She was so warm. Her hand curled slightly
and her blue eyes fluttered open, even as she burrowed deeper into the warmth.
Smiling vaguely, she stretched her arms above her head, stifling a yawn.
"Matron," she murmured," I had a strange dream." Then her
eyes focused. She frowned. When had Matron put such a fancy chandelier in the
girls' room? Her arms reached out and touched only sheets. Silk
sheets. Empty silk sheets. Where was Sefie?
Quistis
sat up, quickly, surveying her surroundings. Not the orphanage and
Where's Seifer?
The thought made her look around
frantically then stiffen, and she bit her lip. Hesitantly she climbed out of
the bed, not wanting to leave its warm comfort, but forcing herself to do so.
Oh, the training of an elite military force. She stood in the center of the
room.
The bed dominated the room, a huge
pile of feathers, silk, and cotton, in shades of blue, ranging from sky to
She saw her face fill with shock as
she looked at herself. Her bright blue eyes, more indigo than usual,
heavy-lidded and sexy from the shadows of sleeping in make-up, enlarged and she
saw her white hand reach up and smooth a lock of golden hair. It had fallen out
of its style while she slept and now hung gently tousled around her oval face.
Her hand went to the plunging neckline of a rose-colored slip. The spaghetti
straps were loose on her strong shoulders, the right strap sliding off. The
slip came to her knees, but still showed off her long shapely legs, and though
it was loose, it clung in exactly the right places, and revealed every perfect
shadow. It looked as if she's just awakened from a passionate night of
love-making. Not that she’d ever done
so.
Where's Seifer?
Angry because of the connection
between the two thoughts, Quistis stalked to the
bathroom door and slammed it behind her. She slid to the floor and hugged her
knees, glistening blue eyes the only feature visible.
Where's Seifer?
Seifer
awoke with a start at the burning sensation in his jaw. Hyne,
it felt like someone had set off a Firaga in his cheek!
Unsure of his surroundings, he kept the pain inside himself. As he always did.
HE waited, impatiently, while his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, then stiffened in alarm.
"I know this place," he muttered. It was a dark room with poles
around the perimeter. He was in the center lying on a small cot. He looked up
but there were no floating bodies, and he let out the breath he didn't know
he'd been holding. "All right." Seifer swung his legs over the side, his feet touching the
floor instantly.
An alarm went off, one inside his
head, the other inside the room. More from habit than from training, Seifer pushed off the cot, leaping for the wall. And just
in time, too. Spikes, large, metal ones, came hurtling through the circular
floor in the middle of the room. Green eyes large with unconcealed anger and
fear, Seifer swallowed and leaned against the wall.
A door across from him slid open,
and immediately, he put a smirk on his face and tucked his hands behind his
head, as if he hadn't a care in the world. A light went on, but he didn't blink
an eyelash, instead staring at the person who'd entered the room.
"Impressive," Lila
remarked, making notes on a clipboard. "Your reflexes are amazing, as are
your recovery skills. Most people would have been out for hours after one of my
Sleeps. You woke up after thirty minutes!" Hazel eyes filled with delight,
she looked him over and then down at the clipboard. "Correct me if any of these are wrong. Six feet two inches, 190 pounds." At that, she tried to
hide a pleased smile. "Born December 22, twenty years old, blood type O,
blonde hair?"
"Impressive," he mimicked,
smirking, but his body was tense. How did they find all that out in thirty
minutes? His green eyes darted furtively around, catching sight of the computers
on one side of the room, before returning to Lila's slight form.
She eyes him warily. "Eyes...blue or green?"
"Depends on
my mood. No scans could tell you that?" Seifer's
voice lowered to a dangerous level, that was nonetheless, very sensual, and
Lila unconsciously took a step back. "What would have happened," he
continued ominously," if my reflexes weren't amazing, Lila?"
Worry visible in her revealing eyes,
Lila straightened her shoulders, unsure of how to approach that. Sighing, she
simply opened her mouth to see what would come out of it. "Then you'd be
dead." She tilted her head. "You wouldn't be any good to us if your
reflexes were slow." Then she kicked herself inwardly. He was already
acting unstable.
A scowl was beginning to cross his
handsome face. "And the reason for my other vital
statistics?" He had the feeling he already knew the answer and that
he wasn't going to like it.
"If we need to get rid of you,
or in case we need to hunt you down." That was clever, she scolded
herself. Normally you lie just fine. Why is making you so nervous?!
Pushing himself off the wall, Seifer strode toward her, eyes full of fire. She held her
ground at first, but as he neared, she began to back up, the anger in his eyes
scaring her to death. Her legs banged the edge of the cot and she lost her
balance, stumbling to a sitting position. His face lowered to hers, and caught
in the green depths of his gaze, she closed her eyes, mouth parting in
anticipation-was he going to kiss her?! "Zell..."
she breathed.
His breath fluttered over her face
as he whispered," Why would you need to hunt me down, Lila?"
Lila's eyes popped open. "Wh-What?"
she managed.
Seifer
stood almost two feet away from her, arms folded with a smirk on his handsome
face that said he knew exactly what she wanted. Lila was beginning to hate that
smirk. "Slaves don't need to be hunted down. Besides, we proved that we
couldn't escape."
"Escapees do," she brushed
her hair out of her face, angry with herself for her reaction and hating him
for the way he made her feel. "And those who know too
much. And their friends." Lila glared at
him to regain her composure. "No one escapes, though. At
least from that test. It's a test, so we have everyone standing by in
case of probably success. If it hadn't been a test, you probably would
have."
"And this is the torture
chamber for those who dare to defy your brother."
"It's the infirmary!"
"Is that what they call it
now?" Seifer sized her up, brazenly. "The
little virgin girls wants to play doctor."
Shaking with resentment, Lila hopped
off the cot. "I am NOT a little virgin girl!" Realizing what she's
said, she turned bright red. "I mean, I am-um, well-"
"So what you're telling me is
that spikes coming out of the floor is a normal part of the healing
process?" Seifer changed the subject abruptly.
"Uh-"
"And I'm sure the bright lights
also aid the patients."
"I-"
"Tell me, do you kill off all
of the people who agree to join you?"
Seifer
easily sidestepped the thrown clipboard, and it clattered to the ground.
Sardonically, Seifer picked it up and tucked it into
one of his pockets, while Lila looked around for something else to throw.
"Or only the ones that might be a little stronger than you want?"
"We don't kill them!" Lila
spat. "They kill themselves! If they don't care enough about their lives
to move quickly enough, they wanted to die!" Her hazel eyes began to glow
with an angry and unearthly light, and she clenched her fists.
Seifer
threw back his head and laughed bitterly. Green eyes pinned Lila to the floor.
"Are you serious? Or just delusional?!" he scoffed. "Not
everyone has good instincts or the kind of body to move like that! Most people
wouldn't expect spikes to come shooting through the floor because they stepped
on it."
"Idiot!"
She flung herself at him, pounding his chest with her small hands. "We
don't submit them to this test if their bodies or minds can't handle it! That's
why we scan everyone!"
Seifer
raised an eyebrow at the tiny girl who was raining down blows with no sign of
fatigue. "And what do you do to the others?"
"We don't even let them in past
the stairs!" she cried out, before bringing her hands to her sides,
staring at the floor. "The stairs have a built-in Scan. If people don't
pass, we take them back up and cast Rapture." She twisted her hands together.
"You and Rinoa passed. The first test was
getting out of the cell. This was the second test."
Rinoa? Seifer
blinked. Rinoa wasn't-Quistis?!
"Rinoa's
going through this, too?!" Furious, Seifer
advanced on Lila, intent on ripping her throat out.
"No!" she threw her hands,
whether in defense or exasperation, she didn't know. "Her mind was
clouded! The Scan wouldn't work, except on her physical attributes. We
concluded that even if her body could handle the test, maybe her mind couldn't."
"And?!"
"And what?"
Lila was pouting. She really hadn't meant to give that much away, but he had
such a dizzying effect on her. To steady herself, she clutched the cot.
"What. Are.
You. Doing. To. Her," Seifer ground out
between his teeth.
"I'm not telling." Now
that was mature, Lila chided herself. But she really didn't feel like being
mature.
"Oh, you'll tell," Seifer leaned over her, eyes lit with green fire. "Or
I'll kill you and find her myself." The look on his face told her that he
wasn't joking, but she tried to hold out.
"I'm a sorceress," she
began weakly, but was cut off by a gloved hand being slashed through the air. Whimpering, she tried again. "You
wouldn't be able-" This time the fist hit the bed with a resounding clang
that echoed in the circular empty room. "You can't-" The fist rose
again and she closed her eyes, bracing herself for the imminent blow. But it
never came. Warily, she cracked one eye open.
Seifer was
tapping away on one of the computers. Instantly in motion, Lila leapt toward
him. "NO! What are you doing?!" Seifer
turned, catching the feminine projectile in his arms. The only evidence that
she'd touched him with any force at all was the sound of colliding bodies.
However, he didn't move an inch, instead just looking down at the brunette in
his arms. She stared up at him, helplessly, as she realized just how strong he
was. "Stop," she told him, half-heartedly.
"Where's Rinoa?"
he demanded, but softly. "Tell me or I will dismantle this entire computer
program to find out."
"I can't-"
Before she could finish, her lips
were crushed against his. Any anger in her immediately dissipated, and she
sagged against him, losing herself in the fullness of his lips. Then, just as
suddenly, she was released, and she staggered.
"Where's Rinoa?"
he murmured.
Dazed, Lila raised a hand to her
lips, and then looked at the blonde man leaning against the computer desk. She
opened her mouth and hit a button on the computer with her eyes. A map of the
facility popped up on the screen, and she closed her eyes, running through the
commands in her mind. Then she opened them, and pointed at the screen.
"She's in there."
But Seifer
was already gone. The door leading out swung shut.