Compassion (A Selection Story)

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What the hell do you do when you're holding a dead body?

Well, if I were normal, I'd scream for help. Being me, I just collapse awkwardly to my knees, cradling her. I had counted everyone in the Women's Room, and realized how few girls were really left. Nineteen girls had either been eliminated or asked to go home. That left sixteen. One just died in my arms. Fifteen.

As a few girls walk out into the hall, they, curious, walk over to me. Seeing the frozen look on my face, and the blank look on Amilee's, they run back and fetch the others. Violet and The Queen are horrified, and Violet demands answers.

"What happened?!"

"I- I was- she just-" I can't speak, and look around wildly until my eyes catch on something in her limp left hand. "Peanuts."

"What?" Queen Felicity and Violet say at the same time.

I take a deep breath, and free one of my hands, picking up a peanut from Amilee's lifeless grip. "Peanuts. She must have been eating them. She must be allergic."

"So she's..." Violet's voice falters.

"Yes. She's dead. She died about two minutes ago. I tried to save her but I didn't know what was happening, I thought she was just choking and nothing was working and then she was just gone." A group of guards arrive at the scene, and one of them lifts Amilee away, and I wonder where he'll take her.

Lindsey helps me to my feet, and says "It's okay, I'll take her to her room.

Violet and The Queen just nod, and Lindsey whisks me away.

"Fleur, are you okay?" She asks me when I sit down on my bed.

"Okay?" I croak. "This day was supppsed to be happy, wasn't it? Somewhat of a day for me to celebrate that I didn't die? Instead I get disappointment and the knowledge of what a dead body feels like."

"What do you mean, disappointment?"

"When I went to talk to Toby, he was... you know... with Leanne."

Lindsey's jaw drops open, and she sucks in a breath. "No way, Tobias loves you, he'd never-"

"Then explain why they were both half dressed and she was laying on his bed."

"I'm sorry Fleur, I know you love-"

"Stop. I've never said I loved him. And I don't. I just thought he might have a little more respect for us. Treat us as something other than toys-you know?"

"I get it, I can't say I'm here because I want to marry Tobias, this may sound terrible, but I'm here for the position as Queen."

"You don't like the system," I say, understanding what she means.

"The Selection or the castes?"

I shrug, and wince due to the strain it puts on my side and shoulder. "Either? Both?"

She breathes out a sigh and says, "Once, when I was in my father's study, I came across a book in which there were no castes, and very seldom were people forced to marry someone else. Reading that description was... wonderful, and I went to share it with my mother. She took the book from me and was telling me how this was fiction and without the castes, things would be chaos, when my father walked in. Upon seeing the book in my mother's hands, and her talking about life without castes, he began to yell at her for teaching me such filth.

"We both tried to tell him what had happened, but he refused to hear it. I watched as he cut and beat my mother to teach her a lesson. He wouldn't let me leave, and when I tried to stop him, he threw her to the ground and crushed my hands with a pan from the kitchen." She held out her hands and I noticed how each finger was bent a bit differently- unnaturally. "That night, my mother and I sat in a corner of my room, her stroking my hair and telling me it would be okay. I was little, so I hadn't noticed at the time, but her breathing had been ragged and labored, her cuts scabbing over infection. We fell asleep in each other's protective arms that night, and only I woke up in the morning.