The Great Below

The Betrayal - Part 1

Octavia was glad for the forced exile of the shower. It gave her time to think while Alex waited in the next room. It was difficult not to think of him as her executioner, even when he'd snuck in to brush his teeth at the sink, only a few feet from the thin plastic curtain of the shower.

He had good intentions, of course; he always did. He'd intended to let her go when they first found her in Victor's apartment, and he'd intended to keep her safe from Dominic not that long ago, and all of that had gone just fine. So she peeked out the edge of the curtain to watch him rinse the toothbrush and then splash some water on his face, wearing only his dress slacks, and tried to let the cold nothingness that had been enveloping her since Interrogation drown what feelings she'd formed for him.

Once Alex was gone, Octavia took her time drying off, gently pressing her towel around the tender spots. She wondered if she would get to shower the day he killed her. It seemed undignified, dying the way a person first woke up. She didn't want to be remembered that way.

A soft knock at the door.

"I pulled an outfit for you, if that's okay," Alex said. He'd nudged the door no more than an inch, and when she came over to see him, he wouldn't look at her. They'd gone back to acquaintances, just like that. He was fully dressed by then, though his hair was loose and disheveled, and he paid an unnecessary amount of attention to a spot on the far wall beyond her shoulder.

"Of course," she replied. "Thank you." Octavia opened the door all the way. Her cuts had puckered and grown tight from the heat, but she needed to feel closer to him. He offered the small bundle of clothes without looking, and she set them on the far counter.

Alex began to leave.

"Hey," she said. He returned at that same awkward angle that made it look like he'd forgotten how to make eye contact. "Look at me."

He didn't want to. When he did, his eyes were red-rimmed and wounded.

Octavia slid her hands inside his coat, embracing him. She ignored the spots where she was still damp and stuck to him, or other spots that stung and ached. She locked her hands behind him and squeezed, sinking inside of his coat, pretending to be just another layer of him. Her unwilling executioner. Alex hugged back fiercely. She couldn't tell if the grip on her hair was pulling her closer or away; his whole body tensed, grappling with the problem of her closeness.

"I won't." It came out a choked sob. "I wouldn't."

"I know," she said. But she'd whispered it into the hard little buttons of his shirt, and wasn't sure if he'd even heard.

#

When she was dressed, Octavia led Alex down the long stretch of hallway to the cafeteria. She admired the concrete block walls with their spray-painted signs and the maze of pipes above her head. It had all started to feel like home. Even the men who lingered or passed in the hallway no longer made her nervous. Octavia was ready to give up and let nature in, like a collapsed bridge or an abandoned building. She wanted to crumble apart and turn into dust; a time-lapsed video in which her rubble made way for a fresh carpet of spring grass. She reached out, pinky finger hooking Alex's hand and taking it in her own. She couldn't tell him how she felt. It went against all of her survival instincts.

It was no secret that humanity wanted to die about as much as it wanted to live: it was the reason for junk food, for drinking too much, for cheating on a spouse or driving like a maniac. And it wasn't always thrill-seeking or denial. Octavia had spent many a night attached to Victor's pull-out couch feeling depressed and vulnerable. For her, wanting to die was sometimes a brutal, shameful truth.

They reached the swinging doors of the cafeteria and she let loose his hand. Even though she had begun to accept her fate, she didn't want to make things more difficult for Alex. As it turned out, she was right to let go: Victor had joined Billy and his fellow lifers at the head table. Steam rose from the pans on the food line, filling the whole room with the stink of bacon and eggs.