The Twist | ✓

thirteen.

I was surprised when we made it down South without any issues.

Aline explained to me as we made our way down that there are two groups of rebels--the Northern Rebels and the Southern Rebels. The North was the easy ones to deal with--the tricksters, the ones that would tie up our guards and steal and run. The South was the violent ones--the murderers, the ones that painted our walls and floors with the blood of themselves and our soldiers every time they came through. She explained that they decided to band together to bring back America, and they'll each be training me--the North will teach me politics and history, and the South will teach me how to kill.

It's a routine that, once we're at their hideaway, I easily fall into--up and ready at six, running until my ribs burn and my lungs feel crushed and my heart pounds so hard I feel it in my feet, shower and pull on regular clothes, history until noon, then lunch, then politics until five, then dinner, and then I train until somewhere around ten, but that usually stretches longer. Audrey Dakota, I learn, is a Southern Rebel. Aline was born and raised Southern but joined the North at eleven, and Viola is a Northern.

Viola is my history teacher, and she's also the kindest rebel I know. In the beginning, when I'd be pushed down and come in with cut hands and arms and shoulders from falling, she'd spend time carefully cleaning away the blood and dirt and bandaging it, and then we'd eat lunch together in the room so that she could get in everything she needed to teach me.

Despite having a man--Enoch--pushing me to run every morning and a twenty-year-old--Coen--teaching me once it gets dark, I have Audrey Dakota as my teacher for fighting--surprising, since it seems that it's mostly men doing the training and women doing the teaching and politics. Despite being awfully thin for someone so tall, she's a fierce fighter with a hard right hook...which I learned the hard way. She's as good as a soldier in the palace, and she's not afraid of kicking my ass, which is what I like about her. She and her brother and sister, Legend and Evie, are constantly giving me bruises and black eyes.

Evie smirks and plants her feet on either side of me, bending at the waist. "Nice try, Highness. But you'll need to be better to get rid of those other royals, won't you?"

Legend rolls his eyes. "Stop taunting him, Evie. Let him up." Audrey is smirking beside him. "You too, Auds. Leave the poor boy alone." He folds his arms over his chest, watching as I climb to my feet and get in position. "Again." He sounds bored.

This time, I get Evie knocked off of her feet and in a position that would make it easy to kill her. Her eyes widen, and then she grins. "Congrats, Highness. You've kicked my ass. Beat Legend and Audie, and you're ready."

Audrey snorts. "As if he could." She tosses her knife up in the air and catches it by the hilt. "Let's try it, Highness." Audrey is a furious fighter--dangerously relentless, knocked aside only to be back on you and worse than before. I'm getting my ass kicked, until she says something that makes me want her dead: "No wonder why Cassiana chose your brother," she taunts, "you're weak as hell, Alexander."

That did it. I hit her in the jaw hard enough to make her head snap backwards and then grab her by the neck and throw her to the ground. Her eyes are wide and she looks equally surprised and terrified. "Don't fucking push it." I snap. I lift my foot off of her shoulder and let her stand.

Legend looks disappointed. "Evie, take Audrey and do something useful."

"But--"

"Evie." She nods and grabs her sister, dragging her out of the training room, and Legend turns to me. Once the doors shut, he grins. "Good job at kicking my sister's ass. She deserved it."

Not what I was expecting to hear from Legend, the guy that shared a womb with Audrey and Evie.

"She shouldn't have brought Cassiana into this."

Legend looks like he pities me. I keep my eyes away from him. "I'm sorry about that." He says. "She likes pissing people off. Evie is definitely the nice one out of them." He swallows hard. "I get it. I...There was a girl for me, too."

"Was?"

"She's dead." He looks down at the padded floor. "There is no future for a Northern rebel committed to her cause and a Southern rebel committed to his. I was in love with her, and she said she could never love me. And that was that."

"I'm sorry." Cassiana hadn't been that cruel to me; I couldn't imagine how Legend felt.

He shrugs. "I should be the one apologizing. You...you have it worse, Alexander. She gave you hope and then she crushed you. Imogen never gave me any of that. Not only did she crush you, but now you'll have to stare down your gun and watch the horror and terror and betrayal flood into the eyes of your family, and you have to watch the light drain from their eyes. I'll be surprised if you make it out sane."

"I'll survive." Survive is right--I won't be okay, but I'll survive. I'll continue to exist. The sick feeling in my stomach and the tightness in my throat tells me that there won't be a day I live that I won't regret it. "I don't know how, but I will."

Legend shakes his head. "I wish I could do it for you. I could give them a painless death. They'd never have to know that you're doing this. Instead, I have to teach you how to make it as quick as possible and then stand back as the guilt tears you apart."

"It's not your fault." I say.

"And there won't be a day that goes by that I won't try to tell myself that." He gives me a short, fleeting smile that looks as though it pains him immensely. "Come on. Coen said I needed you tattooed before his training session."

"Tattooed?"

Now he's grinning, though something heavy still sits in his eyes. "We all have something small on us to prove who we are in case we die and can't be recognized. It's used to check everyone in after a raid or mission or whatever. You've passed, Schreave. You're one of us. So you need one. Figure out what you're going to get and where, because Ty doesn't like indecisive people."

"I don't have a choice?"

"None."

Well, then.