Belle:
Blaise slept restlessly. It was different when we were kids, the three of us having our sleepovers in the tents in the backyard or movie nights. As we got older those had stopped, Blaise would go out of town for a couple of months at a time and my father decided that he had to grow up faster than normal kids his age because he would eventually take over for him. Over the last week or so of us sleeping on the couches in the media room, I realized that he no longer slept like he used to. Instead he would wake at the smallest noise, anything louder than a door would send him instinctively reaching for his gun.
In a way, that helped me sleep better, knowing that he was alert and there to help. My father seemed to have a plan for me that wouldn't move into place for another couple of weeks, and in theory, he wouldn't risk doing anything to me until then. With our paranoia, Blaise and I were still not going to let each other out of our sights.
That morning, instead of waking up a couple of feet apart on the couches, I realized that we must have fallen asleep watching our movie. I was curled up into his side with my head on his chest, my legs thrown over his. It was warm and comfortable, but after almost a full night of laying in that position, I was starting to get a couple knots in my muscles.
I sat up, cracking my back and stretching. "Blaise? Blaise, we should get up."
"Go back to sleep, Belle. I was comfortable," He mumbled without opening his eyes.
"And you make a great pillow. But we need to pack a bag for Rosine and figure out a way to smuggle a message to her."
The mention of my sister and his best friend had Blaise sitting up quickly. "You're right. The sooner, the better."
I offered him my hand and pulled him to his feet, and as he stumbled forward, he gripped my waist and pulled me closer so that our chests were pressed together. "Good morning, by the way."
My blush was inevitable, but he just grinned and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose. After the night before, I wasn't sure where things stood. His confession had changed things, and I wasn't sure if he would regret saying some of what he did. I didn't want him to get cold feet or decide that he didn't want to shake up our dynamic. It was a relief to know that admitting our feelings wasn't only done in the heat of the moment.
"Good morning," I finally muttered back, burying me face in his chest and wrapping my arms around his stomach.
He chuckled at the movement, holding me in a hug for a couple of minutes before he ran his hands through my hair, "We're going to make this happen, Belle. We'll find Rosine and bring her home, and you're not going to get engaged to anyone."
I nodded against his chest, still not releasing my vice-like grip. Blaise was a rock and anchor through all of this, and I desperately needed to know that I had someone in my corner. I trusted my uncle as well, but Blaise was different. He knew that he had to play politics, but unlike my uncle, Blaise was younger, and that came with a certain fervor and willingness to disregard the rules for morality.
"C'mon," He finally muttered, breaking my grip. "Like you said, we should start getting her bag together as soon as possible."
He twisted his fingers through mine, pulling me out of the dark room with no windows and into the halls filled with early morning light. It wasn't quite time for breakfast yet, so we would have a moment to work out our system. We both knew where everything was in Rosine's room, so it was no trouble for Blaise to pull her duffle bag from her closet while I grabbed some clothes out of the drawers.
I folded them as neatly as I could, glancing up at Blaise, "I'm thinking a code? We had plenty of them growing up between the three of us that we could use."
"But a code might be obvious if Hugo found it in the bag."
"Maybe a decoy note? We write one and put it where my father will find it, because we know he'll go through it, and we hide a second one in a better place so that he'll stop looking after the first one."
Blaise nodded, "What about both? I'm so paranoid that we're going to get caught and make things worse for her.... Or anyone back here."
I looked at him with raised eyebrows, "We both know my father isn't the brightest bulb, I think the two of us can pull this off against him. But we can play it safe and do both."
"What about that one we developed when we had that awful au pair?"
I knew what he was talking about. It wasn't much of a code in the traditional sense- it wasn't so much as the message hidden among the letters as it was the details hidden on the letters. Penmanship changed everything- it required a normal message, and every letter had to be carefully crafted. The letters you needed to note were the ones that were broken.
It could be an 'A' where the points didn't meet, a 'T' that isn't crossed all of the way, an 'O' that doesn't close all of the way. The hardest were the letters without points. Something like a 'C' could be indicated by a flick on the tail, but you had to look more closely. Once you identified all of the broken letters, they would make their own message. For someone that didn't know your handwriting, it wasn't something you focused on. Sometimes the simple methods worked the best.
Finding out what we actually wanted to say, and how to fit those letters in best, took us a couple of drafts and revisions before we got it right. By the end, we had both written small paragraphs that hid similar messages: we were both alright, but we couldn't do anything to break her out of that school unless she could tell us where she was. I threw in a short piece as well, one that told her to stay on the lookout for the possible Russians, since I knew they were working with my father.
We wanted to hide it somewhere that she would notice, but nothing my father would notice. I briefly considered ripping out the bottom panel, sliding in the note, and then sewing it back up, but Blaise made the good point that she might not find it if she didn't already know we were going to send a second note. Instead, I folded it until it was a small piece that could be forced into her shoe. I placed it between the fabric on the tongue and then pulled the laces tight, using the edges of the fabric to cover the paper. Anyone looking at the shoes or shaking it wouldn't notice, but she would feel it the moment she pushed her foot into it.
We added our decoy as well, placing it on the very top and her shoes snugly on the bottom. The letter on top was much more optimistic, probably what my father expected seeing as we weren't supposed to know everything he had done to Rosine. It was mostly well wishes, saying that we hoped she was making new friends and learning a lot.
I finally zipped it up, taking a step back. Blaise rubbed his hand across my shoulders before pulling me a step closer, so that my back was pressed to his chest as he reassured me, "This is going to work."
"That was our most common code when we were kids, she should understand it. My biggest concern is how she plans to contact us in return. Without her phone, who knows what she might have access to."
"Your sister is smart," He tried his best to sooth my mind, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "Rosine will find a way."
Across the house, I heard the breakfast bell ring. We walked down together, deciding not to bring up the bag now, to just eat and not convince my father to do things. By now most of the house probably noticed that we didn't really go anywhere without each other, but I doubt all of them realized it was a precautionary measure because we were scared of what could happen while we were separated.
I was surprised to see the table with place settings on it- usually we ate in buffet style and then went on our way, it was faster and everyone didn't have to wake up at the same time. This meant that my father expected us all to eat together, and I was just hoping that it was because he wanted to avoid a separate meeting for instruction. Maybe I could sit quietly while everyone got the assignments, and afterwards if my father was in a good mood, I could broach the subject of sending my sister her harmless bag.
There were already a few men in their normal seats, but Blaise and I found our place to our normal ones- next to my father where he was always at the head. Rosine's seat stayed empty, I think most of the men would have felt odd if they had taken her normal spot. It took a few minutes for everyone to file in, my father last of all, and we all knew better than to start eating without him. It would've been an insult to the hierarchy.
Instead it was another five minutes before we could take our first bites, and at first it was exactly what I expected. My father just seemed to want to talk about work, which he seemed more comfortable doing when it was just me around instead of Rosine. He really only saw Rosine as a threat to his power, not me.
And that would be his downfall.
Towards the end of breakfast, when I was plotting things out in my own head, I heard my name come from my father's lips and it drew me back to the present. It was something about a dress, and I looked up in confusion.
"I'm sorry, I missed that. What am I supposed to do?"
"Your dress fitting for the party," My father was exasperated, staring at a sheet of paper with his chicken scratch covering it. "It's the one thing you have to do, can you manage not to screw it up?"
I wanted to glare or scream, but I knew what game I was playing. Instead, I glanced down and played it innocent, "Alright. Could I ask a favor, though?"
My father slowly raised his eyes to mine, cautiously but also as if he was daring me to push his limits, "What?"
"Well, I'd really love to send some stuff to Rosine, I saw that she forgot some of her favorite clothes."
"The Academy has tight regulations on what their students can wear and have, Belle."
"You can go through everything we pack, just to make sure that it's allowed. It would just make me feel so much better.... I don't think I'd be in the right mindset for a dress fitting if I knew my sister didn't even have her most comfortable sweaters."
My father thought of women as shallow and vapid- he truly believed that my sister's disappearance wasn't going to bother me, it was the fact that Rosine was missing her sweaters. But I was going to use that against him. I knew that some of the other men perceived it for what it really was- a threat. If he didn't let me send this to my sister, I wouldn't cooperate, I would draw out this process and make it hell for him. The tone of my voice should have given it away, but my father really was that dense.
"Hugo," My uncle leaned into my father's ear, speaking quietly in what should have been a whisper, but was still barely loud enough for Blaise and I to hear, and I knew my uncle did it intentionally. "Maybe we should let her. You can look through everything, and it may qualm some of the questions and concerns about Rosine."
My father considered it, and I just gave him my most innocent smile. He eventually nodded, assuming there would be no harm in it since he would go through the bag himself. "Fine. But have it ready soon. I don't want to be dealing with any of this next week, that'll be all about getting everything ready."
I froze. I figured if he was planning a dress fitting, then he was actively making plans, but I hadn't predicted that it would be so soon. That was a lot of things to take care of in a short amount of time, but he probably hired a team of professionals. He wouldn't let anything about that night go wrong.
But it also moved our deadline up. About a week before I was supposed to be married off? I knew Blaise caught the tension as well, because he moved his foot under the table discreetly, looping it around mine. It was far too conspicuous for him to grab my hand, even down at our sides. Someone might notice.
He was trying to tell me that things were going to be alright, that we could figure something out to stop all of this madness. But if my father had already picked a day to sell me off, this was about to start feeling inevitable.
Rosine:
I could hear Nyoka and Daitan singing all of the way from my room. The Disney princess marathon was a great idea, but I needed a shower so I took my leave after the fourth one. To be fair, I could still hear the movie from the bathroom, so I wasn't missing much. I was digging through my drawers with a towel wrapped around my body, trying to find another hair tie after I snapped one in the shower.
Against my better judgement, I hadn't really 'cleaned up' after my room was ransacked, I had just thrown it all into dresser drawers. Now it was difficult to find anything at all, and once I got dressed, I started sorting everything out on my bed again, trying to get it back to the places the pile belonged.
I was folding up a sweatshirt when the bathroom door creaked open. Phoenix stepped inside with a rueful grin, holding a book in one hand and her favorite scented candle in the other, "Were you going to be in here for a while? I love Disney, but if it's quieter, and you need a buddy-"
"Yeah, feel free. I'm just trying to put up what little I have."
She hopped on my bed, and I expected her to pull her knees to her chest and crack open her book like she always did, but this time she hesitated. Instead of reading, she set her novel down and looked at me curiously, "What was it like? Growing up in a place like that?"
I tilted my head and looked at her over my shoulder through the mirror, asking with genuine curiosity in my voice, "Where did that come from?"
"I just.... Nyoka and Daitan have problems with their families, too, and I was wondering if it's more universal than I thought."
I turned around, leaning backwards against the dresser. "I can't say that my father and I love each other, at this point we pretty much hate each other. He should never have been allowed to raise children alone, especially with his profession and temperament. We relied heavily on my uncle and the other men."
"Well, there are about 20 million single parent households," She sighed in rejection and defeat, as if my confirming her suspicions really meant that there weren't any loving parents at all. "In America, at least."
I grinned at her fun fact- she was always ready with more, and they were growing on me. It was almost endearing. "My mother was good, though. What little I remember of her, at least. I don't know how someone like that ended up with my father, she was far too good and gentle for him. If she had lived, I think....."
I trailed off, reminding myself that speculation about what could have been would only hurt more. There was no point wasting time on it, it wouldn't change the past few years. But I still derived comfort from my mother, I found myself rubbing her ring on my finger out of habit.
Phoenix seemed to understand that I wasn't going to finish my thought as she glanced at her flickering candle, "But you still feel like you had a good life? With your sister and Blaise? Well, at least until your father tried to sell you off?"
"I think our living environment has a lot of influence, but it doesn't completely determine how we end up. Having a twin was great luck, I don't think I would be the same person I was today without her. She kept me grounded. Belle and Blaise both did, they were my impulse control and the better side of me, all rolled into two great friends."
Her head was tilted to the side, the way you would evaluate an interesting painting. "So do you think you love him?"
"It's hard to explain," I sighed. "And it's hard to figure out what my heart is tyring to tell me. I always thought it was as a best friend, just like my sister, but it's a different kind of love. If I really think about it, I have to come to the conclusion that I do. I mean, I want to be around him all of the time, I miss him like crazy. And it's so odd to say, and to hear myself say it while I'm still so young, but I could imagine spending the rest of our lives together. Running the organization the way it was meant to be run."
"You don't think you'd ever fight over how to run it?"
"I'm sure that we would. But Blaise and I have always been good about knowing that even when we fight, we're not really mad at each other. We're just mad at the circumstances, and we know the only way we can figure it out is if we both compromise."
"That sounds pretty healthy," Her eyebrows creased. "And it's always worked?"
"As long as we've known each other..... So pretty much our whole lives. And I have a feeling it could work for the rest of them as well."
"So is that your endgame? You want to find a way out here and get back to Blaise? How would you get your father out of power?"
"I suppose that the most important part would be to get home. After that, I can figure out the details. If my father would just step down, and I could tell Blaise how I feel.... Well, Blaise would already be in charge. So it's just a matter of forcing my father into retirement."
Phoenix was adamantly staring at her candle, but she hesitated, "If that were the case.... Would you want another member?"
"What?"
"I'll swear that Omerta thing or whatever they talk about in movies and stuff."
"You want to get out of here and.... Join the French mafia?"
"If you're running it," She shrugged. "I'm not much of a soldier, but I'm a fast learner. Whatever you need me to do, I can learn."
"Phoenix," I faltered, not quite knowing what to say. "That's a big commitment. The life isn't really something you retire from, and it's much more gruesome than you might think. Don't you want to finish your degrees and stuff?"
"I do, but those are already online because of this stupid academy. I'll work on those when you don't need me, at night. My mother sent me here years ago, and I need somewhere to go because I don't want to stay in this place forever. I'd rather finish this next degree anywhere but here."
"You'd have to essentially swear your life over."
She faltered, suddenly looking dejected, a mix of helplessness almost like I had stabbed her in the stomach. Phoenix spoke quietly, "You don't want me to?"
"No, that's not it at all, I just....." I paused, trying to find the right words. "You have so many prospects, so many things you want to do or could do. You have multiple degrees, and you're incredibly smart."
"I've never totally known what I wanted to do with all of that knowledge, though. And getting out of here, being around people that I like is far more important than what I do. There are a million options, like you said, and this one sounds like a good option," She reasoned. Phoenix paused, looking at me like she had a sudden revelation. "You sound almost wistful. Do you wish that you had other options? Because maybe... this could be your best chance for a clean break. If we can get out of here, you could start over. Just hide and start another life, we could even go to a different country. We both speak French, and your Russian is coming along great."
"My father would find me, even if I left the country, and he would never just let me go like that, even if I promised to never show my face around there again. But I've always wanted to run the organization, and it should've been mine. Besides, my sister and Blaise need me, I couldn't just disappear like that on them."
"But you deserve to do whatever you want, and if that's not taking over-"
"It is," I nodded. "I think everyone fantasizes about those possibilities from time to time, but that's where I belong. What about Daitan and Nyoka? Would you really be willing to leave them?"
"Who says they wouldn't want to come too? None of us really have family that we're close to, and nowhere to go. We all know that we can't just stay here forever."
I folded my arms, glancing around the room. These girls were smart, with training I'm sure they would be great assets, but I wasn't sure that Phoenix really understood the extent of what she was suggesting. "I'm not saying that you can't, but promise me that you'll really think this through before you make that sort of commitment."
Alrighty. So during thanksgiving I had a surprising amount of free time to write (really I just stayed up all night and now I'm exhausted), so I knocked out another chapter a whole week early, and I've already gotten started on another. The next chapter is is pretty eventful, so I wanted to make sure that I payed attention to the detail. As always, I appreciate the support- I would love a vote or some comments to hear what you think/how to improve! This is my last week of classes and I have a week of finals after that, so if I don't update sooner, I'll be back in a couple of weeks with the next chapter.
Thank you all, please stay safe and healthy!
-Elizabeth