The Classix

*chapter eight*

    I'm still so dizzy from what she's just told me, I can barely understand anything else. "What makes sense?"

    "You're Emilee Parvenu."

    It's as if a cavern has opened. A rushing cataract, pouring out all over the floor from the walls. If I wasn't sitting on my bed already, I'd likely fall straight to the floor.

    The people we were before the Famoux is a topic that rarely gets brought up around the five of us. Even when DEFED gave us gifts with vicious hints and adorned the Volxsturm with our old names, never have I actually sat down and discussed at length that time of our lives with anyone other than Chapter. And even then, I don't know much about his life as Roman.

    All I know about Till is that she was once engaged to be married, but she's never wanted to divulge any further. It's just not something we want to use our time to talk about. It's uncomfortable. It's taboo.

    But right here in this moment, I need to know everything.

    "How did you––how did . . ." I'm a loss for words. "What?"

    "My boyfriend was friends with him," she said. "We lived in a different town, so I only really met him once or twice, but he was always boasting about whatever he'd just done to you. Him and his friend, what was his name?"

    "Felix."

    "Yes, that's it. Felix."

    She notices the way I've concaved into my pillow, and she grabs my hand, taking a seat on the bed next to me.

    "I thought he was cruel," Till tells me. "I always never knew what my boyfriend saw in him––why he'd ever want to be around a guy like that. But then, of course, I realized that he was quite a cruel man himself."

    She says it so steadily, so certainly, almost casually. I can't imagine talking about the pain of the past in such a way. But Till––Till speaks of the past with resolution, knowing firmly that the past is not the present. Her boyfriend is not here in this house. He's a ghost story that can no longer hurt her.

    I wish I could say the same.

    My mind is still reeling from all the news. I struggle to process my questions, put an order to them. The first one that comes to mind comes out of my mouth.

    "Do you think he knows?"

    "About us?" When I nod, she nods. "I don't know how he couldn't. Norax has to have given him the files on our pasts."

    "But . . . But then he'd . . ."

    It fades off as I look to Till helplessly. She gives my hand a squeeze. Just before she's about to speak, perhaps to bestow some reassurance, her eyes fall on something just past me. Letting go of my hand, she plucks the DEFED note from atop my duvet, eyes somehow going even wider and bluer.

    "What is this?"

    "Wait!" I exclaim. "Don't look at––"

    When I go to grab it, she stands back up from the bed, stepping just far enough away to be out of my reach. She reads out loud.

    "You have always been caged. But worry not." She takes a pause, letting the words sink in before finishing. "We are here to free you. Soon."

    She looks back up at me, face swirling with some kind of emotion I can't read. My heart, racing even faster now, takes a dip.

    "Till, I'm sorry. I can explain," I say. "I didn't want to show anyone that yet. I was just waiting for the right moment to finally––"