Commander Petrovich

During my time in the military, I had never considered deserting. Desertion always seemed like the worst possible offense to me, and it angered me to think that people could do such a thing.

Why, I used to ask myself, would a soldier walk away from a war? Fighting is the ultimate honor; not everyone gets a chance to do so, and the lucky ones should be proud of where they are and what they are doing.

Soldiers have power. We take over cities, bring down regimes in order to make the world the best place it can be.

Now, I am beginning to realize how wrong I was. Soldiers have no power. We fight, and that is seemingly all we do. High-ranking soldiers give orders, yet we are still forced to take them from officials who have never in their lives walked onto a battlefield.

I have the power to tell my men where to go, what to do, though now that seems insubstantial.

I had real power for those few minutes, the span of time after I injected that Superior girl's blood into my own arm. For a brief time, I could not feel pain. I may not have truly been, but I felt invincible, and I want to feel that way again.

I want answers. I want to know what causes Superiors to gain their abilities, what causes Inhumanes to change the way they do.

These answers will be worth a fortune, much more than fighting in a war that will eventually end. The power struggle will never cease to exist, and if I find Kristenson, I may stumble across the information that will give me the upper hand in the fight for world dominance.

There is no question in my mind now.

There is a reason I chose not to kill that pathetic Superior boy, a reason I listened to the traitorous Orlov and took that journal from the Polish girl.

I am meant to have this book, and I am meant to find Kristenson.

The hands of the clock rest in an identical position on the two as I begin to gather the necessities. I collect my backpack from its position next to my bed, searching through it to be certain the first aid supplies are in order. Shouldering the pack, I cross to the door and silently pull on my boots. My gun is last to be collected as I quickly take it from its resting place next to my boots.

At this hour of the night, the hallways of our makeshift compound are eerily silent, and I have no issue making my way to the supply room. Taking a second standard-issue backpack from one of the shelves, I begin gathering a collection of ammunition, bottled water, and dried fruit.

There is a chance this could take longer than I want it to, and if I find myself in that position I plan to be prepared.

This last task complete, I stalk down a maze of corridors. The entryway is guarded at this time of night by two soldiers, both of whom are looking as though they would much rather be in their beds. If I were still playing my role as commander, I would chastise them, but tonight I am relieved.

The taller of the two surveys me, gesturing for me to continue on my way and bidding me a good night.

Being the imbecile he is, he must assume that the two packs I carry are empty, that I am going out to replenish supplies.

He will be one of the first to be blamed in the morning when the rest of them find out the truth.

Stepping over the threshhold, I pull a flashlight from one of the packs. Shining it over the vehicles parked alongside our building, I decide upon a seemingly-inconspicuous green SUV. I remember watching this one pull in, that the soldier on watch at the door is the same one who left the keys in this vehicle.

A smile slowly spreads across my face, and for once I allow it to stay there.

I move quickly, training serving me well as I silently maneuver behind the wheel of the SUV. Both packs are deposited in the passenger's seat, my gun resting alongside them.

The car's headlights illuminate the three soldiers on watch at the gate, and as I move toward them, I hope they are as naive as the watchmen inside.

This time, luck is not on my side.

The soldier closest to me holds up a hand, imploring me to stop. All three of them stand between my car and the gate, so I find myself being forced to comply with the first one's demand.

"Soldier!" he shouts, and I can't help the snarl that displays itself on my face. If he keeps that up, every soldier in the compound will come to see what is causing the scene.

He walks up to my door, and I roll down my window in annoyance. He looks mildly apologetic now, eyes wide as he realizes who he is talking to.

"Commander?" This is followed by a lengthy list of Russian curses as he looks away from my furious expression.

To his credit, he recovers quickly, eyes meeting mine again a few moments later.

"Where are you going at this hour?" the soldier wants to know.

"We need more supplies." I tell him. This is the truth in a way; we do need more supplies if we are going to keep staying in the current location. This soldier does not need to know that I am not the one going to get them.

"Alone?" he refuses to back down, glaring back at me in a way that tempts me to remind him who is ranked higher, "Is that a good idea? Commander, let me find someone to-"

My hand moves quickly, the gun little more than a shadow as I raise it in a blur.

This is taking too long.

One moment, the soldier is staring at me with a look of absolute terror on his face, the next he is lying in the dirt next to my SUV.

I climb out of the car, taking out the other two soldiers before unlocking the gate.

As I run back to my vehicle, a beam of light makes its way in my direction from the shadow of the building. One of the watchmen inside must have decided to check up on the situation.

My foot finds the accelerator, and without looking back I guide my SUV through the gate and onto the road to Manchester, tires shrieking in protest as I start smiling once again.

Lilian

"I will give you one chance to explain why I should let you stay in my home."

Shemik studies Mr. DiLorenzo thoughtfully, which somehow seems to unnerve Emilio's father. His face is becoming a darker shade of red with every second, and if I wasn't so intimidated by him, I might find it funny.

It startles me to find Alessa's face turning a similar shade of red, and when she opens her mouth I'm expecting a rant on why we should be thrown out without any sort of delay.

"Giovanni!" Alessa doesn't say the name with the same underlying scorn as Emilio. She sounds as though she's desperate for something, as though she's talking to her own parent and is willing to beg to get her way.

Mr. DiLorenzo glares at Shemik for a second longer before whirling in Alessa's direction.

Before he can get a word in, she's at it again.

"You won't give them a chance, will you? No matter what that one says to you, she will never convince you." Alessa's hand comes down on the arm of her chair, the sound seeming to reflect her annoyance at this.

Emilio is staring at her with a bewildered expression.

"Why should it matter to you, Alessa?" Mr. DiLorenzo is snapping, "He left once, he will leave again. It is inevitable."

"Why should it matter?" Alessa's hand comes down again with more force as the first tear tracks down her cheek, "Why should it matter? For years, I tried to forget. I convinced myself he was ... was never coming back and now, here he is. I don't care about the others, I have no reason to. He left us for them. If you let him stay and send them away, he will leave. I will not go through that again, I can't. I want him to stay, and the only way that will happen is if you let her ... let them stay."

Emilio's father takes a deep breath, as though preparing himself for what's about to happen.

"Fine." His voice is venom when he speaks, "Fine. But they are your responsibility."

I can't help rolling my eyes at the way he says it, as though all of us need to be babysat by someone who's close to our own age.

Alessa takes in the servants standing at the door, a smile forcing one corner of her mouth to curve upward.

"Servants," she orders, "take them upstairs."

Theo wakes Jason and Rose, who somehow managed to keep sleeping through it all. Dimitri, Shemik, and I end up in a single file line as we make our way toward the parlor door. The three youngest trail behind us as Emilio moves to stand. His father skewers him with a look that could have frozen any sane person in their tracks.

"Sit!" Mr. DiLorenzo barks, "Son, I did not dismiss you."

I grimace, glad that, for as long as they were around, my parents actually cared about me and Jason.

I'd be afraid to have this man as a father figure.

The servants herd the rest of us out of the parlor at a breakneck pace, like they've figured out something's about to happen and they don't want us around when it does. We're hustled up a flight of stairs, onto a landing, and up more stairs. I focus on the line of family portraits stretching along the wall, the way Giovanni DiLorenzo's expression never seems to change from one picture to the next. He wears the same irritated look in a painting from 2045 as he does in a similar one from five years before.

Emilio is in most of the earlier ones, looking as though he'd rather be any place but where the portrait was being done. In some of them, Alessa stands next to him, a genuine smile stretching from ear to ear across her face.

I wonder if being bitten has changed her attitude, if she's still this happy sometimes or if she's always as cruel as she's seemed tonight.

The stairs and portraits come to an abrupt end, and we're presented with a hallway of closed doors. Each of us is sent in a different direction, silently being commanded to our individual rooms.

Theo gets the one across from me, giving me a small smile before disappearing inside.

I pull the door to my own room open in one motion, my feet sinking into the soft green carpet as I cross to the bed. One corner houses a dresser that seems too elegant to touch, while an expensive-looking desk sits in the adjacent corner. There are two books resting on its surface, and from the cover I can tell one of them is a dictionary of some kind. The nightstand holds a small lamp, the most ordinary-looking thing in the room. Across from the bed, a door leads to the adjoining bathroom, and along another wall a sliding glass door allows access to some kind of balcony.

Overwhelmed by it all, I resolve to get some sleep and look around more in the morning.

Of course, as soon as I'm starting to drift off, the screaming starts. If I had to guess, the conversation is taking place on the first floor, but the sound carries across the distance to assault my eardrums. It's Mr. DiLorenzo's voice, yelling in alternating English and Italian, the words I understand making me cringe.

"... Disgrace ... disappointment ... never amount to anything..."

I cover my head with the pillow, a childish attempt to block out the man's still-rising voice. My parents used to argue sometimes, whenever it was close to mine or Jason's birthday and there wasn't enough money to get the presents we wanted. Mom would always get angry because she thought we deserved a childhood in spite of the war, and Dad would refute that nowadays kids had to learn to accept that life is one disappointment after another.

My parents cursed at each other sometimes, when they thought we couldn't hear, but they would never shout those same words when we were nearby. They would never dream of cursing at us, no matter what we had done. Now, the language Mr. DiLorenzo uses with his son is enough to make me regret coming here.

I have never heard an argument quite like this, and I'm hoping desperately that I never do again.

I almost miss the knock on my door in the attempt to ignore the shouting match. After a few seconds, the sound registers, and I sit up with a sigh.

"Come in."

The door is thrown open, revealing Theo. He looks worse than I feel, about three seconds away from a meltdown. This in itself startles me; I've never seen a look like that on his face, not even when we were both at the mercy of Petrovich's soldiers.

"What is it?" I ask, the worry betraying itself in my voice as Theo all but slams the door behind him.

He sits down next to me, watching me in silence for a few minutes before finally getting up the nerve to speak.

"I knew he left for a reason." he murmurs, "But ... I didn't know it was this awful. He never talked about it, so I never really asked. I thought maybe his dad would understand. Whenever he'd talk about him, Giovanni always sounded a lot like my dad, and I used to hope Emilio would go home just to see if something had changed. If Giovanni could change, I thought maybe my dad could too one day, and maybe I could find him."

Taken aback, I stare at Theo in bewilderment.

Of all the questions threatening to ask themselves, the one that wins out makes me flinch.

"Your dad's alive?"

He gives me a nod.

"I think so." He gazes at me, though somehow I get the feeling he's looking past me, "When I found out what I could do, Mum thought it was some sort of gift. Dad called my talent a freak ability. He wanted Mum to find someone who could fix me I think, to make me normal again. He didn't get it. Mum got into a huge argument with him over it, and Dad told her that she needed to do something or he was going to leave. He didn't want a freak in the family, he said, and he didn't want my sister around one either. Mum thought he was lying, and she told him he would never do something like that. The next day she woke up and he was gone. He took my sister with him."

I find myself growing angrier by the second.

"He's not like Giovanni." I decide, voice little more than a snarl, "He's worse. How could he say something like that, do something like that? You aren't a freak, none of us are. We're genetically different, and no one really even knows why. How old was your sister? Did he have some sort of plan for her too? If she turned out to be a Superior, was he just going to abandon her too?"

"She would be seven now, and I hope she's not like me. I hate thinking about it, about Dad. What's going on down there ... it reminds me too much of the night before Dad left."

Before I can get in another word, the door to my room is thrown open again. My brother and Rose stumble inside, both coming to join Theo and me on the bed.

"Wow." Jason squeaks, "Emilio's dad could give people nightmares."

I give him a nod, the four of us not saying another word after that. For what seems like an eternity, we listen in silence to Giovanni ranting downstairs.

When the first light of dawn begins to fill my room, the shouting finally stops. The others leave one by one, abandoning me to try finding sleep. I listen to the newfound quiet, the distant footsteps of passing servants the only disturbance in the wake of the earlier storm. Eventually, staying awake proves too difficult, and at last I find myself falling victim to a dreamless sleep.