The day never seemed to go by slower than when Claire and I spent it watching Kristina practicing for the upcoming boat race. A part of me wanted to tell them about what happened with Anya, but another part didn't want to have to deal with those reactions, which left me feeling a little conflicted.

Up until today, which was the day after my first glimpse with 26-B, I never assumed Kristina got excited about anything, much less for a race. But now, as I sat at the lake watching her row around its perimeter as Claire made braids in my hair, I started to realize just how much effort she was putting into this.

Which led me to think about what Anya told me... Did this mean the only reason Kristina was even trying so hard was because she wanted to beat her sister specifically? Would she cheat to go that far? I couldn't stop thinking about that, watching her in her small inflatable boat until I felt a strong tug in my hair.

“Ouch— Hey, careful back there!” I had to bite my tongue to not say anything else.

“Whoops, I was making sure you were still awake,” said Claire. “You've been starin' at the water for a while now, Sebby. 'S everything okay? Thinking about Antoinette? If you want help setting up a date with her I could totally be your wingwoman, how about it?”

“Hell no!” I snapped, uselessly trying to turn my head back. “I'm thinking about Kristina, the race, not Antoinette.”

“Oh...” She had no right sounding so dissapointed. “Well that's a lot more boring, what're you doing that for?”

I adjusted how I was sitting, looking back out at the water as Claire returned to doing my braids- which, for the record, was not my idea.
“Wondering... How important is this race to Kristina? Or, to you guys.”

“It's very important,” she replied as soon as I'd finished. “It's, like, super important. Last year 26-B beat us, but only 'cause they played dirty. It was... intense, yup. People wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks.”

“That bad? Jeez...” I paused as the rest of her sentence processed to me. “Wait, how did you guys compete if you didn't have 4 members? I thought those were the rules.”

“Hm? Ooh, right. Well, last year was an exception. Because we were missing one member, they let us ally with someone who was living alone. So it was the three of us, plus a stranger.” She paused. “Oh, the third person back then wasn't Antoinette, by the way. She came in like a couple months before you did, the third guy from before was called Dominique, he was our third.”

I blinked. "“So... what happened to him? Why isn't he still with you?”

Claire didn't respond for a while, finishing my hair in silence. She sat down at my side afterwards, hugging her legs as she hummed in thought. “Hm... I'm not sure. I don't think I'm allowed to talk about that, but—” she glanced around quickly before lowering he voice to a whisper—. “One day he said he was going out to look for something and then he just... never came back. We tried looking for him, but couldn't find him anywhere, not even with the System's Person Tracker! So for a few months it was just me and Kristi by ourselves, till Antoinette came along! And then you, so now we're a big ol' family of four again.” She flashed a wide goofy grin at me, but I frowned in response.

Did she not hear herself when talking? Somebody disappearing out of the blue like that wasn't normal, that much was obvious, but I felt as though she didn't know any more... so I sighed and asked something else.

“And what's the deal with Kristina and Anya? Are they sisters? They look similar to each other.”

“Ooh, yeah...” Claire smiled at the water with the face of someone remembering something important. “Well... yeah, they're sisters, but also not if that makes sense. See, when Kristi got here, she met me! I was by myself in 1-A, so I was stoked to have a roomate. We hit it off pretty well, but Anya... she wasn't really happy that Kristi spent more time with me than her, heh.” Her smile held a hint of remorse. “So I was making her jealous without trying to. Then Anya got real mad when Kristi and I started dating, and they kinda had a falling out, Kristi said she didn't want to be part of the Sokolov family if it meant not being with the person she loved, that she'd rather be a Redwood with me, which was- honestly -super charming, I swooned, but it sorta sealed the deal on the anger between 'em. All 'cause of me! Heh...”

She didn't sound very happy, but I didn't press on that. If she wanted to fake a smile, it was none of my business. It was my business that apparently she had been the one to spread word about who I was, but I could get mad at that later.

I frowned, back to thinking about Kristina and Anya...

“Sebastian, please listen! You don't need to do this.”

I gasped, the voice in my head having disappeared as soon as it came. I heard Claire's muffled voice asking me something, but I was still thinking about it. Was it another memory? The world seemed much slower.

“...Sorry, Claire, I need to go,” I said, pushing myself up to my feet as fast as I could. I had to run, I had to get whatever that was out of my head. Claire called out to me as I ran, but I didn't listen. I couldn't tell her.

I checked my watch, looking for someone— Claire mentioned a tracker? —and found her at the clearing with the elevator, which I found out was named "Q Clearing", and which was where I appeared moments later.

I had no time to think.

She was sitting by herself against a tree, and while there were other people in this area, the most they did was look at me and murmur, which was great. I didn't want to cause a scene.

“Anya!” I shouted, running to where she was sitting. She looked up at me quizzically and a smile quickly formed upon her face.

“Hello, Sebastian! Making a scene quite early today, aren't we?” she said, closing the book in her lap and looking at me with those cursed eyes of a temptress.

Unfortunately she was right. I noticed people were now staring, so I squatted in front of her and kept my voice down.

“Can it,” I hissed. “I'm calling off the deal. They told me what this whole rivalry is really about, and I'm not going to help you.”

Her eyes widened briefly, but the smile remained. She moved her face closer to mine, putting a finger to my lips as she shook her head.

“Now let's not get ahead of ourselves here.” Her voice was surprisingly sultry— a devil in disguise. “Do you really think that's a good idea?”
I grabbed her hand and moved it away. “Yes. I'm serious, my memories aren't worth throwing the race in your favour.”

She merely smiled, intertwining her fingers with mine as she spoke. “I think you'll find you have no choice anymore. Do you know why I asked Dean to go fetch you?” But without letting me answer, she continued. “Dean has a voice recorder. I asked him beforehand to record the whole thing in case you decided to worm your way out.”

I clicked my tongue, a bad feeling as to where this would go.

“So unless you want me to ruin your reputation and have you appear as a backstabbing traitor in your first month, I suggest you play along. You can make it look like an accident, the race is so fast paced they won't even notice.”

“You idiot, you're also in the recording! If you expose that, then you'll also ruin your own reputation.”

“Hm...” I could immediately tell she wasn't really thinking. “Then if you fall, we both will. But something tells me you aren't quite ready to take that risk, especially if it means no help with your memories.”

I hated how she was right. I hated so many things about this, especially the fact that she was hot, which made this a lot more difficult than it needed to be.

“If you're having second thoughts, then you must care about your teammates more than I thought... which is disgusting, but it also means you wouldn't want to have them looking at you in betrayal. I suppose it's fitting, seeing how they're all traitors to the Sokolov bloodline either way.”

“Your bloodline means shit down here, you know?”

“But my pride does not,” she replied with an edge in her eyes. I glared back in a brief eye contact before turning my head. I tried thinking of ways to worm my way out of this, but my mind was still a mess.

“Fine,” I spat. There weren't any paths I could see. “But you've got one thing wrong: I don't care about them, it's my own conscience I want to keep clean.”

Anya threw a smile at me, one devoid of a real happiness, and spoke. “Then I suggest you start planning how to throw the race.” And like that she returned to her book, the conversation over.

The following three days passed without anything else alarming happening, thankfully. I still couldn't figure out where I'd gotten that voice from, but we had to focus on the race. Kristina was insistent that we wake up every morning earlier than usual to practice for the race, and I felt a pit of lead each time I saw the flare in her eyes.

But then the day arrived, and she woke us up at seven AM sharp in a way only she would.

“Get up, you sack of rocks!” She had pulled my bedsheets, sending me tumbling to the floor with an immediate fight response, cursing out loud for almost two minutes.

Then she'd gotten upset at me for tripping over my bedsheets on my way out.

Even Claire, usually so full of energy was trudging along this morning. The only one that seemed relatively unaffected apart from Kristina was Antoinette, which surprised me when I entered the living room with Claire and saw her serving tea.

“I work with children, I'm used to sleeping less hours than you lazy bums,” was her reason.
Kristina insisted we had a light breakfast, take some water bottles, and then get out of there immediately to not be late for the race.
We were five hours early.

It thankfully didn't seem to be the same route I took last time with Thomas, but that also meant that I didn't recognize this route. Out here we couldn't check the map on our watches, as that would be "cheating", so I couldn't even entertain myself with that as we waited for more people to arrive. I had to spend my time talking with Antoinette since Claire and Kristina were too busy having a heated discussion over... something. They were too far to distinguish.

“So you found out through someone else that they're dating? I thought it was obvious to anyone that saw them,” she told me, sitting in the boat with me. It was inflatable, and round, and I didn't know if it would hold up well in rushing waters.
“Yeah, so? Don't look at me like that, I'm not some love expert.”

“Clearly,” she snorted, amused. “Don't worry about it, I'm a failure when it comes to that, too.”

Despite my initial scepticism, it ended up being a passable way to pass the time, but we had to cut it short when more teams started arriving.

They were all blank faces on empty slates for all I could care, but when I saw Anya and Dean arrive with their team, I started paying attention.

Anya waved at me with a smile as sweet as sugar that made me gag, while Dean was busy either instructing the other two members of their team, or scolding them. Both seemed like likely options. It was another boy and girl, with the boy looking straight up like a thug, and the girl like something taken out of an Eldritch novel.

What surprised me was seeing Kristina stop her conversation with Claire to walk over to them.

Claire seemed nervous, but didn't say anything as she joined Antoinette and I in the boat.

“What do you think they're talking about?” asked Antoinette.

“No idea,” I said. “Claire?” But she wasn't as responsive. Her eyes were fixated on Kristina and Dean, currently engaged in conversation. “...Hey, Claire. Talking to you over here.”

“Huh? Oh, right. Uh... I don't know, she seemed nervous about something, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Maybe she was thinking about her sister.”

“You mean she didn't tell you? I thought she told you everything,” said Antoinette. “Maybe it really was bad.”

Claire stared over, a frown etching into her face. “She didn't... but I trust Kristi. If she's not telling me, it has to be for a reason, and if she's worried about something but doesn't wanna let me know then I've just gotta support her till she's ready, yeah?” She let out a deep breath and smiled, relaxing back into the boat. “That's how it's always been! So I'll just wait for her to be ready.”

Her carefree attitude was starting to shine again, but Antoinette and I looked past that blind trust and focused on Kristina, who was putting something into her pocket before running back towards us.

Claire greeted her with a tight hug as she joined us inside the boat, and they both grabbed an oar, sitting one in front of the other, which left me sitting behind Antoinette.

“Guys,” said Kristina. “We have to win. There isn't time for hesitation, no second chances. This time it's everything or nothing,” and that was all she said, a tone of finality in her words.

I looked back to Dean as he joined his team in the boat, and continued looking around, calming myself down before the race started.

A crowd of spectators had gathered, and I felt something strange when I heard some cheering for 1-A. I felt something a little flatter when I saw Pen among those cheering us on.

The starting signal was ready to be shot. We were all on the edge of our seat, but I was still idly looking around. My eyes landed on someone who was staring directly at me— glaring would be a better term. It sent shivers down my spine, and I didn't even know who this guy was!

I stared back in confusion and, admittedly, a bit of fear, and as my mind rushed with the possibilities of who this man could be, the race started without me.