Chapter Fifty

Viktoriya could not take it.

No, she could not deal with it anymore.

She watched her parents become strangers over the past few years, thinking she was broken and in need of help. Help that she did not need, nor could they provide if she did.

She paced frantically in her mom’s office, trying to gain focus on her thoughts.

Her relationship with her parents had started affectionately, trying to navigate between saving the world and saving her. Still, they grew even more distant with every day that passed, more than they realized.

She was breaking.

Every piece of her was cruelly bruised by the thought of what had just transpired.

They would not even stop to consider her solution. They were too sucked in believing that she was not stable. They could not consider she could have come up with something ingenious.

“I’m not the one that needs help; THEY are!”

Her head spun. What had just happened had slowly become overwhelming, and the urge to scream was almost like a metallic taste on her lips, but she wouldn’t let it out.

“I need to slow down. Slow down. I need to breathe. Breathe.”

She wouldn’t give in to the distraction.

No, not anymore. She stood there thinking about her mother’s disappointed eyes and her father, who had barely stopped to listen to her. She was not crazy, and she knew it. And if they wouldn’t consider what she had to say, then she would have to prove it to them.

She had to. She must.

“Everything okay, Viktoriya?” CLEFF asked.

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She did not turn to him. Instead, she stood there, head front, her eyes glued to the path her parents had just passed even though it was now empty.

“They did not believe me. They did not even want to think about it for even a moment,” she burst out.

“I am sorry, Viktori-Ya.” CLEFF was about to continue when she cut in.

“No! I won’t let them treat me like one of their science projects. I am not broken. They are the ones that are broken!” she yelled, just before storming off.

CLEFF slapped his hand to his head with a clank, then followed her. He called her softly twice, but she continued her pace into the hall, where she had dropped her backpack. Each step made a rhythmic, almost musical note on the hallway tile. She grabbed her backpack, lifted it from the floor to her shoulder, then paused.

“I am NOT defeated, and I do not need your forgiveness or your cooperation!” she shouted, staring down at the hallway floor.

“Viktori-Ya, what are you doing? Who are you speaking to?” CLEFF asked, standing beside her.

She began sobbing, stomping the floor, then raised her backpack over her head before slamming it on the tile in front of her.

“You… Stupid floor! Stupid, single-cell! I’m finished! I’m not scared of you anymore! I am not afraid to be who I am! I’m not hiding myself any longer. It is time for you to be afraid of me! I am who I say I am!”

Viktoriya fell to her knees and punched the tile with her CyberArm, cracking the floor beneath her blow.

“Viktori-Ya?” CLEFF called again as his eyes turned bright white. He had never seen her that way, and even now, the most advanced of programs could not help him.

He was worried

if that was even possible. But he was.

His girl was hurting, and although his programming existed to protect her, there was no protecting her from herself.

CLEFF stood there, asking the only question he knew could offer a solution.

“What can I do, Vik?”

“You’ve done enough, CLEFF,” she replied. She looked at him for the first time since she became agitated, then soothed his arms. “I have to do this one alone.”

“No, you do not,” CLEFF retorted, holding her firmly with both hands. “I will go with you, even if I don’t have a part to play in it. You are my friend. Friends should be there for each other. Do this for me, remember? I am your friend. I need you to do this for me, even if for no one else,” he said.

The words eased her feelings, causing her to smile. Perhaps it was the happiest she had been in a while.

“I will. I’ll do this for you, my friend.”

His eyes brightened. It was his way of smiling at Viktoriya.

“So, what’s the plan?” he asked.

She jerked back to reality. “I will have to prove to the entire board that my mother is wrong, and I am right,” she said, moving toward the elevator.

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

A sideways smile grew on her face as she continued to walk, with CLEFF following behind.

“I will show them who I am.”