Rise of a Valkyrie

Part 54

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Rose was sat up in her hospital bed, smiling ear to ear as Kayla entered. She fidgeted around while they talked; a sign, Kayla realized, of the frustration of being trapped in a bed for weeks with nothing to do.

"How much longer do you have to stay here?" she asked.

Rose pulled a face. "Another month. I keep telling them I can walk around just fine, but they say the fracture is still fragile. And they don't let me outside. I'm going crazy in this place, honestly."

Kayla winced. "I can imagine. Did they assign you a unit yet?"

"Nope. A bunch of slots got filled while I was out, so I'm just hanging around... waiting to hear my fate. How's the Mountain Battalion?"

"It's so awesome," Kayla gushed. "All we do is shoot, and climb, and train. They push us really hard." She rolled her up sleeve to show off the blood-red streak beneath. "Check that out."

Rose scrunched up her face. "Gross. It sounds great—I hope I get a unit like that."

"You will. They know to send girls to the right places," Kayla assured her. "Speaking of which, did you hear anything about Christie?"

"She stopped by a couple of days ago, but wouldn't say what she was doing. She's getting all mysterious these days."

Kayla laughed. "Yeah, I bet they stuck her in some super-secret spy program, and now she's living her dream."

Rose smiled mischievously. "Shut the door."

Kayla couldn't repress a grin as she did so. Rose sounded like she was going to break a rule, and Kayla was eager to see it. She took a seat on the bed, eyes wide.

"I promised I wouldn't say anything," Rose said, "but I do know that she's going to be on Caldera."

Kayla raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

"She said she was going to get an up-close view of your 'fascinating culture'."

Kayla took on a condescending expression and mimicked Christie's accent. "I am, of course, your intellectual, moral, and spiritual better, but please know that I do think of you as a friend."

They both laughed.

"I can't wait until we can all hang out again," Rose said, then looked away as her cheeks flushed.

"Yeah, that would be great," Kayla said, but the awkwardness remained. Something was bothering her friend, and she needed a way to lift her spirits. "Thandi is excited to visit you on her way out," she tried.

Rose's eyes moistened. "I can't stop thinking about... about how I treated you, Kayla," she said quietly. "I'm so sorry."

Kayla was stunned. Hadn't they put that behind them? She put a reassuring hand on Rose's shoulder. "Hey, come on, it's over—lost to the past."

"No, I just—now I've had time to think about it... We should have been friends. We were almost friends."

"I know, but you were caught up in your world, and I was angry all the time, and we were just kids. Kids are dumb," Kayla said and laughed.

Rose looked down. "They gave the presentation that first night, and it changed everything for me. Whatever the flaws of Helvetic society may be, I genuinely believed that it was my duty to make the world a better place, whatever it took. Maybe that's why I was so cruel, because—" she sniffed. "Because I thought we had to get rid of people like you. That's what they wanted me to think.