After leaving Selena’s room, I knocked on Viktor’s door.

  “Who is it?” I heard his voice from the other side.

  “Sofia. I wish to have a word,” I said, my tone letting him prepare for the reprimand he was about to receive.

  I heard him sigh through the door, his footfalls heavy before he opened it slowly, an expression of dread on his face.

  “Come in,” he said, sounding depressed.

  I stepped into his room. It was almost empty except for one family portrait on the nightstand next to his king-sized bed. He was, for some reason, still using the same brown blanket they gave to us on the night of our blessing, as if he hadn’t brought his own.

  The family portrait caught my eye, his mother’s arms wrapped around a much younger Viktor, both of them smiling brightly, unlike his father. Vasili stood to the side, his expression bored as always, his dead stare unchanged.

  I dragged my gaze from the portrait, looking around the room for any sign of occupancy. There was a desk, and a stack of papers neatly lined up on its side, but that was it. No plants, no colours, even the air felt undisturbed. As if he was never here, teleporting to be anywhere he wanted, like his father.

  Unlike his father, he lacked that ability, so I didn’t understand why his room was so bare, but that wasn’t what I was here for.

  “You failed to obey my instructions,” I said, turning towards him slowly, letting him feel the weight of my stare.

  “We did as you asked!” he said, exasperated. “I left a coin here, ran there with Calder an—”

  “Even worse,” I interrupted, giving him a hard stare to let him realise his mistake of not letting me finish. “You failed to take accountability for your failure. You lied to me. To my face. What do you have to say?”

  “I didn’t lie, we checked the town, there was no—” he started, smoothing his hair back, his eyes darting frantically.

  “And you lie again!” I interrupted, ice in my voice, “Viktor, I have known you since we were children. Do you think I wouldn’t notice any differences in your behaviour? You knew there were low rankers there. Our low rankers. My low rankers. And you harmed them regardless. What if someone had died? What if someone had been crippled for the rest of their extended life?”

  He looked down, guilt seeping onto his face as he whispered quietly, “I was just trying to be like my dad. I didn’t realize it would…I just… I don’t understand… he never mentioned this part, okay?”

  He was shaking his head, as if speaking to himself, glancing back at his family portrait as if it held all the answers.

  I exhaled through my nose. What did that have to do with anything? His father was a hero. Why bring him up?

  He looked up at me, tears in his eyes, but before he could say another word, I cut through his pathetic attempt at justification like a blade.

  “Be like your father?” I scoffed internally, “Please, even my mother has told me stories of your father’s heroism. So I know that your father wouldn’t hurt his subordinates if he had any. He wouldn’t hurt anyone, as a matter of fact, beyond what was necessary. Do not use this false image of your father to justify your wrong doings.”

  He took a step back like I had slapped him. His face was a mask of utter disbelief and hurt, as if I had no idea what I was talking about, and should have known better.

  Before he could speak, I jabbed a finger into his chest, “This is your fault. Not mine, not your father’s. It is yours. Yours and Calder’s. So Viktor, this will not happen again. And you should be very thankful for the personal connection I have with you, otherwise I would already be telling the Colonel about your mistake.” I took a step closer, magnifying the slight difference in our height as I stared down at him.

  “And, this will never happen again,” I said through my teeth, “Am. I. Clear?”

  Every word I said seemed to baffle him further, like he was still processing what I had said about his father and he wasn’t given enough time to recover. But he shook his head, looked down at my feet, and just whispered quietly, “Of course Sofia. You are very clear.”

  “Good. Start packing,” I said as I walked out the barren room, right across the hall to knock on Bongi’s door.

  I heard a thud from the other side, and I raised an eyebrow internally, wondering why he would be standing so close to the door. Before I dwelled too much on it, the door was wrenched open just as Viktor’s banged close behind me.

  Bongi stood before me, standing to attention, “yes ma’am?” he said half-heartedly, seemingly prepared for the reprimand.

  “This morning, you followed my instructions to the letter. I wished to tell you that I am very pleased with your performance,” I said, mulling over the words I needed to have with Calder.

  He looked pleased, relief flooding through his face, “Thank you. I was almost scared for a mo—”

  “Yes, yes,” I interrupted, waving a dismissive hand, “I have made my displeasure clear, but you are not the one who needs to take the blame. Now. You will do another task for me. Find a B ranker named Zach Mitchel, and find out what weapons he needs for the tournament.”

  I turned away from Bongi’s annoyed expression and walked to Calder’s door.

  As I heard Bongi close his door behind me, Calder opened his, shirtless. As soon as he saw me, he sighed, standing aside to let me in.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I strode into his room, walking past the old clothes on the floor, looking at a large picture of a scantily clad woman from one of those foreign serials, and posters of every action movie that was actually allowed inside Kaleidos.

  I swept my gaze over the room, turning towards him. “You failed to obey my instructions.”

  He raised an eyebrow, mock offense on his face, “oh, really? How so?”

  I felt like I had been smacked in the face. “Where do I start? You failed to scout the area correctly. You failed to make sure that it didn’t cause collateral damage. Pray tell, how exactly did you not fail?”

  “Oh sure, that happened, but I did as you asked.” he said, leaning on the now closed door, “I created a perfect distraction, didn’t I? Hell, Bongi could have taken all the time he wanted t—”

  “You succeeded in your objective while endangering every other.” I interrupted, furious at his nonchalance, “Do you think the Colonel won't be far more vigilant of one of the only blessed with a fire based ability? Do you think that your actions haven’t drastically made our future endeavours with the low rankers infinitely more difficult if they discover what you did?” I continued, my voice dangerously low.

  His eyes narrowed, as he stood up straight and walked toward me, stopping like he had thought of something.

  “If”, he said after a moment, holding up one finger as if catching me.

  “You are not clever. Viktor said he knew, so I assume you knew. Why didn’t you abort? Why didn’t you stand down?”

  “When would we pull this off again? Tomorrow?” he shook his head, “We’re leaving tomorrow, and I don’t want that to be delayed, so there was no other time to do this. It had to be last night, despite the risk to the lower rankers.”

  I had expected this excuse. I would not allow him to think, for even a moment, that it held any merit.

  “So because you wished to avoid being inconvenienced, you burned fifty of our subordinates and endangered the very reason you were there in the first place, nearly making this entire debacle pointless?” I asked, avoiding the anger bubbling up inside me, trying to keep the mask on.

  “Oh, so you're unhappy that I accomplished what you asked? And did it in a way that wouldn’t inconvenience us?” he said, pointing at both himself and me.

  He shook his head, as if the notion was unacceptable, “Besides, it’s like my father always says, ‘if there’s someone in your way, go through ‘em,’” he continued, placing his hands on his hips as if this was an acceptable argument.

  “Firstly, do not blame me for your failure,” I said, my voice dangerously low. “Secondly, they were not in your way. They were across the street, Richard. How did you even manage to fail so badly that they were injured in the first place?”

  He shrugged, “Must have hit one massive gas leak, I guess. Besides, all of them were healed back to tip top shape, so this is just going to be a bad memory they look back on fondly,” he said, clasping his hands together, ”So, have you gone through the credentials yet? What’s the dirt on the Colonel?” he asked, as if his question was clever and not a pathetic excuse for a conversation change.

  “No, I have not gone through the credentials yet. And your pathetic attempt at trying to change the topic shows you know what you have done.” I stepped closer to him, glaring straight up into his blue eyes, “And you will not fail me again. Ever. Am I clear?”

  Rage shot through his face, but he stepped back and looked away, “Of course. Loud and clear, Sofia,” he said after a moment, nodding in surrender.

  I looked at him for a moment before I turned to the door, just as it was wrenched open and the Colonel was standing there.

  “What are you doing? Are you fucking?” he roared, the veins jutting out of his face. “Both of you, get to the warehouse right now!”

  He started banging on each and every door as I sprinted past, Richard tugging on a shirt not far behind me. The rest raced out of their rooms, as he shouted curses at us as we ran to the exercise warehouse, trying to escape his wrath.

  After we got into the building, we lined up neatly as the Colonel stomped his way up and down in front of us, his face a mask of rage and disgust.

  “I told you I would give you the day off. Then I had an idea. A much better idea.” His tone was a mixture of mockery and anger, his expression remaining fierce, “After all, how could I not thank you for your going away present?”

  My blood cooled. Did he know? No, no, impossible. If he knew, he wouldn’t leave it at just physical exercise, it would be a huge incident. This is just tradition most likely, pretend you have a free day and then take it away. Yes, nothing to do with this morning. Nothing at all.

  We glanced at each other, everyone unsure of what to do. He just continued staring at us, his eyes narrowing to slits.

  Finally, after what felt like one of the longest, most uncomfortable thirty seconds of my life, he spoke again, his voice a whisper, “Oh? Are you not accepting my gratitude? Well. I feel disrespected.”

  He covered his mouth with his hand almost playfully, but his eyes stayed locked on us. He wasn’t even blinking.

  “I guess it's time you make up for it,” he continued, “Start doing pushups. Now.”

  His face contorted into something monstrous on the last word as he tapped his shoulder.

  The weight that hit me was far worse than anything he’d thrown at us before. “I want to hear you.”

  “One!” we cried, all of us grunting with the effort.