"You don't belong here, Private. Go home before something bad happens to you," Chekov warned, and Christen studied her in the mirror.

Was it a threat?

"My parents left an estate worth millions. My sister controls that money until I die if I can't prove that I'm a responsible adult, and I did some stuff a while back."

Their eyes met in the reflection, although she couldn't read the other woman's face.

"My records are sealed, but I spent two years in Juvenile detention for stealing my best friend's brother's car and taking it for a joyride, but I didn't steal the car; she did. I didn't crash it either, but she was high, and I was only drunk." She shut the tap and dried her hands.

"She asked me to help her and promised me she'd square everything out for me with her brother, but when push came to shove, she pushed me under the bus—pretended that I made her get in the car and supplied her with the drugs.

"It wasn't the first time I got in trouble, but before that day, it was nothing serious, mostly pranks. My sister changed, no longer believing a word I said or trusting me."

She followed her gut by confiding these things to Chekov.

"When I got out of JD, I got a job at a restaurant and earned my pay. I got my GED, and then a friend had a birthday party, and I wanted nothing to drink. They thought I was being an ass, but I had learned my lesson.

"Drank a glass of lemonade from the fountain, had a couple of snacks and woke up on the floor the next morning. Someone had trashed the restaurant where I worked and which they rented for the evening. My clothes were torn, and I'd been assaulted. Broken and confused, I showered in the back and put on clean clothes from my locker.

"When I opened the door, the police were outside, and they arrested me. I had to call my sister but didn't tell her what had happened to me, and she didn't care. Dana thought it was my party, and the police told her there were drugs. A female officer wasn't like the others, she wanted me to get my blood tested for Rohypnol, and she tried to get me to take a rape kit, but I wouldn't," Christen admitted, and the truth of those memories made her heart ache.

Both incidents happened, but she didn't go to JD for stealing the car. Instead, she got two hundred hours of community service.

It was Anna's party. Their mother picked her up from jail and wouldn't even listen to her. Her twin claimed she organized the rave and stole money from their household account to pay for it.

Anna pretended to have never left the house. Just like her sister got high and stole her boyfriend's brother's car, she convinced Christen to switch places with her and pretended it was all Christen.

It hurt so much.

Chekov listened, and some detached part of Christen noted the brief glimpse of empathy and understanding. Despite the commander's hard-ass act, she didn't believe that this woman supplied prescription medicine to desperate women to end their lives.

"This is the only way to prove to Dana that I'm not some party girl. I hate it when she looks at me like I'm a stranger; she's my sister. She raised me, and she's part of me. Although I hurt her with my actions and made stupid mistakes, I will show her there is more to me if it kills me."

She wished she could prove to her parents that they had not failed in raising her.

"Find another way, Private Strickland. If basic training doesn't kill you, war might. You have choices, and this life isn't for you. Tell your sister what happened; although she's hurt, she will listen if you make her," Chekov said, and Christen frowned.

"I'm making her listen," she said, and the commander sighed.

"How will she feel if you die here or over there? This isn't some military school for the rich; this is the army. You should be in college, earning a degree and getting a life. I have no one; this is the only way to get an education and earn a living.

"You should be picking out fancy dresses and organizing cocktail parties, not trying to get yourself killed," Chekov said with a seriousness that brought home the fact that the recruits the commander trained went off to war; some returned, and some didn't. Others came back, broken in spirit."

She could see the weight of that thought resting on the sergeant and now understood her.

"Unfortunately, I distinctly remember the last party I attended, the baby I lost six weeks later, and the pain and humiliation I couldn't share with my sister. I also overheard Matthew Rothchild, the restaurant owner, bragging to his friends about how 'good he got the Ice Princess. How he made me give up my 'treasure.' After the party, I had to take off my purity ring. Everyone mocked me for being nearly nineteen and still wearing it, and they noticed its absence," she altered the details, facing Chekov.

This woman didn't know she'd been fifteen when it happened. She would never learn that Christen went from being popular, a student and honor council member, to having her friends drop her from their group.

The whole school knew why, and she became a pariah. Matthew had been the Lacrosse team's captain and the leader of the honor council. Nothing happened to him, except that Anna started going out with him and even brought him into their house.

Only Anna noticed how he looked at Christen, the knowledge in his eyes, and she liked it. She almost hated her twin for that.

"Look, Juvy was no joke. I got harassed for being a rich kid, stealing, and crashing a Porche. If it hadn't been for a scraggly kid named Alexandra defending me and helping me, I wouldn't be here.

"Two days before my release from JD, I got stabbed right through the chest with a plastic knife, and I lay bleeding for twenty minutes before someone found me.

"They say I died, and reviving me should not have been possible. My sister paid for plastic surgery to remove the ragged scar, but it's still in my head, and I can feel it under my skin.

"The memory of dying lives with me, and the knowledge that I should be dead. I was in a coma for two months, and the moment I woke, I recalled everything," Christen hesitated as she shared this, but if you're going to live a fake life, keep as close to the truth as possible. 

"This is my second chance and the life I had before led to disaster. If this one does, too, then that is my fate, but I'm not a quitter," she said, swallowing back the bile while turning back to the tap and washing her face again.

"I'm not going to go easy on you just because I know you now," Commander Chekov said, and she nodded.

"It wouldn't be a victory if you did," she said, and the commander left.

She fought the nausea until it passed and would be desperately hungry soon. The watch threw her metabolism out of whack, and it caused a hunger she didn't experience with it off.

Christen looked into the mirror, knowing someone would be looking through her eyes.

"It isn't Chekov," she said, knowing they heard everything.

"Does your gut tell you that, Private?" Dana asked in her ear.

"Yes," she responded.

"We'll see," the doctor said, and she nodded wearily.

"I'm sorry you're in pain," Dana said unexpectedly, and she just stared at her reflection for a moment.

"Not as sorry as I am," she said, turning to get her gear from her room and shower before going to the mess hall.

She could eat a horse now that the queasiness had subsided.

"Did that really happen to you?" Strickland asked, and Christen hesitated. Dana knew the facts but not the truth behind the paperwork.

"Yes," she admitted, making her way outside.

"I'm sorry," Dana said, believing her when her own family hadn't, which brought tears to her eyes.