The Dome (Shadow Origins, Part One)

Holy War

Zyana's POV

After my complete breakdown on top of that rooftop, Cat led me back down to the street where my bodyguards were racing to grab me and pull me back to the car. Thankfully, Cat disappeared somewhere in the shadows but I somehow knew that he was still here somewhere, watching me get into the car. 

This day had been nothing like how I had imagined it would go. I had imagined I would show Cat the city, land back down, thank him for his service to my family and then see him on the day of the trail, after that never again. 

I never would have imagined that I would be exposed all the way down to my core in front of a street boy. 

As I was driven back home, my mind kept going to that view on top of that rooftop and the smell of a church. He was much more surprising than I could have imagined.

My imagination also led me to the anger that my father was going to unleash on me once I got home. I know I shouldn't have gone to the bad part of town, taken that boy on a helicopter ride and then run off with him to god knows where. But for some reason, I couldn't find myself seeming to care, not what my father was going to say, or what people would say if they found out. 

... I just didn't care.

So when JoJo, my driver, dropped me off at home and Stewart led me up the elevator, I felt more at peace than I had felt since my mother was killed. Is this what a crush felt like, I was only twelve going on thirteen but I knew that I was feeling something new. This something new was scary but exhilarating all the same. Maybe this boy was my first crush. 

I held back a chuckle, what would my father think if he knew? He'd be furious, I could almost hear him yelling now, "That deviant! You'd spent time with that street rat! What would your mother say?!"  

I could even hear what the girls at school would whisper behind my back if they knew, "To think, Ms. Perfect in love with a gutter rat! Not too perfect now." 

But still I didn't care, this was perhaps my first crush and the only thing that could put a damper on my mood was my own guilt. My mother had just been killed and here I was, mooning after some boy. 

Was I wrong for feeling this? Should I be ashamed of having a schoolgirl crush days after my mother's body had bled out in front of me. 

That's when reality crashed down on me just as the elevator doors opened, this was wrong. My mother was not even in the grave yet and here I was having some sort of fantasy of a boy I had just met. This was wrong, I wasn't this person.

I was Zyana Barnette and I was the daughter of the most powerful people in the N.Y.D.T. It was time to act like it and not like some dumb, moon-eyed schoolgirl. With that thought in mind, I shoved those warm feelings I had gathered in me from my time on the roof and put them away. Now was not the time. 

I had things to do, I had to be there for my father, the perfect daughter as he stood tall in front of the entire dome and convinced them that he was still the strongest man to lead. I had to paint that perfect smile on my face that my mother had taught me to do since before I could walk. No more schoolgirl, just Ms. Barnette.

For the next few hours, my father gave me the lecture of my life and I was sent to my room for the rest of the day. Finish my studies and then straight to bed like a good girl. 

I hardened myself even though I felt like screaming back at my father, tearing everything up in my room and throwing myself out the window. My mother's words were the only thing stopping me.

Remember Zyana, 

Back straight, eyes forward and bright smile.

You are a Barnette and you must behave like it.