The Great Below

The Ultimatum

That night, Alex saw flashes of memory in his sleep. His brain wouldn't replay the entire event for him, maybe because his mental recording equipment had failed. It never kept the good moments as keenly as the bad, and as a result he would always retain the words of a final argument with his parents before he was thrown out of the house, and the smell of freshly-cut grass on the afternoon he discovered his clothing in trash bags on the front lawn. The feel of his house key fumbling in the lock but not quite turning it, of discovering that they'd all been changed while he was at school. The sun hitting his uncle's black Mercedes as it scraped the curb.

Alex's subconscious was not as sharp with the details of his night with Octavia. It hadn't been normal, but not in the way he'd so unfairly suggested. He remembered her gentle weight in his lap, facing him. She had maneuvered herself over him and he remembered how, as she lowered herself one inch at a time and the heat and the moisture overwhelmed him, Alex cracked the back of his head on the headboard. He thought maybe she had laughed, but he couldn't recall the sound of it.

He'd known other guys with elaborate plans to distract themselves during the act; it was the only way to make it last. Alex didn't need his plan, as it turned out, because he spent much of the time nervously hoping that she was enjoying herself. He was afraid of brushing one of the cuts again, of catching the stitches on her thigh. He did remember a trickle of fluid that lubricated his strokes into her. She had moaned, and then he couldn't think about anything at all.

Alex's phone rang. The tone dragged him up and out of an otherwise restful, if short, sleep. He had to un-bury himself from the blankets and tread barefoot to the dresser to retrieve his phone from inside his discarded jacket. "Hello?"

"Come to the booth," Dominic said.

Alex rubbed at his eyes. "What time is it?" But the call had already disconnected. He tried to imagine why Dominic would be waiting in Interrogation when a thrill passed through him. Victor was getting his punishment. Alex pictured Victor there, fighting the bonds that held him or even breaking them, if he hadn't already. He would throw all of it back at them through the glass – the recruitment, living underground, having his girlfriend stolen – but Dominic had finally seen reason. They were going to agree on something.

Alex turned to tell Octavia. There was a familiar twinge of concern: would she be happy? Would she really prefer to watch Victor suffer, like she'd suggested in the car last night?

But the bed was empty.

He came around, hoping she hadn't found her way back into the vodka and fallen to the floor, but there was nothing there, either. The bottle was still mostly full on his dresser. The room didn't look ransacked. She could have snuck out, except she didn't have his room key. Or clothes.

Alex pulled on shorts and a shirt, fumbling into a pair of jeans before sprinting to Interrogation.

#

The smell of hot coffee dominated the control booth when Alex entered; it had fogged a stripe onto the glass in front of Dominic. His uncle stood waiting with his back to him in a fresh suit, holding the coffee but not drinking it. Beyond him and through the glass was someone of the wrong size, pacing a short path in front of the only exit in a pair of too-large men's pajamas.

Alex's hands were shaking. He wanted to talk himself through it, to calm down before he said or did something volatile. His stomach tightened like a fist. Octavia, who hadn't wanted to wear the pajamas because she trusted him. "Why isn't Victor in there?"

"I sent Nick to retrieve her this morning and when I asked why it was taking so long, he had to admit that she wasn't in her quarters. I asked him, if she wasn't there, then where was she? For once, he didn't have anything clever to say."