UNWANTED

CHAPTER 0 - L9.28.36 - LIZAVETA

For the birds born in cages, may you be free

This book is dedicated to my readers in the Philippines, in the US, Australia, India, Nigeria, Czech Republic, Austria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia and UAE. Stay safe please, and thank you for waiting six years for this.

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It's a scary place, my head. When the snow is a stark white and the only sound, I can hear is my breath, I forget about the passage of time and every memory feels like the present.

God, I don't want to remember.

One. The ice was cold and powdery against my boots. Two. My parka was warm and soft on the inside. Three. The tank of oxygen was smooth. I sighed against the incoming panic. I'm going to be okay.

If I was naked, no one would be able to find me here.

Somewhere a thousand feet under my feet, snow was falling. But here, on the highest peak of the continent, it was a white Eden. Being at the top of the world also meant being alone. But it was a welcomed loneliness, a happy solitude.

There was always a part of me who wanted out, who wanted to just walk away from the life I didn't ask for... but that person was buried deep under duty and honor and trust. Now that those three things were gone, decisions became clearer.

Kindness always only favors the second party, but I've decided to make myself a priority.

I cut all connections to the life I left, literally. I even found the transponder they so delicately nestled on my nape and cut it out yesterday before changing locations. The cut still stung, but the cold air sort of numbed it, at least.

Taking account of my discomfort... The muscle pain from turning my head that way for an hour throbbed even now. The air was making my nose stuffy, my limbs were threatening to go dark and fall off, but I was fine. Freedom has a price.

I'd take a year in this cold than another day in that House.

"Better alone." I watched the frost form in my breath.

I knew where to go and how to get there. In a few days I would be in the Islands, drinking their coconut wine and dancing to the sound of my own heartbeat. Right now, though, I needed to find Jazzy and figure out how I could parachute down to an island with a tiger.

I set her out to hunt and she gladly went down slope to eat some deer, probably. The problem with finding her was her white coat. She was within half a mile of me, if the tracker was accurate, but all I could see from there was white snow and black rocks.

It would have been best if I took my runner downhill instead of walking, but I needed to keep it high enough so as not to be detected by the army bases and the radar they use to track lower- level runners. Imagine being the best pilot of your flight and being detected. What would General Hori say?

Well General Hori wouldn't say anything because she's dead.

"JAZZY! JAZZY JAZZY! JAZZY!" I screamed. The cabin was seven kilometers up, and I had a limited source of oxygen. And although the snow-capped mountains away from the crowds of the capital was a welcomed change, I would still like to be alive to leave it.

We needed to go back up and regroup. I also needed to eat, and she could eat some jerky if she didn't get any from below. I would then maybe steal a pod from the base and parachute down to the Islanders tomorrow.

I shook the thought out of my head.

Not a good idea. Good ideas only came on full stomachs.

"Jazzy! Come on, I'm hungry too." The last thing I ate was a failed attempt at a poached egg that I had to fish out of vinegary water. I just wanted to go back to the cabin to make some soup out of the powder I stole from the House. Since the snow was starting to form in the air again, I wasn't sure how I would survive the climb up.