Selene

59 | Evasion

"Your Majesty, this is extremely ill-advised!"

Selene walked out of the automatic doors to her room, a hospital bathrobe in hand. "You can't tell me I'll be any better in a week after lying in that bed, nothing happening." She turned around to point a finger in the face of the doctor pursuing her. "At least this way I can do my job and try to help my people. You think I'm happy to be stuck here?"

She scowled and spun back around, heading down the hall toward the elevator and pulling an arm through a sleeve of the bathrobe, muttering profanities in her ill mood to herself as the doctor behind her recited facts about her condition to ears that weren't listening. Truth be told, she was shaking inside so hard she felt like she was being punched in the gut, over and over. The smell of the hospital wing was too harsh, and she knew she needed to leave. Problem was, she didn't know where she wanted to go. The idea of going to the quarters she'd been in last time was as depressing as the hospital bed, but she had no choice. She couldn't sleep in the kitchen.

As she approached them, the elevator doors dinged and slid open easily, and Selene froze with one arm through the other sleeve of the bathrobe. Kai's reaction was the same.

"Your Majesty," he said, bowing, his advisor at his side eyeing him carefully. Selene bowed back hesitantly and stepped to the side to let Kai out of the elevator.

"Should you be out of the hospital?" Kai asked, glancing at the very irritated doctor standing in the hallway, arms crossed, and Selene avoided his eyes when he looked back at her, shrugging her arm into the sleeve of the robe.

"I am just so tired, your Majesty!" She exclaimed, and winced at how fabricated her voice sounded. She used to be so good at lying. "I'm sure you're very busy. The last thing I'd want to do is hold you up when you're working."

Kai knit his brow. "Actually, I came up here to see—"

Selene pretended she hadn't heard him, and moved into the elevator, saying, "I trust the room I'd stayed in before is in good order?"

It took a while for Kai to nod, his face confused, and Selene smiled, avoiding his eyes again and bowing again.

"Well, goodnight, your Majesty. Mr— I mean, Konn-dàren. Good day to you both," she said, pressing the manual close door button and flattening herself against the wall of the elevator, shutting her eyes and tying the bathrobe belt. She finished the knot with a distressed yank, and hissed in pain when it dug into her ribs tightly.

"Please state your destination," said the elevator's robotic, mock female voice. Selene exhaled slowly and responded, "Guest chambers, floor 14." The elevator whirred for a little bit and the chirped in acceptance of her voice. She slid down the wall as the elevator started ascending slowly.

Selene remembered very well the last time she'd been lucid, and she wanted to forget it, drawing her knees to her chest and staring at the line where the elevator floor met the wall. Thinking about what she'd said to Kai made her tremble with disbelief. At herself and at him.

She didn't want him to forgive her. She knew it deep in the pit of her stomach as she stared achingly at that one spot, her chest squeezing tight with anguish. She wanted to burn, for all that she'd done. She'd set herself on fire, and Kai was trying to put out the flames. She deserved to burn. She deserved every bit of what was coming to her from Bement and Levana. The only reason why she didn't just lay back and die like they wanted her to was Luna. When she thought of what kind of queen Levana would be, it made her seize up in panic. Selene may not be a good person, but at least Luna had been happy. At least she'd done one part of her job right.

But she'd killed millions more. Millions of a people who were not her own. When she thought of Kai trying to justify what she'd done, it made her sick to her stomach. When she thought about the eyes that he looked at her with, she wondered why he couldn't just forget about whatever feelings he thought he'd had. He knew everything. He'd tried to get her to face it. But she'd disappointed herself again, and she'd disappointed the person he thought she could be.

He had tried to get her to know that he was glad to have her back. She could tell that much. But she knew she had hurt him, deeply. And that was something that she couldn't forgive herself for.

The elevator pulled to a smooth stop, the doors sliding open and the voice repeating the name of her destination with an affirming bing. Selene slowly pulled herself to her feet and stepped out of the elevator, into the corridor. It felt so familiar that she could hardly stand it, a sad emptiness creeping up on her from the corners of the hall. She took to her old room, the lights shut off and the smell clean and new, the bed freshly made and the netscreen on the wall dark. The evening stretched on beyond her bedroom windows, and she stepped over to one with tired eyes and a heavy weight on her chest.

It was a beautiful city. She had always loved looking at New Beijing from above. She wished she'd gotten more than one chance to see it from the streets, walking around like she was just a normal citizen. Not an alien, not an enemy. Not a killer. She sometimes dreamed about what it would be like to be someone like Linh Peony, the girl from the market. With a family that wasn't broken and marred and murdered beyond repair. Maybe to live in an apartment in that neon city down below, the buildings tall and the podships zooming around the skyscrapers fast and the hovers unrelenting as days went by.

Selene pressed her forehead against the glass, closing her eyes, and she could almost imagine how nice it must have felt to be so insignificant in such a large city. She felt small every day, just as any citizen of this city. Just as Linh Peony. But the difference between her and Peony was the actions that created them. Selene? She'd built herself upon a throne of lies, deceit, and vengeance. And even as she revealed the lies that had gotten her what she wanted, they created burdens that she didn't think she could ever truly get rid of. Maybe if she was a normal teenage girl, who could just exist as herself, like the things she wanted, act the way she wanted, she could feel. Maybe she would be obsessing over Kai right now just as Peony did, just as millions of girls did. Maybe she would have friends, and relationships, and time. Selene felt the coldness of the autumn air through the glass and let out a long breath.

She thought of these things with the kind of bittersweet resignation that came from knowing the impossible. The funny thing was, sometimes she fooled herself into thinking that it wasn't so impossible to be normal. Times with Kai, in which he hadn't felt so much like a prince and she hadn't felt like a queen.

But the facts were that she was monarch of Luna, and she had so much responsibility resting upon her shoulders that she didn't have any time to pretend to be a normal girl. Especially with all the guilt that weighed heavy on her heart and soul. Stress and regret and pain swirled into a formidable whirlwind of panic inside her stomach. She felt so restless and so exhausted at once as she opened her eyes and gazed down at New Beijing, but didn't dare look away from the lights of the falling evening. Selene could almost quell the emotions and feel something like calm as she watched the little podships whiz around the city. Almost.

In the morning, reality would hit hard. She would feel no peace. There would be no time for daydreaming about being normal, about being someone like Linh Peony. Selene watched the sun set. She found herself thinking about a life that wasn't hers, and stopped trying to keep herself from it. It was evening. In the morning, she promised herself, she would be a queen again. But for now, with the city stretched before her, it was almost like Selene could be anyone she wanted to be.