Chapter Text
Katie cradled the last pink tulip in her hands.
All the other tulips from Tomate’s engagement bouquet had completely wilted. This one was limp and paleish, but still holding on. The rest were lost causes, fully bent over and dried up. She desperately wanted to save them, but she didn’t know how. Since the wedding, she had to just sit there and watch them slowly wilt away, and she was powerless to do anything about it. She could change the water, bathe them in sunlight, but they wilted anyway. If the tulips had been fake, they would’ve stayed alive forever, but what was the point of fake flowers? Katie guessed that this was the point.
She would never get another bouquet of pink tulips.
This was it.
This was all she had left alive.
This tulip in her palms.
It probably only had a day or two left.
Then he would be gone.
Katie gently caressed the petals between her fingers. They were soft and frail. She didn’t want to hurt it, but she couldn’t stop touching it. She needed to savour it while it lasted.
She reluctantly placed it back into the wilted bouquet and picked up his vows. She had read his vows so many times that she didn't need to look at them anymore—she could recite it from memory—but she just wanted to see his handwriting. She liked to imagine him writing out each word with a soft smile on his flushed face. It made her stomach churn.
That stomach churning had become a common feeling for Katie. Everything made her sick. On Monday, she skipped her lectures and called out sick to basketball practice so she could grow moldy from all of her tears while lying on her dorm room floor, but she eventually had to drag herself out to eat. While trudging back to her dorm room, she spotted a cameraman across the main quad. She felt all of the weight dissolve off her shoulders, and she started sprinting over to him. Then, she noticed the yellow shirt and its uncanny face. It had Tomate’s face, but it was leaner and carried itself differently. It was rigid and rough, no softness in its features. She nearly threw up on the grass watching it hold his camera, doing his job, as if nothing had happened the night before.
Katie had also received tons of texts on Monday. Almost everyone she knew tried reaching out in some capacity. She ignored them. Seeing so many people say “sorry about what happened” or “are you okay” or “let me know if you need anything” just served as reminders of what happened, catapulting her back in time to be just as useless as she had been in the moment, watching the horror unfold but being powerless to change it. By Friday, most people had stopped texting. They’d moved on already. Katie couldn’t understand how.
Don was the first and one of the only people actually to stop by her dorm to check on her. Monday evening, a knock at the door startled Katie from her dissociated staring at the ceiling. Her body was too heavy to stand up and open the door, though. Not like she wanted to open it. After a minute of silence, another knock with more ferocity. Then pounding. She didn’t want the pounding to annoy the other people on her floor, so she forced herself to get up and open the door. Don tackled her into a firm hug and profusely apologized for not being there to protect her. He forced himself into her dorm and filled her minifridge with her favourite foods and stayed with her throughout the night. He also escorted her around campus on Tuesday, forcing her to get dressed and go to her lectures.
Tuesday evening, Mike swung by and also apologized for not being able to do more for Katie or Tomate that night. After Katie ran into the forest, Mike had run after her but got lost in the dark maze of trees. He finally found her as she was gripping Tomate’s promise ring and vows in her hands and sobbing so hard she was dry heaving. Apparently, he drove her back to her dorm, but she couldn’t remember much.
As Katie and Mike hung out in her dorm, she felt her sadness shift into anger. She thought back to all the times Tomate had been forbidden from doing anything on his own, forbidden from having connections with anyone, forbidden from speaking. She never got to know the full extent of what they had been doing to him. Her tears became hot, blazing down her face. She wanted revenge.
She wanted to obliterate The Federation.
Katie set his vows back down on her bedside table next to the wilted bouquet. She felt like a caged rat in her dorm room. She didn’t have it in her to do anything, but the inactivity was killing her. She had never been so still for so long throughout her entire life. Son and Mike’s visits were nice because she didn’t have to do much, but she could rant and rave to her heart’s content.
She opened up her Messages app for the first time since the wedding and texted the most Fed-hating person she knew:
🪻
ash
Monday 1:09 AM
Hey, is everything okay?
I came back to the wedding but everything is ruined by rain and nobody’s here.
Did you get a ride back to your dorm?
Monday 10:46 AM
Katie?
Are you okay?
Ewron said something happened to Tomate.
Please come to The Regime when you can.
Tuesday 3:17 PM
Please answer me.
I don’t want to pry, but I want to know if you’re okay.
I’m here for you.
Wednesday 9:13 PM
i want to kill the federation
Coming over now.
Five minutes later, Ash stood in front of her door, breathing heavily.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Supreme Leader.”
“Can I come in?”
“Of course.”
Katie left the door open for him and flopped back down onto her bed.
Ash stepped into her dorm slowly, his eyes sweeping over the room. She hadn’t realized how messy her room had become over just three days. Clothes were scattered across the floor, pictures of Tomate were spread across every surface, dead flowers were decaying on her bedside table. Ash’s eyes narrowed at the pictures, but softened when he met Katie’s tearful gaze.
“I’m ready to kill The Federation,” she scowled.
“As excited as that makes me to hear, I need you to just slow down for a minute.” He sat on the other empty bed and rested his chin on his interlaced fingers. “What happened? I know that Tomate died, but how?”
“The fucking Feds! Some officer showed up and grabbed him, and then there was a big ass flashbang of thunder, and he was gone! His own family struck him down! Then, the officer came back and laughed in my face! What the fuck is wrong with them? We need to do something! Rally the troops or some shit!”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Listen, Katie… I don’t want to say that I told you so or that The Federation are the lowest of the lows and anyone at all a part of it are absolute scum, but…” he sighed and rubbed his face. “Ugh, okay… I didn’t want to pull you into this part of The Regime since it’s a bit above your position, but killing the Feds has kinda been the whole point of The Regime. For compliance reasons, we had to market the club as a civil group against campus surveillance, but there’s so much more behind the scenes than I can legally admit. Are you solid that you want to go down this path?”
“Solid as rock can be.”
Ash studied her face, probably looking for any signs of reluctance or deceit, but she was dead serious.
“Okay. I guess I’ll just say it. I’ve killed a Fed cameraman before.”
“... Like…” Katie mimicked a stabbing motion.
“Yes.”
“Damn.”
“Well, sort of. Last year, with The Regime. We wore disguises just in case the camera would catch who we were. We were on the top floor of the fine arts building, and we pretended like something crazy was happening outside so it would come to the window. Then, they broke the window while I pushed it out. I’ll spare you the details, but it died on impact. The important part of that story is that Federation members are killable.”
Ash’s story combined with his hatred for Tomate made Katie wonder if he would’ve… or wanted to… he probably did. Maybe it would’ve been a less painful death than whatever Tomate endured at the hands of The Federation. Or maybe not. She had no way of knowing.
Maybe he wasn’t dead.
“Do you think you could actually go through with something like that?”
“What?”
“Killing one of them.” Ash stared at her gravely. Sometimes she would forget that he was younger than her with how serious and mature he could get. “All the Feds that I’ve encountered, besides Cucurucho, have looked the same. Same faces. Could you pull the trigger on something that had the same face as your husband?”
The new cameraman popped into her head. She almost threw up just seeing it from afar, so killing one?
She imagined herself putting a gun to its head. Her imaginary hand trembled, finger hovering over the trigger. Its face was blank as if it didn’t care whether it lived or died. If this were real, that probably wouldn’t be the case. It would probably cry. Tomate cried before he disappeared. He didn’t want to die. He wanted more than his constantly surveilled life. Katie's stomach tightened.
He looked nothing like this new cameraman. He looked nothing like Pepino. He was soft and tender and caring and sweet and nothing like any of the other Feds.
“I could,” she said, voice slightly wavering as her eyes filled with hot tears.
Ash’s gaze fell to the ground between them.
“I…” His mouth hung open as if he was on the verge of saying something, but nothing more came out. “… You made me look weak. By marrying a Fed. But… have I told you about my daughter?”
“Ghosty? Yeah, Ewron killed her.”
He briefly glared at her before redirecting his gaze back to the ground. “Well, earlier today, I did… a ritual. To revive her. I don’t think it worked, but maybe… that’s… a path you could take?” As Ash spoke, it almost seemed like he was in pain, as if it took everything in him to spit these words out. “The main thing we’d need is his body, but we could, like, break into Fed facilities and see if we can get it back? Wait— How do you know for sure that he’s dead?”
“I mean, it was pretty obvious. What else would they do with him after he broke their rules?”
“The Feds are infamous for their kidnappings. Did you see them hurt him at all?”
“The officer grabbed him very aggressively.”
“That’s it?”
“I don’t like your tone.”
“No, I— I’m sorry that happened to him, but was that all that you saw them do to him?”
“The officer came back later and handed me his vows that had blood all over it.”
“But no body?”
“No.”
“Katie, the Feds are ruthless! If they wanted to kill him, they would’ve made sure to do it right in front of your eyes as you helplessly watched. They didn’t kill him, they just kidnapped him.”
She had had a small voice in the back of her head saying that he might not be dead, but she had kept assuming it was some bullshit unconscious coping method and kept shoving it down. What Ash was saying made sense, though. No body, no death.
Katie sat up straight on her bed and took a deep breath. “Okay! So, how do we get there?”
“The Fed facilities? I have, but I don’t know if he would be there. I think Ewron broke into one before as well. He showed me some pictures he took from inside there, and it might be worth looking at.”
Katie pulled out her phone to text him.
“Wait!” Ash jumped off the bed, holding his hand up. “I have something to tell you about Ewron.”
Katie froze, phone still in hand. “What?”
“He really hates you.”
“Hate? I know we’re not on the best of terms, but hate is kinda crazy.”
“He said that my first mistake was recruiting you to The Regime and that you marrying a Fed makes The Regime as a whole look weak.”
“Fuck him! I’m gonna go talk to him about this.”
“Don’t tell him that I told you that.”
“Why not?”
She was already pulling up Ewron in her Messages app.
“We… it’s complicated right now. I need to… are you texting him right now?”
“... Boom! I’m gonna beat his ass!”
Ash grabbed the phone from her hand.
🙃
bestie
Wednesday 9:25 PM
wow…
what
ash just told me what you said about me…
I thought we were besties…..
“What the fuck?” he exclaimed.
“What? It’s just a text!”
Katie reached for her phone, and Ash pushed her hand away.
“I told you not to say I said anything!”
“He would’ve figured it out anyway!”
“Ugh, Katie!” he whined.
They roughhoused over her phone for a minute, desperately trying to take her phone but also not hurt each other in the process. Katie snatched it, layed on her bed, and kept him at a distance with her legs. Ash rolled his eyes and sat back on the other spare bed.
“Can I say this, Katie?” he said annoyedly. “You have such low standards. I truly never saw what you saw in Tomate.”
“I know you didn’t, and I don’t care! He’s hot and sexy!”
“There are so many other… hot and sexy guys out there that aren’t a part of The Federation!”
Katie’s phone lit up in her hand.
“Ewron says that he’s coming over right now,” she read aloud.
“Katie!” Ash jumped up and strode over to the door. “I have to go. I’ll see you soon. As much as I honestly don’t want to and don’t give a fuck about Tomate, I will help you break him out of whatever Fed facility they have him in, okay?”
“We’re gonna kill all of those fuckers together!”
“For sure. Okay, peace out.”
Ash slipped out of her dorm, leaving Katie with a feeling of rejuvenation coursing through her veins. He was alive. She was sure of it.
Katie got up and put the clothes scattered on the floor into her hamper. For the first time in days, she finally felt like she had a purpose. She would find Tomate and save him.
This was not the end—it was just the beginning.
Ten minutes later, Ewron burst through her door.
“Wow, not even gonna knock,” Katie said, rolling her eyes from her desk.
“No, I will not, because what the fuck are you even saying?” he yelled.
“It is nine PM on a Wednesday. You cannot be yelling in my dorm room.”
“I will yell if fucking I want to!”
He closed the door gently.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of bad things about you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really.”
“What kinds of things?”
“That you said Ash’s first mistake was recruiting me to The Regime and that me marrying a Fed makes The Regime as a whole look weak.”
Ewron sat down on the edge of Katie’s bed. He pouted childishly, but the way he was looking at her through his eyebrows made her a bit nervous that he might do something to her inside the safety of her own dorm. If Ewron really did hate her, it might not be the best thing that he knows where she lives.
“Katie… I planned your whole wedding. Do you know how much work I put in over those two days that you gave me to put that shit together? I didn’t sleep for two days! Everything that I did was for you because I love you! Now, you are saying that I hate you just because some fucking guy told you that I did? What, do you also think that I killed your husband? Sure, yes, I executed your whole wedding for you just to kill your husband! Of course!”
“I mean, now that you mention it, you did leave, like, right after the wedding. Maybe you went to The Feds and told them about the wedding and the whole thing was a set-up orchestrated by you from the beginning!”
“No! Katie—” he reached out and firmly gripped her shoulder. “I have spent every waking minute regretting that I left the wedding so soon. I should have been there for you, and you deserved so much better than witnessing such a thing. Maybe Ash told you when you were having your fucking gossip session about me, but I have actually broken into a Federation headquarters before.”
“Yeah, he mentioned it.”
“Look at this shit.”
He scrolled through his phone and showed her the screen.
The first picture was astonishingly white. White walls, white ceiling, and white flooring with nothing inside the room except for a black door. The next picture he swiped to was another white room, but it had a white chest with a smile on it, a white chair, and a white record player lined up against a wall. The third picture was of what seemed to be the same room but at a different angle, showing a bed, a lamp, and a large TV. Katie wished she had a TV in her dorm room.
“Maybe he is alive and being held in one of these rooms,” Ewron said, putting his phone back in his pocket.
“He is. I know he is. I can feel it in my heart. He is alive, and I am going to find him. I would walk to the ends of the earth for my hubby!”
His face suddenly became dark and serious.
“He is a liar, though.”
“Wh… what?”
“Tomate was a fucking liar.”
It wasn’t uncommon for Ewron to suddenly switch his demeanour in the middle of a conversation, but it always made Katie’s brain short-circuit for a minute. Every time she thought she understood him, he would pull a 180 like this. It was impossible to tell what was real with him.
“You just said you would help me find him.”
“But are you sure you want to find him? Bestie to bestie, I just want to make sure that this is what you want.”
“I have never been more sure of anything in my life!”
“He is a fucking loser! You know, he did absolutely nothing for the wedding. Nothing! He did not place a single tulip. He just showed up and got married and disappeared. Did he even try to fight back? He is weak!”
Katie shot up out of her chair and stood in front of Ewron, towering over him.
“How fucking dare you!” she shouted, pointing a finger in his smug face.
“He does nothing! Fuck that liar! I am the one who told him to give you that pink tulip bouquet!”
Katie's stomach tightened.
“You cannot be calling anyone other than yourself a liar!”
“It is true! Yes, I lie sometimes, but this is the truth! I knew that you liked him, so I tried to be nice and befriend him, and I suggested he buy you a bouquet. The next day, you are jumping off the walls talking about that shitty bouquet and how amazing of a boyfriend he is. That was my idea! Mine! He did nothing!”
He stood in front of her so they were an inch apart. He got up on his tiptoes to try and get eye level with her.
His proud grin and the conceited look in his eyes sent chills down her spine.
“If he got struck by lightning, maybe he deserved it, no?”
Katie shoved him hard in the chest. Ewron fell back onto her bed, still grinning, as if that was the reaction he wanted to get out of her. Her hands trembled with rage. What the fuck did he want from her?
He raised his hands defensively. “You deserve someone better! How about Jeremy? Or Mike? … Or Juan?”
Without thinking, she gripped his hoodie and threw him off her bed. He heavily thudded onto the carpet and made an expression she hadn’t ever had on his face: genuine shock. Softness flooded his eyes in a way that was almost creepy on him. His grin fell into slack-jawed surprise. Seeing him so vulnerable almost made Katie feel bad.
Almost.
“Get the fuck out,” she said with slightly less vitriol than she intended.
He slowly sat up, moaning in pain.
“Katie, what the fuck?”
“You’re not gonna talk about my hubby like that in my room on my bed. Get out.”
He stood up and stared at her, studying her face, before silently leaving, slamming the door shut on his way out.