Breaking Free: Chapter 10

Vladimir groaned softly when he turned around on the cold floor. The entire night through he had been waking up every hour, partly because he didn’t trust Dave around Ksenia and partly because the ground was just a very uncomfortable place to sleep. The cold had seeped through his sheet in less than ten seconds and the hard cement made sure that he felt like a wreck after a few hours.

He slowly sat up and stretched his very stiff muscles. The room was still pitch dark but if his instincts weren’t fooling him, then the light would soon go on. Not a minute later it did.

Vladimir squinted his eyes and let them get used to it slowly. When he was finally able to look around without hurting anything, he stood up and stretched himself fully. He groaned again and sighed deeply. Getting up before 6 should have been a crime.

Dave turned around on his bed and didn’t even bother to open his eyes. He softly mumbled a not so very friendly word and hid his face in his pillow. Ksenia lay very still on his own bed in a foetus position, eyes closed and a regularly slow breathing. He couldn’t help but smile a little at how adorable and innocent she looked.

The doors would open in a few minutes, meaning he didn’t have a lot of time to waste and he softly stroked her back.

“Wake up, dear.”

A soft smile played around her lips and instead of opening her eyes, she curled up even more. Dave was now looking at him with that old annoying grin on his face that he had seen way too much for his own taste. Not a lot of things changed around here, except for the number of people that were in labour or in camp.

“Come on, Ksenia. You have to get back to your own room before the guards see you.”

She groaned softly and the smile dissapeared from her lips as if she finally realized where she was. He couldn’t really blame her. The dreams were almost the only good things left here. Ksenia stretched her legs and slowly opened her eyes.

“Come on, wakey wakey. We don’t have all day.”

He nudged her shoulder a bit less tender but when she didn’t really react, he softly grabbed both her shoulders and easily tilted her up. She looked rather annoyed as she tried to find her own balance.

“Is that really the best way you could think of for waking me?”

Normally it really amused Vladimir when people had a cranky morning attitude but the clock was ticking and he felt his muscles getting tenser.

“There’s no time for a wake-up kiss right now, sleeping beauty.”

He pushed her towards the door and waited quietly for the soft click. It could be any minute now.

“What are you doing?”

Her eyes were still half closed and she was leaning against his shoulder, too tired to even notice the physical contact.

“Shh, waiting for it to unlock.”

“Mm..”

Vladimir couldn’t help but smile as her eyes fully closed again and her full body weight was now leaning on him. It wasn’t much, luckily, so he didn’t bother to push her off. When the soft click finally sounded, Vladimir grabbed Ksenia’s hand, opened the door and pulled her as fast as he could to Lily’s room. She almost stumbled but found her balance back just in time.

After having pushed her into the room, Vladimir quickly turned around and sprinted back to his own.

The morning bell rang, just as he closed the door behind him.

Not bad, not bad at all…

* * * * * * *

“Ksenia!!”

Lily threw both her arms around her before Ksenia even had the chance to turn around and wake up. A soft chuckle escaped from her lips and if she had been having any hard feelings towards this girl, they for sure were gone now.

“I’m so sorry. I am such an evil bad despicable human being. You think you can ever forgive me?”

She looked at Ksenia with huge puppy eyes which even the coldest heart wouldn’t be able to resist.

“Don’t worry about it, dear. Vladimir took good care of me.”

Lily sighed in relief and squeezed Ksenia a bit tighter before letting go. She was smiling her adorable smile again, this time with an amused spark in her eyes.

“Sooo, you and Vladimir, hm?”

It was going to take a while before Ksenia would be used to the bluntness of this young girl. She was raised to hide the hard truth in little pretty words and with the “mind your own business” rule. Obviously this girl came from a whole different kind of household.

Ksenia let out an awkward chuckle.

“No, we just met! I don’t…I, no. I mean he’s really good looking and stuff. I mean, no…Not that I’ve been checking him out like that, or something. I, uhh…not that he isn’t attractive in that way or something! Don’t get me wrong, he’s very good looking! I just don’t see him that way…yet…or something like that.”

Ksenia inhaled deeply and made a mental note to slap herself in the face as soon as she was alone.

Congratulations on the most convincing speech ever, Ksenia. You should be so proud of your mega talented self.

Lily’s smile had turned big and evil, something Ksenia had already expected and which only proved even more that she was in trouble. It was the same smile that her friends would put up, every time her crush walked by.

Jordan.

He looked like such a boy now, compared to Vladimir, but she still felt a painful itch when thinking about him. Jordan had been a big part of her life for quite some time and she didn’t easily forget the good memories of someone. The bad ones, however, seemed to disappear too easily and too fast. It’s one of the biggest reasons why she kept letting the same people hurt her over and over again.

Ksenia had decided to change that in this camp though, or to at least try.

“You are now in the what we call: Denying Phase. Soon you’ll be randomly writing his name down everywhere and sigh whenever he walks by.”

Lily seemed very content with her revelation and pulled Ksenia out of the room, towards the showers.

“You are so wrong.”

…I think.

Lily chuckled loudly and ignored the annoyed looks, coming from the sleepy mass of teens. Ksenia was jealous of how careless this young girl lived her life. Lily didn’t seem to care at all about how others thought of her. If only she could be like that herself. It would make her life so much more pleasant.

“I don’t care what you say, Mrs. Ethans. Time will prove me right. You just wait and see.”

Someone cleared his throat behind them.

“Next time you marry me off to someone, I would like to know about it.”

Ksenia let out a small squeal and turned around.

Vladimir.  

This was more embarrassing than yesterday. Way more embarrassing.

“She was just being silly, don’t believe anything she says.” Ksenia quickly replied while trying to keep herself from horribly blushing. Lily was very obviously enjoying this.

“She said that you are very good looking.”

She is going to pay for that.

Vladimir raised his eyebrow and shifted his attention back to Ksenia with a very amused smile on his face.

“I didn’t say that.”

She buried her nails in her arm and looked down to hide her warm cheeks.

“Ouch, that kind of hurts.”

Ksenia was surprised to see Vladimir look at the ground with a disappointed stare. Had she really just offended this very handsome guy on his looks? The guilt started tugging on her heart. She could be such a meanie sometimes.

“Not that you aren’t handsome! I mean, you are really good looking. It’s just-”

Vladimir put his hand on hers and pulled it away from her arm. Ksenia looked up and saw a very amused grin on his face.

“Sweetheart, I was just teasing you. I know how annoying Lily can be. She always sticks her nose in the places where it doesn’t belong.”

He chuckled softly and walked away.

As soon as he was out of hearing reach, Lily burst out in a fit of giggles and pushed Ksenia towards one of the counters that were positioned next to every shower.

“The look on your face: priceless!”

She was still blushing, but now from embarrassment, as she softly chuckled at Lily´s behavior. She didn’t know this girl well enough to get mad at her, or to at least fake it.

“Okay, you need to go wait in line in front of one of the counters and they’ll give you a clean overall and a towel. Then you’ll have 5 minutes to shower, so no time to waste. There’s a hole in the left wall, it’s where you can dump your old overall and your towel, once you’re done with it. And that’s all you need to know.”

After ten minutes of standing in line, it was finally Ksenia’s turn to shower. The male behind the counter asked for her number and looked rather annoyed when all she could give him was a name.

“I need your number, not your name.”

Ksenia started to panick a bit and tried to explain that no one had never given her any number.  Lily seemed to have magically dissapeared in that one second that she really needed her.

“It’s the number of your room with either a 1 or a 2 behind it, depending on whether you were the first or second to get assigned to that room.”

The male looked at her expectantly while tapping his fingers impatiently on the wooden desk.

“Uhh, it’s 82...2, I think.”

The guy behind the counter let out a deep sigh and dissapeared into the huge room behind him where all the overalls were stalled. He quickly returned with the right overall, clean undergarments and a navy blue towel. Ksenia slipped into the shower and closed the heavy door behind her with a relieved sigh.

The water was cold and the soap was very obviously guys’ soap, but she felt a lot better after refreshing herself. Ksenia threw on the overall and noticed that it had the number ‘882’ on her back. She hated the idea of being nothing more than a number to these people. It was as if she had lost her own identity.

After everyone was done showering, another bell rang and Lily suddenly popped up next to Ksenia.

“Breakfast, come on.”