Harsh Lessons (35 page)

Escape, and rescue Marcie: save her.

She was trying to draw the journey out, hoping someone might still be up, might wander by and ask questions; might be able to read something in her eyes; see through the false smile.  But empty corridors swallowed each solitary silent step.

Perhaps she could simply call on James, or Emma.  Emma was a woman, and smart.  If Leeth woke her in the middle of the night and then couldn't answer the questions she'd be sure to ask-

Thought dissolved into gray curls of fog.  She almost stumbled as her feet turned her from the wall, heading her back toward her quarters.  She puzzled as she continued on.  Hadn't she just been thinking… something?  Skipping back to her rooms, and now singing a silly rhyme, the memory continued to elude her.

Reaching her door, she palmed it open.  The instant she crossed the threshold the joyful mask vanished.  Safe: here she was safe.  It was only in
his
rooms that he-

She cut the thought off and leaned back against the protective barrier, now closed behind her.  It slid snugly shut, plunging the interior into darkness.  But all too soon the room reappeared in monochrome tones as her eyes adapted.

She sagged back against the door, her expression blank.  Numb.

Her breasts still ached: the
cells
remembering.  Even after the healing, the shocking pain lingered as an echo in the flesh.

One arm holding her own shoulder, her other arm clasping her waist, she hugged herself, imagining the arms around her were James's, or Emma's.

For long seconds she stared blankly across the room.  Gradually, the accusing glares of the heroes in the
Demons-bane
image penetrated her awareness.  The elven valkyrie Hildr stared at her accusingly.  She tried to stare back, but her lower lip trembled.

She dropped her head in shame.

At least tonight he hadn't made her dress up in some humiliating child's costume.  Or, as he sometimes preferred, half of one.  Usually just the top half.  So she couldn't pretend she'd simply opted for the freedom of going bare chested.

Dully, she unwrapped her arms from herself, lifting them before her, marveling at the once-more seamless skin.  Still faintly damp from the shower he'd made her take to wash away the evidence: the blood.

Eyes unfocused, she remembered her own hand descending slowly toward her arm under his command; his words like dripping acid, scouring her soul.  “Self-mutilation is a terrible thing, Leeth.  A clear sign of sick self-hatred.  I had hoped you would be strong enough to resist….”

The words had drizzled on, and on: a cold leaching rain as the silken bite of her own fingertips carved-

Desperately, jaw clenching, she smashed down that memory, too.  Vision blurred as water welled in her lower eyelids, sinuses thickening. 
Tears were for weaklings.
  She fought them down.  Water brimmed, blurring everything.  She wouldn't blink.  If she didn't blink, there'd be no tears.

She stood in the dark, fighting the flood, fighting her own body-

He'd caged her in her own body!  Made her his puppet, his toy.

But one that fought every step of the way.  Never co-operated.  He'd had to command every act, every word.  Every gesture.

Oh Keepie, every gesture! 
It had made her realize:
Keepie
was dead.  Gone.  Instead, this monster had replaced him, swallowed him whole.  And she didn't think there was anything she could do to get him back.

Sunk to her knees, he'd made her spread-

'No!'  But then the breath she didn't know she'd been holding cracked her lips, escaping in one deep moan that drained the strength from her stomach, and legs, and she slid down the door to the carpet.  In her mind, he stood over her still, staring at her. 
Weak
, he sneered.

'No!'  She screwed her eyes shut trying to block the memory, tears flinging from her shaking head, and then her nose joined the treacherous flood as her body flew from her command, again, only this time
he
hadn't ordered it, it was she herself, failing,
weakening
-

She tried to breathe, but her chest shuddered and spasmed, the breath juddering in as her own lungs fought against her.

But even in this new betrayal by her body, a betrayal that shattered her control,
still
she struggled.  She wanted to smash the floor, but didn't; wanted to collapse into a boneless puddle, but wouldn't.

She clamped her jaws to silence the
weak
little girl shrieking inside.  She'd
never
give in,
never
give him the satisfaction of truly controlling her, controlling her true self.

Piece by piece, she locked away that small girl; sealed her up inside and turned away from her, to claw her way back toward normality.  Her hands were shaking, she saw.  She clenched her fists, but that only made it worse.  Now all the muscles in her forearms stood out like they'd been carved.

Carved…
  No! 
Don't remember!

Now her arms shook, too.  But the harder she fought, the further it spread, until her whole body locked rigid.

Sometimes, Miss Leeth, the body knows better than the mind.  Sometimes, you must let your
body
lead.
  Dojo's cool words.  But still she resisted, even as that control coiled the knots of agony tighter.

She didn’t know what was happening: it felt like her own body was killing her.  She fought even harder to stop it: and felt the agony twist still tighter.

Dojo’s face glowed in her mind.  Could she trust him?  Trust her body? 
Stop
fighting?

She had to.

She let go, as scared and exhilarated as if jumping from a high cliff.

Her body spasmed in an agony of release so terrible she thought she'd made a fatal mistake, even as she clung desperately to Dojo's words; a talisman of hope.

Panting, curled on her side, she only slowly realized it had ended.  The pounding in her head, easing.

One arm was flung out over her head, her hand stabbed through the carpet, clutching it tight.  Mourning the man who'd raised her
?
  He
had
loved her, once, she knew.  Had held her after she'd Pounced him, that night in his rooms.  Caught her when she leapt from the trampoline.  Let her snuggle up to him, after the first time they'd made love.

Or…
had
that been love-making, really?

Either way, that man was dead.  And she had had enough.
 

Chapter 42 

Emma stood outside the doors to the dojo, looking in through the perspex windows, frowning.

Inside, Dojo and Leeth faced one another.  Neither moved. 
What were they doing?

Then Leeth’s weight shifted.  Something about Dojo’s stance changed, and Leeth immediately froze.  Then her shoulders moved fractionally, and Emma sensed the tension drain from Dojo.

He slid his left foot forward, Leeth accelerated into motion….  But Dojo swayed minutely and Leeth slowed, and stopped; hissing in frustration.  Then turned, slightly.

An opening!
  Except Dojo apparently didn’t agree.  After a second Leeth smiled, her shoulders moving in the faintest shrug.  As if to say, “well, it was worth a try.”  Emma frowned.
Had there been a trap there?

Then Leeth began circling, her bare feet sliding lightly over the mats, a curious fluidity to the movement of her body as Dojo turned, and turned, facing her.

Emma had lost count of the number of times Dojo had given her his back yet
still
somehow sensed and dismantled her attacks, even when launched from behind him.

Apparently he no longer granted Leeth that same privilege.  She wondered when
that
had changed.

Something about Leeth’s movements seemed strangely familiar, too, and it was eating at her.  Like Dojo himself?  A little… but there was an energetically springy bounce to it, a playful zest that didn’t belong to Dojo.  The sense that she danced on the balls of her feet.  The sense of a coiled spring, eager to-

Holy mother!

Leeth blurred in, triggering Emma’s own combat augmentations.  With their assistance she half-comprehended the three way- no, four way-
five!
fold attack, as Leeth spun in, left leg kicking out from the knee while left
arm
struck high; right fist punching forward as left arm tangled with Dojo’s right, deflected but sliding back in again, in a vicious elbow strike.  Their bodies slammed together as Dojo’s slightly-angled thigh turned aside Leeth’s kick even as she pivoted, her right leg leaving the ground as she spun in the air, her knee folding forward to
slam
into Dojo’s side.

But Dojo’s forearms had slipped in as if to embrace her even as his forehead hammered into her nose.

The painfully loud crack echoed through the room and Leeth’s body crashed bonelessly to the mat.  Dojo staggered back, swaying slightly on his feet.

‘Request Doctor to the dojo for Healing, please,’ Emma heard him say as she plowed through the doors, forgetting for a moment she was still in combat mode.  With a mental command, she eased down.

On the ground at their feet, Leeth lay unconscious.  Dojo fell to his knees, took her pulse, and nodded.

He looked up into Emma’s shocked face.  And
grinned
.

‘Miss Leeth is learning well,’ he nodded down at the girl once more, his expression shifting to a contented smile.  Then he winced, and very gently probed his ribs, then pulled up his gi to inspect it. The area was already purpling. Gracefully unfolding to his feet, he padded across the room to the cold chest for a chill-pad.

The Doctor’s voice sounded from a speaker in the wall.  ‘I’m on my way.  How urgent?’

‘Just the normal.  She will live.’  The smile was still there as he pressed the cold compress against his side and added, ‘I too need a cracked rib healed.’

‘One minute.’

From the satisfaction in those two words, it sounded Dojo wasn’t the only one pleased by Leeth’s progress.

Emma replayed her video capture of the attack, seeing little nuances in the slow motion exchange she’d missed the first time. 
My god, I wouldn’t want to go up against her anymore, hand to hand.

The girl was deadly.

Some days there were small military training exercises.  Mini war-games, commando-style training, mock hostage scenarios or security penetrations.  They were exhausting, stressful, and punishing.  Leeth relished them.  Relished the relief; and the
pretense
of freedom.

Again and again she tried to convince Father or Mother to allow the Doctor to go and heal Marcie.  The cybernetic implants were a little bit more painful than everyone had told her, Marcie had admitted to her by vidlink. 
A lot more painful
, Leeth read.

Marcie had looked guilty, like she was letting
Jane
down by her inability to give good news.  Trying to look like she wasn't being destroyed by the fear of her future.

Her uncle was willing to try, he said, but could do nothing without approval.
Of course.

And she
still
hadn't found a way to convince Mother, or even Father.

She decided to concentrate on Father, asking him for extra training, hoping that by showing interest in his area of special expertise – modern hand-held heavy weaponry – she might shift him to her side.

Trying and trying, even after the first, shocking time, when she'd spent most of the day half-deaf, certain she'd ruined herself.  But her hearing
did
come back to normal.

Or after the second time, which had been
worse
: all sound had vanished at the first vibration from the explosion.  Utterly deaf.  She thought she'd gone truly, permanently deaf, and had fled the session in tears.  Had even gone to her uncle's door, and stood there, panting – in eerie silence – poised to beg for healing.

The
relief
when sound had returned, her hand still raised to knock…. She'd slid to the floor, and cried.  Again.

It had taken everything she'd had, to go back to Father and continue the training session.  Afraid she was being stupid: that her recovery had been a one-off piece of luck.  That she shouldn't push it.

But she
had
gone back. 
Had
pushed through it.  Even though the world had gone silent, again, at the first rocket burst.  And stayed silent through the whole rest of the exercise.

She'd broken down, again, alone in her rooms, when her hearing had returned a few minutes after the lesson had ended.

Amazed and glad; wondering if her ears somehow
learned
. 
Clever old ears
.

But even after all that, Father
still
wouldn't listen to reason.

The fun was long gone.  She could enjoy none of it, knowing Marcie was wasting away in her hospital bed.  Knowing her uncle could heal her, if they'd just
let
him.

She
had
to find a way to make that happen.

So she suffered through Nelson's attempts to teach her computers – at least, until his patience snapped, each time.  Which she kind of enjoyed, actually.  It was nice to get some of her own back, since as far as she could see, he'd had no punishment at all for the time he'd spied on her and Uncle.  So he hadn't been allowed to access the net for a day – so what?  How was that even a punishment?  But from the way he
still
moaned about it, you'd think he'd been tortured.

Though now, she wished she
hadn't
exposed him.  At least then someone would know that… her thoughts began fogging out.  Gritting her teeth, she forced the truth away.

But she
was
still learning a lot, here; useful skills she'd need.  And she was doing well.  Everyone seemed surprised by how hard she was trying, now.  Though she'd overheard James tell Emma how her sessions with Mother on trend analysis, and with Checkbook on accounting, had been "impressive failures."