet. They gathered around the table, cooing and exclaiming as if the Magpul was their firstborn.

Katia pushed down her contempt and focused on learning the use of each one, the disadvantages of each, which type of ammo they required, how they were to be cleaned and maintained, where every single bolt and nut was placed. She learned to care for these objects she hated in a way she'd never cared for anything before. Within two hours, she could take any one of them apart and put it back together in less than thirty seconds, and she could change magazines in less than two. She accomplished all of these things in the course of a single morning, but she felt no pride.

The first session of hand-to-hand combat came after lunch. The remaining twenty mercenaries were there, along with a number of other graduated specialists who were to oversee the fights, giving feedback on technique afterwards, and preventing the men from going too far. Cassius and Samson were there also, calling out the names of those who were to fight next. Katia suspected that their presence was purely to frighten the mercenaries. It was effective, and she wondered if there was more to the Epsilons' gift than simply inhuman strength.

Katia watched carefully as the others fought, studying their haphazard, blended styles with equal measures of disdain and trepidation. It reminded her a bit of the mixed martial arts matches she'd watched on television; only there was less method to this madness. The men, too, noticed her standing in line, waiting for her turn. She could hear their whispers from across the room; they were wondering whom she might fight against. To their credit, none appeared to want it to be them. To their discredit, they were generally too caught up in cheering for the current fights to worry much about fighting a girl.

Holden was across the room from her, watching the fights with a bored expression. When Samson called his name, he raised his eyebrows in surprise, but stepped forward onto the mat. Samson then called out the name of another mercenary, and Katia saw that it was the brown-haired young man she'd seen in training. Kellen Connolly.

Kellen appeared positively ill as he removed his shirt, and went to shake Holden's hand. Holden looked halfway between unwilling and amused. Then his eyes fell on a tattoo across Kellen's chest; a Celtic cross surrounded by Chinese symbols, and amusement won.

A bell rang out, and neither moved. Holden's arms were limp by his sides. Kellen was too afraid to make a move.

"Well, go on," Holden prodded, and Katia thought he was being cruel.

The teasing look proved enough to motivate the hapless mercenary. Connolly swung hard. Holden wasn't even paying attention; he was still blinking at Kellen's tattoo, his grin growing wider by the second. Without looking, he reached up and caught Kellen's fist in his palm, as easily as a baseball.

Absently, Holden dropped the mercenary's fist. "Try again."

A few men chuckled at the pitiful scene. Kellen was becoming furious now, and he swung again. Holden swivelled out of the way effortlessly. "Almost!"

More mercenaries were laughing, driving the opponent's humiliated rage. He swung twice more, his blows coming closer and closer, but never quite hitting the mark. Then Holden did something strange. He sighed and rolled his eyes. For just an instant, an odd expression passed over his face; it wasn't amused or gloating. It was miserable. Katia wasn't certain that she'd even seen it, when, in a motion all too swift for them to really quite see, he knocked the mercenary out.

The men were driven to silence in the aftermath of the impossible hit. Holden crouched down by Kellen's dazed head.

"Sorry about that," he said, offering a hand as Kellen came to.

To Katia's great surprise, Kellen took it. "It was gonna happen anyway."

"That's true," Holden answered, helping him to his feet. "You did well."

Kellen chuckled at the false reassurance, but Holden took him by the shoulder and looked down at the older, but smaller man. "Seriously. They don't normally get as close as you did. You're too stiff when you fight. You need to loosen up, so that you can adapt to the hits."

"Adapt to the hits? What the hell does that mean?" the young man asked curiously.

Holden laughed and grabbed them both bottles of water. "It was some quote I heard once. I thought it might help."

"Help how?" he asked, his brow furrowed together in confusion at Holden's twisted logic.

Holden shrugged helplessly and took a swig of his water. "You seem to like meaningless quotes."

Kellen's face dropped to his chest, then back up at Holden. "That's a family quote. You don't even know what it means."

Holden glanced down at the tattoo. "It means; he who doesn't know Chinese symbols should not get them tattooed on his body."

Kellen scowled. "You're wrong. It's the Connolly Clan motto. It means 'fierce as a wolf.'"

"Why would you get an Irish motto tattooed in Chinese?" Holden asked, all innocent curiosity. Katia could tell he was enjoying himself.

Kellen turned bright red, somewhere between anger and humiliation. "You're a real asshole, you know that? My girlfriend was half-Chinese, and she translated it for me."

Holden opened his mouth. Then something strange came over his face, and he seemed to change his mind. "Sorry. Didn't mean to offend you."

Kellen looked up at the taller, younger man. "You don't get out much, do you?"

Holden tilted his head to the side as he absorbed the question. For a frightening moment, both Katia and Kellen worried that Holden had been offended, and how he might respond.

Holden only laughed. "No, not much."

Katia had been watching this exchange curiously, not paying attention as the others fought. It was strange to see Holden so affable, and at least trying to be helpful, pitiful though that was. Perhaps he hadn't been cruel in the ring; perhaps it had simply been a joke to him. Holden was younger than all of these men by several years, and she tended to forget that. He raised his eyes, and met Katia's from across the room. They watched each other, trying to figure one another out, when she heard her name called.

She turned her eyes to Cass, who seemed to be waiting for something. Then she realized that he was waiting for her to move. Katia walked to the centre of the mat, feeling the weight of the sudden, deafening silence in the room, and even more aware of Holden's eyes, still fixed on her face.

The word Track was called, and her opponent materialized before her. This was one of the younger mercenaries, a scar punctuating his shorn blond hair. He didn't appear particularly upset to be fighting her. In fact, he seemed almost excited, and even the pitying realization that Track was his name couldn't dampen her fury. She tried to contain herself, feeling cold sweat drip in ragged lines down her trembling palms.

Track turned his back to her to take off his shirt, and she covered her mouth to hide her laughter. His bare back had been flagrantly defaced by an ill-advised tattoo: it depicted a badly disproportionate skull that was either laughing or screaming. It was difficult to tell, but she thought the artist might have used a Gorilla skull as the template. Underneath the hideous, poorly sketched and anatomically inaccurate image was an emboldened, scrawling phrase:

The sword is greater than the pen.

Which made sense, really, on Track's skin.

He stepped up before her. The silence, if it were possible, seemed to deepen as the opponents faced each other. She could sense the perturbations of the mercenaries watching this young girl fight, but no protest was heard. They stood, frozen by the fascinating wrongness of it.

"I'll go easy," he told her, leaning forward with what she thought was an attempt at a comforting smile.

She leaned away from him, unable to contain a flinch of disgust. Then he threw the first punch.

Katia dodged it easily, arching back underneath his arm. The unmatched force of his swing threw him off balance, and she stepped out of the way swiftly as he stumbled forward. He straightened, and he caught her poorly concealed mirth. His face changed, growing angry, focused. And it stopped being funny.

The attacks came swiftly, ferociously. Though she was dodging them easily, the scene changed from silent to frantic. They were yelling at her again, ordering her to fight back, to hurt him. She didn't want to hurt him. Katia had promised herself a long time ago that she would never again hurt someone, even if they deserved hurting. She didn't want to be here, and with the minimal concentration it took to avoid the mercenary's blows, she pretended she wasn't.

As she rocked and twisted her body, dancing around the fists that flew her way, she was reminded of the ocean. When the tide captured ordinary land-creatures, drawing them away from shore and pounding them with impenetrable might, they would panic and fight back. Panic was how temporary detainment became a permanent, watery grave. What a silly thing, to fight the ocean.

Katia was not ordinary. On the uncommon occasion that her surfboard slipped out from under her feet and the ocean snatched her with his great, wet wings, she never fought against him. Flowing and tumbling, she would let the ocean lead her through its dance until it calmed. He would generally lead her through two to three lively sets before freeing her to swim up. She would take in the musical roar, enjoying their dance. It was always with a twinge of regret when the time came to come up for air.

She was there again, floating peacefully through the cold, dark water, biding her time. The break came, and she opened her eyes.

Like a tamed animal, Track was on his hands and knees. His chest heaved as he looked up at her in disbelief. He was drenched in sweat. The hounds that formed the circle were still; all staring at her with the same wide eyes. It took her a moment to realize what had happened.

She hadn't hit him once. She hadn't even tried. Yet neither had he landed a single blow. He had fought himself to exhaustion, without once hitting his mark. She had evaded his every strike, and she had done it with her eyes closed.

Katia set her shoulders, straightening. The circle parted in anticipation. She passed through it wordlessly, aware of their fixed gazes on her back as she walked away.

Katia showered in the locker room, changing back into her khaki trousers and black t-shirt. As she laced up her shoes, the lights suddenly went out. She stood quickly, glancing around. Through the dim light that shone through the windows, Katia spied him advancing.

He stopped a few paces away and leaned against the row of lockers, and she did not miss the baseball bat in his left hand.

"You're not supposed to be in here." It was something so painfully obvious, she would normally not have pointed it out. But it seemed to her that Track was someone who regularly missed the obvious.

He stepped closer. "I'm allowed to go anywhere I want in this camp. I'm not one of the regular mercenaries."

No, she thought to herself, I'd imagine you're even more delusional.

Rather than respond, however, she tried to step around him. Track moved with her, blocking her way. Rocks dropped to the pit of her stomach, and she stopped breathing. She did not want this.

"You made a fool of me today," he said, his lips curling spitefully.

It was difficult to decide if the situation was terrifying, or laughable. Katia was leaning towards the latter. She did not think it advisable to agree that she had made a fool of him, so she said nothing.

Track wasn't deterred by her lack of fear. There was something pathological about his look. "You owe me."

Katia stepped back, repulsed by him. It was no longer funny. "No."

He made a grab for her, and she recoiled from him. She was afraid now, but not of him. She was afraid of how she might react. In her paralyzed, conflicted state, she lacked her usual grace, and she quick-stepped backwards, tripping over the low bench between the rows of lockers, landing hard on the tile and smacking her head hard against the cold metal door of an opposing locker.

Her eyes went fuzzy for only an instant, and when they cleared, she saw him standing over her, his baseball bat over his shoulder, and a maniacal grin on his face.

Before she could make another move, someone grabbed Track's shirt by the collar, and threw him halfway across the locker room, so that he crashed into the far wall. Even then, Holden wasn't done. Holden noticed the baseball bat on the ground, and he picked it up. She caught the spark in his eyes as the fluorescent lights hit them, and they were terrifying and bright as he stared at the blunt weapon. A fearsome expression darkened Holden's features, and he stalked after Track, who was getting up slowly, moaning, trying to crawl away. With both hands around the shaft, Holden brought the baseball bat down on his back. Katia's hand went to her mouth in horror as she heard a crack, certain it was one of Track's ribs.

"Was that what you were going to do to her?" Holden demanded as Track moaned in agony. Holden kicked his foot underneath Track, flipping him onto his back. "Or was it something else?"

Track cried out in fear as Holden lifted the bat again, but this time, Holden threw it away, so hard that it exploded into splinters against the far wall. Then he bent down and lifted Track right off his feet, his hand around the mercenary's neck as he slammed Track's back against the row of lockers. Track's eyes bulged from their sockets and his tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth, saliva running down his chin. He grasped uselessly against Holden's grip, his toes twitching a foot off the ground.

"Did you think I wouldn't be watching?" Holden growled in a voice that frightened her to the core. "Did you honestly think you could touch her?"

Katia touched the back of her head, feeling the fuzziness fade from it. With her fingers still curled in her hair, she watched his anger with horrible fascination; the lights were flickering back on, sparking brightly off his face. He was stunning even in the fluorescent light, like an inhuman thing. That was the awful thing: she saw something beautiful in the raw, primal emotion that drove him past the point of thought. She knew that feeling.

"Stop," she whispered, and she wondered if it was to him that she spoke, or herself.

He heard. He dropped Track, who fell to the ground with a thump, and turned back to her.

"You're going to kill him," she pointed out the obvious. Pushing herself up, she added, "And then you'll be in trouble... because of me."

Slowly, his eyes on her, Holden walked away from the blond man, who lay in a dazed heap. Katia followed him out of the locker room, and into the darkened compound, keeping two steps behind him. His chest was heaving, though she doubted it was with physical effort.

"I would have been fine," she told him when they were halfway across the compound, and the words sounded childish even to her.

"I'm sure you would have," he replied, not bothering to turn. "You would have run away, and you would have been fine tonight. But you wouldn't have made him understand."

"What, so should I have almost killed him?" Katia threw one arm, palm-up, back toward the locker-room, toward the mess Holden had left on the floor. "Would that make him understand?"

"You should at least try to fight back!" He shouted, twisting to face her. "You should stop being such a goddamned pushover, stop worrying about hurting bad people!"

"I don't want to hurt anyone."

His voice softened. "I know. Sometimes you have to."

"No," she answered. "You don't."

His eyes became very cruel. "You're a coward, Katia."

Holden turned on his heel, to leave her with that unkindness, but she refused to leave it there.

"I am not a coward!" she yelled after him.

He turned and strode two great steps back to her, leaving only inches between them.

"Oh no? You never told anyone what really happened with Jason, because you're afraid of what they'll think of you."

"You don't even know what really happened!" she cried.

"It was just like tonight, only you didn't run away that time. You fought back, and you've been running from it ever since."

She spoke through clenched teeth, furious at how nearly right he was. "I didn't keep it from them because I was afraid; I kept it from them because I didn't want them to think I went through an ordeal. It wasn't an ordeal. I didn't want their pitying glances, or for them to ask if I was okay or if I wanted to talk about it. I just wanted it to go away."

"Go away?" He looked down at her incredulously. "Look at how that strategy worked for you! You let small-minded children stomp all over you, and make you miserable, and you never once fought back!"

"It's high school! It's supposed to be miserable!"

Holden wouldn't have known that. He shook his head and turned away, conceding the argument. Unexpectedly, he twisted back to her and held his palm up. "Then touch me. If you're not a coward, then prove it."

She stood stock-still. "I'm not the only coward, then. You won't touch me, either."

Straightening, Katia resolved to face him, to look him in the eye and not waver. As she met his eyes, she found herself too caught up in the impossibility of them to remember what she wanted. In the stillness, she could hear the laughter of mercenaries emanating from the cafeteria, the rustle of dead leaves breaking from their branches, the hoot of an owl awakening from a long day's sleep. But she was only waiting to hear from him.

He dropped his hand, and his spirit seemed to fall with it.

"I wanted it to be your choice," he said with a quiet sort of disappointment. Then he walked away.

They spent the rest of the evening – dinner, the awkward quiet time in the Paragon house - ignoring each other. That night, as she lay in bed, a beam of moonlight stretched from the window across the room, shining over her face in a most irritating fashion. Finally she could be silent no longer. Knowing he was not asleep, she turned over to face him.

"What did Kellen's tattoo really say?"

Holden let out a short laugh. "His girlfriend must have hated him."

"Was it bad?"

Holden was still smiling. "Not really. She obviously 'translated' it from the menu of a Chinese restaurant. It just says Spicy Kung Pao Chicken."

Katia snorted. Poor Kellen. Then she asked the other thing that had been on her mind.

"How did you know I was in trouble?"

He was lying on his back; his hands clasped behind his head, wide-awake and dreaming. He lowered his hands and let his head drop to the side to face her.

"I looked for you," Holden said quietly. The way the moonlight hit him from behind; she could only see the violet of his eyes. Seeing only them, it was almost like looking into a mirror. He turned over, and raised himself up, so that she could see his vulnerability, his truth. "That's why I knew where to find you. Growing up, everywhere we went I looked for you. All of my spare time, I was searching for you. Even in my dreams, I ran after you. And now that I've found you... I don't like it when you're out of sight."

A cloud of confusion crossed over her mind. There was a phrase for this, for that confusion, which she did not want to consider. Unwilling to be confused, she turned away, and faced the wall. When she was quite sure he was asleep, she spoke to the wall.

"I used to dream of you, too."

Dreams were tricky things.

The next day, she followed the other men out to the shooting range, where they had their first target practice. Twenty-one bulls eye targets were lined up twenty meters apart, and they chose the farthest target, away from the others.

Under Holden's tutelage, she learned exactly how to shoot, and she was already prepared for the recoil, for the noise that screamed even through their earmuffs, for the incredible speed of the bullet. It hit the bull's-eye on her first shot. She hit it again, ten, twenty times in a row, every time the shot was exact. After ten minutes, she'd hit precisely with any type gun from a variety of ranges, and she was bored mindless by the tedium. After another ten minutes, there was a circle of nothingness where the bullseye had been, but not a single bullet hole anywhere else on the target. Holden nodded at her, saying nothing, but it was enough to know she was finished.

Her next fighting session was against Iris. Katia wasn't sure what to expect. She doubted Iris was prized for her ability to fight; yet she also suspected that Iris should never be underestimated. Katia stood on the blue mat with her arms hanging limply by her sides, watching Iris with a studying gaze. The problem was that she knew that Iris would always be a better reader of her than she would be of Iris. She swallowed her nausea as the mercenaries formed a circle around them, clearly enthusiastic about this fight. They hadn't even begun, and the men were already jeering and whistling. Katia wondered if enduring their distasteful gazes was part of her training. Iris, for her part, seemed entirely undisturbed.

Iris was taping her knuckles, a look of bored composure about her. Iris was shorter than Katia by three or four inches, and though her limbs were slimmer and her torso more elegantly curved, Katia very much doubted herself capable of winning this fight. Of primary and fundamental concern, Katia could not imagine a situation in which she would – either voluntarily or defensively – hit Iris. Secondarily, she knew that a lifetime of living in this compound would have made Iris entirely capable of fighting back.

Iris stepped up to face her, and the fight was on.

The men cheered excitedly as Iris threw the first punch. She was much faster than Track had been, and Katia had to block it with her own hand. Iris' fist landed in her hand, so hard it felt as if she might have broken the small bones that hid behind her palm. Not missing a beat, Iris swung a second time, and Katia only just ducked in time to dodge the second punch, her hand still holding Iris' fist. Just as she ducked, Iris kicked her hard under the thighs, flipping her back with the force. Katia landed with a thud on her back, the breath pounded right out of her. All around her, the men were losing their minds, cheering viciously.

"Get up!" Iris ordered.

Katia got to her knees, then her feet, just in time to accept a blow to the jaw from Iris. It hurt more than she expected it might. The pain snapped her back to reality. She blocked Iris' next blow with her forearm, taking a step backwards to avoid a kick. They continued like this: Iris attacking, Katia blocking and backing away, trying desperately to avoid her hits and refusing to hit back; and all the while, the surrounding mercenaries only grew more raucous, cheering more and more intensely for Iris. Katia was able to block most of the hits, but Iris still managed two good rib shots and a fairly painful knee to the thigh when all of a sudden, the cheering stopped and someone grabbed Katia by the back of the shirt, dragging her off the matt.

He shoved her towards the back of the room, and all the mercenaries turned to watch, though none objected. She wasn't sure if they were inherently frightened of this younger man, or if they'd heard what had happened the night before in the locker room, but they seemed wary enough to keep out of their argument.

Katia turned to face Holden, feeling half-relieved to be done the fight, and half-furious to be chastised and humiliated by him in front of everyone. Iris was doing well enough with that.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"For God's sake, fight back!" Holden yelled at her, shoving her hard. She stumbled back, steadied only as her back hit the wall. He took a step forward, and he was much too close for preference. "I am not going to spend every waking minute watching your back!"

Katia was furious. She did not want him watching her back. She didn't want anything to do with him at all, but he was making that exceedingly difficult.

"Then don't," she yelled. "Just leave me alone!"

"Stand up for yourself, and I gladly will," he shouted back.

Fine, she thought, and everything else became a blur. She shoved his chest, hard, and he stumbled back. The immediate look on his face was almost pleasant surprise, but that quickly disappeared.

Her fist had balled and her arm swung so fast, they would later say that they hadn't even seen it. It landed on his right cheek with a resounding crack. He didn't fall, but the force was enough to make him stumble. The silence in the instant that followed rang out more loudly than anything she'd ever experienced. Her fist uncurled, her fingers reaching up to touch her cheek, while Holden's own hand came up in front of him, digits spread wide. All the while, their gazes remained on each other in disbelief.

The silence passed, and there was yelling and cheering again, this time for her. But their eyes were fixed on one another, because in that moment that her bare fist had struck his bare cheek, something unimaginable had occurred.

***********************

Holden stood still while Dr. Clark prodded rather roughly at his tender cheek. He glanced over the doctor's head at the diplomas and the framed poem on his wall. Something clicked in his mind, a connection that could not be overlooked.

The doctor laughed. "She gave you a good one, Holden. I believe she might have fractured your maxilla." He shook his head and stepped back from Holden, who was staring down at him. "Maxilla is your cheekbone."

"I know what it is," Holden snapped.

Holden had grown up in Dr. Clark's shadow, yet it was now Holden who towered over the doctor. If there was a single person Holden trusted in this world, it would have been him. Now even that was unclear. The doctor's smile faded as he caught Holden's expression, and he seemed to know what he was thinking.

"I broke into her house, in Haidala," Holden began. "Well, it wasn't really breaking in. Did you know that they never lock their front door?"

Dr. Clark returned to his desk to jot down some notes, and Holden touched his face gingerly. It smarted even with the lightest pressure, and he tested his jaw, opening it painfully.

"It was interesting being in her room, wondering what it would have been like to grow up in a house, with a family, to have a bedroom that I could paint, or put posters up on the wall, or whatever absurd decorating schemes that teenagers conceive of." He got off the examination table, and walked towards the framed poem. "She didn't decorate her room. It was almost as sparse as mine has always been. Except for one thing."

Dr. Clark turned to face Holden, leaning against his desk.

Holden picked the poem right off the wall, and held it in his hands as he scanned it. "They always wondered what made Dr. Turner take her."

"Did they?" Dr. Clark asked, folding his arms across his chest.

Holden replaced the poem and turned to him. "He didn't think of us as human beings. They said it was you who felt that way. You were the one who gave us names, after all."

"And I still believe that you are human beings, Holden," Dr. Clark answered. Then he added, like an afterthought; "She might show you what it means to act like one."

"So was that the plan?" he demanded, losing his cool. "That she'd just disappear for a while, integrate into society, then come back and civilize us? I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I watched her out there: she couldn't integrate, and the only thing that will change here is that she will lose her humanity."

"No, Holden. That wasn't their plan at all." Dr. Clark answered very quietly. "She was never supposed to come back."

"Then you washed your hands of Turner! We had the wrong man, and you let it happen!" Holden's voice rang with unspoken anguish, and they both knew why.

Dr. Clark went to the door and put his hand on the knob. Then he turned to face Holden. "Turner was the one who helped the surrogate take Katia." he reassured him. "I didn't help them. If I had, then the Deltas would have known this when they questioned me."

Holden stood in silence, wondering how the evidence could not match the truth. Dr. Clark opened the door, saying without words that the consultation was over. "Put an icepack on your cheek, and no chewing on solid foods tonight. You'll be better by the morning."

Holden swept out of the room, furious at his inability to piece it together.

"Oh, and Holden?" Dr. Clark called from the hallway. Holden turned to face him, his eyes narrowed. Dr. Clark pointed to his broken cheekbone. "You should probably apologize for whatever you did to make her that mad."

It was her who apologized first, and though it did not surprise him, it moved him in an inexplicable way. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, her fingers curled on the metal bar of the frame, and her eyes fixed on the floor. He sat across from her, working up the courage to speak.

She was wearing a white undershirt and khaki trousers, and he noticed the curve of her arms; long, slim muscles concealing hidden strength. Her hunched position jutted her collarbones forth, creating deep grooves in the space just above them – the supraclavicular fossa, he remembered Dr. Clark teaching him – and he wondered if she'd lost weight in the short weeks she'd been here. He frowned. She was already too thin; she wasn't supposed to be losing more weight. Looking closer, he could see the line of her ribs underneath her tank top, and he felt a weight in his chest, a previously unfamiliar pressure that he had not known before he met her, but had come and gone with increasing frequency since he'd found her in Haidala. He considered the triggers of this feeling, and found that they all involved her. He wondered if he was feeling concern for her.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I shouldn't have hit you."

She'd loosened her hair, and it fell like a curtain, shadowing her face. It was the way she'd always worn it in that awful prison she called school. The waves of her hair cascaded nearly to her elbows, and he found that it distracted him as he searched for the words.

He wanted to tell her that she very much should have, but he was beginning to understand that she did not think the same way he – or anyone else he'd ever met, for that matter – thought. He touched his face, remembering the sensation of her hand on his skin. "I'm sorry I provoked you."

"Were you trying to?" she asked, looking up at him for the first time. She looked very young in that moment, but not frightened.

"Yes," he admitted. "But I wasn't expecting you to hit me."

"Who else would I have hit?" she asked him, lines of incredulity crossing her forehead.

He laughed, and it felt he'd been stabbed in the cheek. "I didn't really think it through."

"Did I hurt you badly?" She asked in a wavering voice.

He shook his head, consigned to lie. Then he looked up at her. "Katia, what happened in there?"

She spread the knuckles that had contacted his cheek, extending long, spidery digits with broken, dirty nails. "I'm not entirely certain," she replied.

"Do you think Dr. Clark knows more than he's letting on?" Holden asked. His cheek was throbbing, though it wasn't an altogether bad feeling.

Katia chuckled darkly. "Yes. But not about this. He could never have anticipated this."

Holden narrowed his gaze at her curiously. "You said you're not entirely certain. Do you have a guess?"

She glanced to the side, as if trying to hide. He tried hard to think why she might seem so nervous, and realized what it might be. "Katia, I'm not going to laugh at you if it's wrong."

She looked back at him sheepishly. Then she did something strange. She came to her knees on the cold linoleum floor, in the space between their two beds.

"Come here," she told him.

He knelt before her, a peculiar breathlessness building in his chest. They were very close, and despite all of his posturing, he knew that it was he who was more afraid of what might happen next.

**************

In the hours after she'd hit him, her rage dissolved, turning to guilt as she introspected. That was twice that Holden had saved her from a losing fight; twice that he'd stepped in and tried, in his own way, to make her better. Katia didn't want his methods of improvement, but she was beginning to understand that he wasn't trying to hurt her; he was trying to help her. This had been his entire life; this was all he knew. Perhaps he truly thought she did belong here. She didn't forgive him or trust him; he hadn't even apologized for taking her. But she wanted to understand him.

Katia had already guessed at what might happen if they touched. It didn't seem possible, and she wasn't quite sure of the consequences, but it was a risk she was willing to take.

His hands were at his sides as he knelt before her. Tentatively, she reached out, and with the lightest touch, stroked the back of his hand with the tip of her left index finger. The feeling under her fingertip was no longer so forceful, so shocking. It was a quiet, enjoyable buzz that radiated from her fingers to her chest, filling her with an unknown strength. Suddenly, there was a flicker of something, and she pulled back in disbelief.

"What?" Holden asked with nervous eagerness.

She wasn't quite sure. Very, very softly, she reached out again and touched his hand, and there it was, a flash of something completely unfamiliar, entirely impossible. Despite the strange feeling, she laid her hand flat against his, her eyes widening as she did. She ran her hand along the length of his arm, and somehow, she could feel his arm, and feel all of the muscles as if they were her own, feel all of the sensations that came with someone touching his arm.

"Touch my hand again." She held one hand up in front of her. As he put his hand up to hers, their expressions were matched in wonder and amazement. There was no real way to describe the feeling. Her hand was his, and his was hers: she could feel everything he felt, and he the same. Impulsively, she put one hand to his cheek, brushing it lightly with her fingertips at first, and then raising her second hand and flattening both palms to cradle his face. She gasped as the sensation passed through her.

"Holden, I can feel what you're feeling."

His eyes crinkled curiously, and he matched her touch with his own, holding her face in his right hand. Astonishment shone through their matching irises as they held on to each other, feeling the others thoughts. It wasn't clear like a voice or a painting, rather it was a metaphysical, intangible awareness of the other. She could make out the emotions he radiated- baffled wonder, agitation, excitement, some she knew, some she couldn't name – but not concrete thoughts.

They sat in complete silence, fingertips to cheek, trying to make their way through the complexities of each other's mind. Finally, Holden lowered his hand. She did the same, but he grabbed her wrist and kept it up to his cheek.

"I want to try something. Close your eyes, but keep hold of me."

She did as he asked.

"Okay."

She understood immediately what he was trying to do. She couldn't see what he was looking at, not exactly, but she found that a thought popped into her mind, as if it had seeped from her to him. "Window."

"Good," he said. "Now, what am I looking at?"

She relaxed and let the words slip behind her eyelids. "The pillow on my cot."

"It seems to work," he said a little more excitedly. "Okay, what now?"

Suddenly a flurry of ferociously powerful emotions flooded through her, overwhelming her. She tried to compose herself and focus, but she couldn't do it. It was as if Holden had focused the entire world into the one point at which he was now gazing. "I don't know," she answered, opening her eyes.

His forehead crinkled in confusion. "You don't?"

"No," she shook her head, almost annoyed with him. "That was insane. You threw everything at me at once. Maybe you should try just one or two objects at a time to begin with?"

He swallowed and nodded. "Yea, sorry about that. Actually, I want to try it."

As he raised his arm, she noticed it trembled slightly. He rested his fingers just behind her ear and the pad of his thumb below her temple. As he closed his eyes, he traced his thumb subconsciously along the ridge of her cheekbone, and it sent tiny little currents down her spine. Without his disarming gaze and his hair freshly cut, she found herself able to study him carefully for the first time.

She wanted to hate him. She hated what he'd done to her, hated that he'd brought her here. It was strange how he could induce so many emotions: aggravation, infuriation, and hatred. Yet when she allowed herself to really study his face for the first time, she could not honestly say that she still loathed it. His chin was determined without being too strong. His lips were full and expressive, and his nose fit his face, unlike the other teenage boys in her school with snouts too large for their faces. His cheekbones were high and prominent, and his brow pensive. His skin was the same tone as her own, and perfectly smooth.

"Katia?" Holden opened one eye, and she glanced away quickly, mortified. "What exactly are you staring at?"

"Sorry." She could feel heat rush through her cheeks. "I hadn't really focused on anything yet. Close your eyes again."

They kept it up for hours, slowly adding more objects to their range of focus until they were able to 'read' almost an entire range of vision that the other saw. She opened her eyes after identifying the entire side of her room. The effort had exhausted her, and the light from the window had faded, leaving them in a darkened room.

She leaned back against her cot and closed her eyes. She felt tired, but stronger than ever. She buzzed everywhere, and it wasn't unpleasant. That was the strangest part: she'd spent hours inside of Holden's head, and it hadn't been a bad thing.

"You're better than Iris," he said quietly.

She opened one eye, and then the other. She wasn't sure how long he'd been watching her. "That's why I didn't fight back," she mumbled.

"That's not what I – You could be better than all of us, if you wanted to be." His voice softened. "I won't make you fight again."

She watched shadows play across his face, knowing what he would say next.

"They will, though," he finished. "And that – all of it – was my fault."

She thought she understood what he was saying, but she could not find it in her to respond.

"It's late," Holden said. "We should get some dinner."

She nodded, and stood. Reflexively, she held out a hand to help him up. Holden looked at it for a moment before he took it. Katia pulled him to standing, and they were face-to-face. It was disconcerting to have him this close, and to know it wouldn't hurt to touch him. Suddenly, she felt shier around him than she ever had, and she dropped her hand from his.

"I do need to stand up for myself," she said in a small voice that indicated she had much learning to do.

"Well if you can throw a punch like you did this morning, I'd say you're well on your way." He breathed a laugh, and quick as a flash he tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing her cheek. "You just need to find that... motivation again."

Katia followed him out of the room, her cheek burning as if she had received a punch there.

They were eating quietly in the cafeteria when Aldous, flanked by the Epsilons, came over. He looked furious. "You two. Get up right now."

Holden took another bite of his pasta, making no move to go. He'd had to squash the noodles to mush to limit how he chewed it, and she felt sick with guilt as she watched. But he smiled up at Aldous. "The food is unparalleled this evening, Aldous." He offered his plate of starchy goo. "Here; try mine. Hunger always makes you grumpy."

Aldous grabbed him by the collar and yanked him out of the chair. "It was funny when you were seven, Holden. It's not now. I told you to sort it out."

"And we did," Holden answered, pointing to his bruised cheek. "Best of friends."

Aldous took in the bruise on his cheek before turning to Katia. His countenance was at once dubious and furious, and Katia shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. He nodded at the Epsilons, who raised their guns to Katia and Holden's head. Aldous dropped his hand from Holden. "Too late."

"You said we had till the end of the week," Holden said quietly.

"I was wrong," Aldous answered. He tilted his head towards the door, and they herded the Omega's outside.

Katia tried to keep her head up and her back straight as she walked across the lawn, towards the edge of the woods. She was acutely aware of the barrel of the gun, hovering steadily only inches from the back of her head. To the left of their direction was a group of mercenaries; she recognized the blond one, Track, and the Bear man, and the young brown-haired one Holden had fought. There were others whom she did not recognize. She wondered how many mercenaries they thought were needed to kill her. She thought the Epsilons would probably suffice.

Time slowed down over the next ten steps, and she found herself grateful: it was nearly over now. No one she loved had died because of her, and Harper would have no reason to threaten them again once she was gone. It was raining, and the half-frozen drops felt good on her cheeks. She smiled, and she raised her head and took a deep breath of cold air as she moved along the execution path.

"Stop!" Jackson called, and she did. They were at the edge of the field now, staring into the blackened woods.

Harper was standing beside Jackson, his hands in his pockets, his tiny eyes almost invisible in the dark night. He stepped in front of her, and she noticed that his cheeks were particularly flabby. "You disappointing, stupid girl. Progeny of our best, perfection perfected, and you have been corrupted by your upbringing, paralyzed by the socialist lies of your adoptive parents' ideology, made entirely useless."

His entire speech confused her, but her voice was calm and caustic. "Do you actually understand what the word socialist means?"

Beside her, she heard Holden snort. Behind her, she heard Cassius unlock the safety. She found she didn't care. They weren't going to hurt her family, and she wouldn't have to go to war. She couldn't help how the corner of her mouth curled upwards defiantly.

Harper opened his mouth to retort, when suddenly Jackson stepped forward. "You have one more chance to prove you can work together." He glanced at his watch. "You have forty-eight hours to reach the summit of Mount Isis." He nodded towards the mercenaries. "And they've been ordered to shoot you if they find you anywhere but the summit."

"That's a hundred miles away," Holden pointed out.

Jackson smiled. "Then you'd better get going."

Katia stood in stunned confusion. They weren't going to be killed. They were being sent into the woods, away from everything. She could disappear. As if he'd read her thoughts, Jackson turned to her. "In the unfortunate incident that we can't find you after forty-eight hours, then we'll just have to find someone else to punish."

She grunted, her fingernails pressing into her palms. "This tactic is tired."

"Yet eternally effective," Jackson mused.

The skin on her palms broke, and she considered running her nails down Jackson's face, instead of hurting herself. He offered them each a compass and a piece of paper. She saw coordinates written on it. She looked up at him incredulously. They were going to have to run one hundred miles through the woods without food, water, or sleep.

"You'll have a thirty-second head start," Harper smiled, pointing to the armed mercenaries. He made a shooing motion with both hands. "Better get going."

Thirty seconds was not very long, and neither had the time to retort. Instead, both took one look at each other, before sprinting blindly into the darkness. Sure enough, the sound of gunshots followed, sharp bursts of terror piercing the night, and in her reactive fear, she lost her concentration on running. She tripped over a root and stumbled. Holden reached out and grabbed her before she hit the ground. As he steadied her, they could each feel the pounding in one another's hearts. She took a breath, and slid her hand into his, pulling him back into a run as they evaded the symphony of gunfire behind them.

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Woah, this was a lengthy chapter, I think. I'm unsure if people prefer lengthy or shorter chapters.