Ascendant: Chronicles of the Red Lion Read online

  “I killed four men.” The words fell from her mouth like an anchor tossed over the side of a boat. The admission resembled a quiet and confidential confession, only the coveted phrase ‘forgive me, father, for I have sinned’ was missing.

  “I assume,” Dr. Gadot said, “in one of your strange little dreams?”

  “Yes,” Amalia whispered in response. “But it felt so real. It felt like an old memory instead of a dream. Like someone else’s body and someone else’s pleasure. Some other pain that isn’t mine, but so real to me.”

  “Nonsense.” A moment of silence stretched between them as Dr. Gadot sat staring at her, his lips pursed. “Of course it wasn’t real, despite how it felt,” he said finally. “Pleasure? Now that is interesting, and far from nonsense.”

  Amalia frowned at the wrinkled old man, vexed at his sarcasm and lack of substance. He liked to dance around issues. More often than not, he was a cruel old man that dangled carrots and teased and occasionally poked fun at her expense, then passed it off as psychotherapy.

  “Well,” he continued, “I can’t imagine something such as murder and death bothering a girl like you.” The old man rattled out a flimsy laugh. “That sort of thing, we’ll call it guilt, for now, would require you to possess a conscience. And so far, we have established in the past that you are not in possession of said conscience. It’s my job to help you conjure one up. You’ll need it in the days to come.” He sniffed quietly and put a hand to his chin. “But please continue.”

  “They deserved their deaths. All of them. I truly believed in carrying out my actions. In the dream, anyway. There was a purpose to it all.” Amalia sat forward in the chair, eager to convince him she was not some evil, soulless creature.

  “Oh?” Dr. Gadot said in feign surprise. “What did they do to deserve death? And you to deserve the task of killing them?” His eyebrows sat high on his forehead as he deliberately folded his hands in his lap.

  Amalia hesitated through her clear lack of an answer. “It’s different now,” she said.

  “So you killed them,” Dr. Gadot said with a shrug. “Much psychopathy in that course of action, you know.”

  “I didn’t mean to be—

  “Humph,” Dr. Gadot snorted. “And you come here in pursuit of sympathy and validation for the actions you took in a dream? This is therapy, child. I don’t give out sympathy and validation. Your decisions are your own to make. So I say make the damn decisions, or not. Be proud of the decisions you have made, or not. Own the consequences of those decisions, or not. Fear the decisions, or not. It matters none. And it turns out the decision you made in that dream was to kill four men.” He set his mind to think, squinting one sharp eye at her, until he retraced his words, finding an error.

  “Wait. Scratch that first part,” he said. “Make the damn decisions. Always decide. Don’t not decide. That would be plain foolish. Understood?”

  Amalia listened to the old man chewing on his pipe between words, a faint click, click of his oversized false teeth against the wooden pipe stem. “And anyway, who am I to judge your actions? Killing evil men because evil men need killing,” the old man said while stabbing his pipe through the air at her. “And who are you to judge their actions and then decide that they should die?”

  Amalia thought hard about that question. The feel of the dream was wrong. The feel of reality was also wrong. Either the dreams or reality didn’t belong to her, but to someone else, fragmented and incomplete. She could not decide which, and struggled to articulate that piece of her experience accurately. “I didn’t say they were evil men, just that I —

  “You liked it, didn’t you? I can see that from where I am sitting.” The old man puffed on his pipe to further clear his head. Although unlit, it responded with a weak whistle, like sucking through a straw. “The incidents of which you speak fail to cause you grief, and so you continue to wonder why you fall to the outer limits of human decency.” The old man paused as he searched for a word. “I’ll call it a quandary for now. You have disposed of all manners of evil in your dreams before, and we have addressed this before. Psychopathy? Perhaps we are getting somewhere.”

  Amalia bristled in irritation at the old man’s accusations. “I never said they were evil, or that I actually liked what I did. How do you even know this?”

  “Psychopathy, yes? Killing for sport, or for kicks, as it were. Or for no reason at all. That is even more concerning than the somewhat noble vanquishing of evil.” He studied her closely. “Killing evil does not define you as good,” the old man concluded. “No matter how many times you batter a man’s skull with a stick, you can’t change his mind. Besides, that’s the head, and eventually the brain, you’d be battering, but not the mind. I’m curious to know what information or revelation compelled you to take such violent measures.”

  Amalia glowered at him. She wanted to punch his nose. Then again, she nearly always had the desire to punch his nose at some point during the session. This was definitely that time.

  “So that can’t quite be it. No, no. You’re not good. Or evil. But everyone thinks they’re the good guy. You are absolutely nothing, and you want so badly to be something. And if not, then what, Miss Anders? What happens if you become nothing? Then you’ve succeeded, because even nothing is something.”

  Amalia continued to sit in silence. She heaved herself forward and stared at the floor, her hands carefully knitted in her lap. Minutes passed with not a word spoken between them. She hated the old man and his smug sarcasm, bullying tactics, and insults. But other times she felt as though she needed that level of interaction to keep from going crazy.

  The strange dreams, shifting shadows dancing in the corners of her eyes, and parts of her world appearing and disappearing had long ago ate away at her soul. She never knew what to make of it. No one did. But what was for certain was that the dreams and occasional strange images were taking a toll on her. She usually left the ‘session’ with a fresh sense of purpose. Rarer still, she left with a clearer understanding of her life. That was the only reason she continued to see him every week for as long as she could remember.

  “It’s always a game of chess with you, because as much as you might believe it to be otherwise, all of this is irrelevant. Must I insult you and make outlandish assumptions and be short with you until I stumble upon what really and truly causes your circuits to short out?” Dr. Gadot questioned.

  “That’s what you do anyway,” Amalia said in barely a whisper.

  “Hah. I suppose you’re right,” he said. “Well, if you are in no mood to divulge something of substance, then you can go.” He nodded his head toward the door and dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

  Amalia grit her teeth and pushed herself from the chair. Her mounting frustration overshadowed her ability to express with words, so she glared at him before turning to leave. The moment her hand fell upon the doorknob, she succeeded in composing herself and turned about. “Someday I really hope you—

  Where the doctor once sat mere seconds ago, there was nothing more than an empty chair next to an ashtray that held a small wooden pipe.

  “Choke on your own narcissistic awesomeness,” she finished in a whisper, more perplexed now than perturbed.

  Chapter Six

  Lacrosse was John C. Morris High School’s pride and joy, due in part to the girl’s team seating themselves in the final four every year. Amalia made varsity first draft and secured a position as a d-stick, or a defensive lineman.

  Why she liked the sport was a question she could not answer. Her body ached and protested for days after a game. Practice, and Christina Cross, came every day after school whether or not she liked it. She loved the game, so she endured.

  Lacrosse was enjoyable enough, but it took more begging and pleading to persuade her mother to let her play. ‘I don’t want you to bruise this or break that,’ her mother would say.

  Her father, on the record, was against Amalia playing, if he didn’t want to sleep on the couch. Off the record,
he supported her and was very proud of her. The closest thing to contact sports he would get from her was from watching the JCMH girls’ varsity lacrosse team get battered about on a field while they tossed a little ball to one another with long, netted sticks. That was good enough for him.

  Christina Cross always practiced opposite Amalia.

  Always.

  Amalia went out onto the field prepared for that. She had to remember her plays, her movements, and her picks and passes. Most of what was on her mind was trying to stay well away from the 210 pound, 6 foot tall monster of a girl.

  The coach blew her whistle, signaling all the girls to gather around. They did so, chattering amongst themselves about boyfriends, music, and the hottest new social media apps. Amalia wasn’t interested in anything they had to say. She felt preoccupied. More focused on… something. Whatever pulled at her attention also eluded her.

  Coach Norris cleared her throat to signal them to quiet down. Amalia grinned at the tall pear-shaped woman in her purple jumpsuit and green ball cap standing before them with her hands on wide hips. It reminded her a lot of an often red faced eggplant that covered nearby objects with spittle when it yelled. Coach Norris also had a habit of replacing swear words with various renditions of the word ‘fluff.’

  “We play Central High two weeks from Friday.” A collective set of groans escaped their throats. One girl let her stick drop to the ground in frustration as another kicked little divots in the grass with her cleats.

  The mention of Central High School sent shivers up and down all the girls’ spines. Central High was the best in the division as far as the girl’s lacrosse programs went. Playing Central High meant receiving a beating that lingered the entire school year.

  “And given our run-ins with Central High in the past, I think maybe we should try an unconventional approach. So I’ll be reassigning positions. You will train for two positions to accommodate your teammates, and to round out your skills,” Coach Norris explained.

  The girls stared, most of them disinterested. Some wore disapproval and disappointment on their faces and did not seem convinced that anything against Central High would even come close to seeing a victory. Central High’s defensive line decimated attack wings. Their opponents could not withstand the constant punishment. Central High’s coaches kept the attack wings, those players in the front, equipped with beefy, stocky girls, and it worked.

  The lineup for an attack wing sported the more agile players. So if a John Morris High player took a critical hit, she would most likely have a tough time continuing. That was Central High’s strategy, and it worked. By the end of the first half, Central High’s opposing team would most often have to consider giving up for lack of players, with a bench full of bruised and battered girls, unwilling or unable to continue. If the opposing team continued, it was with players out of their positions, like having a first baseman go to the pitcher’s mound, when he’s never pitched a game before. The results were disastrous, not to mention embarrassing. None of them looked forward to playing Central High.

  Coach Norris beckoned for the girls to come closer. “I’ll read you your primary and alternate positions. Don’t fluffing complain,” she continued, her stern tone giving the players reason enough to stay quiet. “Anders. Primary: defensive line. Secondary: attack wing striker.”

  Amalia’s heart sank. She was not pleased with her secondary, but dared to say nothing. She restricted herself during tryouts to avoid having to primary in that position. There was some relief because as a defensive lineman, she might avoid Christina Cross during their practice just a little more, but not completely.

  Christina was menacing on the field, being repeatedly penalized or tossed out of matches altogether. She played foul, hurting other players for no apparent reason. What’s worse is that Amalia had been Christina’s prime target for bullying ever since grade school.

  Unbeknown to her parents, she stood up to Christina once, and it earned her a shiny black eye. She blamed it on lacrosse, but she traded that black eye for what she hoped was some of Christina’s respect and also gave the girl a fat lip in return. The thing that bothered her most about that exchange was, to her surprise, she enjoyed fighting the giant bully enough to want to do it again and again.

  As she stood in contemplation, the shrill blare of Coach Norris’ whistle pierced the afternoon air. The girls took up their positions as Coach Norris belted out last-minute instructions and stabbed a finger to positions on the field or at other players. Amalia could not focus on the designated play, instead being more preoccupied with a figure in the bleachers she hadn’t noticed before. She squinted through the afternoon sun long enough to realize Donovan Romin sat in the corner of the bleachers, all the way at the top.

  Her heart skipped.

  Donovan Romin was a transfer student from out of state. Massachusetts, if she remembered correctly. She hadn’t gotten to know much about him, only that he was in her advanced placement biology class and often had little to say. She liked him without knowing why, but didn’t want to focus on that to keep it from sounding like a desperate crush. Amalia wondered about his mysterious nature. The solemn look he always wore also intrigued her, and that he never smiled — not at her, anyway.

  He was intelligent, given his perfect scores in her biology class, and he was as good looking as he was smart. The long, cord-like dreadlocks, positioned around the crown of his head, fell over his shoulders to cover his ears. His dark almond-shaped eyes sat perfectly over his nose. His light brown skin was smooth, and the hairless jaw rounded into the perfect chin. He also had a set of full, pink lips and she wondered, on more than one occasion, what they might feel like pressed against hers.

  Near him in the bleachers, sat a petite girl with long, dark hair. Amalia narrowed her eyes in a flash of jealous suspicion. They didn’t look like they were together. She didn’t recall Donovan ever hanging out with any other girls at the school. Still, it gave her pause. Was that Zerosa?

  “Anders!” Coach Norris yelled into Amalia’s ear. Amalia jerked to with a start, her face feeling hot with embarrassment at having slipped off into a daydream.

  “What in the universal fluff are you doing? Did you hear me?” Coach Norris yelled again.

  Amalia stood bewildered for a moment, confused. She blinked and backed away from the purple-clad coach.

  “Get your rear in position!”

  The other girls giggled.

  “My team is nothing more than a barn full of hens,” Coach Norris turned and sighed. “You. Daisy Dukes.” She pointed at one player standing along the sidelines as she stomped towards the surprised girl. “Go back to the locker room and take those plastic claws off your fingernails and for fluff’s sake, put on a pair of regulation shorts,” she said as she pointed at the long, decorated fingernails of the player.

  “You,” she said to another. “Untwist that fluffing bow out of your jersey. This isn’t fashion week over in Paris and nobody wants to see your fluffing belly button in a lacrosse match.”

  “And you,” she continued as she jabbed a finger at another player. “Wash that gunk off your face. You look like a fluffing circus clown.”

  The girls tried to hide their embarrassment, and Coach Norris was back to being in a foul mood. Her cool temper earlier may have been her way of extending her sympathies at the team having to lose to Central High yet again. But that sympathy was short-lived, and more than likely was a ploy to toughen them up.

  As Amalia and her teammates moved into position, a blanket of dread washed over her. As expected, Christina took position on the opposite side of the field. Christina’s eyes bored holes into her, and she knew what that meant.

  Christina’s six foot tall frame loomed over all the other players. She stuck out in a crowd. Not only for the height, but for the way her enormous head sat on a stumpy neck that seemed to disappear into her jersey between a set of wide shoulders. Her eyes, close set and dark, looked like two black marbles sunken way too deep into a flat, round, a
nd pasty sun-starved face. Her hair was altogether another matter, red and matted and sparse as it was. And she smelled faintly of coconut.

  Christina was mean, loud, aggressive, and always angry. She had no friends. Most of the students avoided her stomping through the halls at school, or just got out of the way. They called her Criss-Cross behind her back, a play on her name. And if she found out, that person would get a beating they soon did not forget, girl and boy alike.

  Amalia liked to think she was not afraid of Christina so much as she pitied her. She remembered an incident in the seventh grade where she sat on a bench next to Christina, who was crying after having arrived to school with green hair. The day before, Christina gained a nickname that the other kids put to song: the red-head gingerbread.

  The day after the green hair debacle, Christina arrived to school bald-headed with a too-small knitted beanie stretched over her scalp. The beanie and baldness made things much worse for her. She couldn’t win.

  Amalia tried to befriend the ostracized Christina by consoling her, but Christina screamed at her to go away and pushed Amalia to the ground. So Amalia stopped trying. Soon after, Christina changed. She got meaner. A lot meaner.

  Over the years, Christina’s anger intensified. Her involvement in lacrosse helped channel that anger. She could hit and shove others in relative safety since it was something she would not receive discipline for. Amalia and the rest of the team tried their best to stay out of her way when she was barreling down the field. She didn’t just hit other players. She flattened them.

  Coach Norris’ whistle pierced the air again to signal the start of practice. The players shuffled about, passing the ball between them and yelling positions or commands or words of encouragement. Coach Norris yelled and pointed and jumped up and down in frustration, like she always did during practice and matches.