The Great Below

The Two Voices

Victor dropped his weights on the rack and hugged the inside wall next to the swinging doors. He recognized both voices. The second was his trainer, Alex.

"You have to understand," he was saying, "That's what they all say, when they get here and they're facing it – I won't, I won't. It just means that you're human, you're nervous. That is the stock line."

"Well then, here's a refreshing change for you. I mean it." It was Octavia. He counted thirteen days since he'd seen her last, and there had been no explanations, no context to help her understand. Just the shouting, the jerk and pull of the van and the stab of the tranquilizer, filling his blood with cold oblivion. He risked leaning out the gymnasium doors, where he could see her standing in front of the weapons cage, arms folded over the front of a baggy winter coat. She had been out in the cold – how? But Victor could see it in the contrast of her dark eyebrows to her white skin, and the flush in her cheeks.

"I want you to take the idea and just put it away for now." Alex's voice floated from the cage. Victor didn't like the thought of Octavia near one of them and all those weapons. "Do the training, learn everything you can and...shove that fact away. It doesn't help you, knowing what you're going to do."

Victor ducked inside when Alex emerged, and their voices vanished into the stairwell again. When they were far enough away, he followed.

At the bottom of the stairs, Victor padded to the security door and caught it before it could latch. He left just enough space to hear them. If he tilted his head right, he could catch a glimpse of them walking from the tiny, square window, without betraying his position. Alex said, "Dominic has requested an exam. Has Nick talked to you about it?"

"No."

"Do you know what it means?"

Octavia stopped in front of the farthest door – so perhaps she did have a room – and rested her back against it. "He doesn't trust me," she replied.

"It's not that. He doesn't trust that you can do the job."

Victor had expected a lot of things; Dominic wanting to employ her was not one of them. It was slightly better than another scenario he'd imagined. So his own trainer was also training Octavia. He hadn't paid much attention to Alex so far, largely ignoring him during their makeshift classes, but watching him interact with Octavia made Victor scrutinize him in a fresh light: a few years younger than himself, an inch or so taller, and messy hair to his shoulders that told women he wasn't afraid to have feelings. He would have been easy to take, in the ring. Now he was talking to Octavia. Changing her. Ruining all of Victor's hard work.

"It's the same thing," she told him. "What should I do?"

Was this a joke? She should get the hell out of there; she should tell him to put it up his own ass. She should run straight into Victor's arms, get back to the arrangement he'd painstakingly negotiated and wait in his room while he did the job – the way things were supposed to be.

"You need to think about whatever moral obstacle you're coming up against and how you're going to get around it," Alex said.

"How do you do it? How would you have done it, if you'd had to kill me?"

A long, uncomfortable moment of silence. Alex reached out, hesitated, and tucked a stray hair behind Octavia's ear. She turned petal-pink. "I wouldn't have killed you. I've never killed a woman." Rather than return his hand to his side, he let it linger against her shoulder. "So you don't have to worry about me. I wouldn't hurt you."

Her mouth tightened. "That," she replied, "is the stock line."

A pilot light flickered on in Victor's belly. His trainer had moved in to claim her. How long had this been going on? Was the arrangement false from the start, Dominic having a laugh at his expense while making dating arrangements for his idiot nephew?

Raul had warned Victor to treat Alex much like Dominic and he supposed, with his fiancé being stolen and all, that he would have to oblige. Raul had called him jefe menor, the lesser boss, and explained their relation. His new amigo was full of useful information and excited to share it in a familiar language.

She's cheating on you. That's why she didn't accept your engagement ring.

It wasn't like her. His imagination ran everywhere, all at once. The conversation had ended down the hallway and Octavia was being locked into her own room for the night, but all Victor could see was that hand brushing her hair back and the color in her cheeks. He let go of the door, turning to take the stairs back up two at a time.

He sprinted straight to the gymnasium, where he struck the punching bag until it bled sand.