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by Jaymin Eve
“What?” I turned on him, and then on the others. None of them looked shocked. Maybe they had discussed it while I slept. “Are you going to adopt me?” I screeched.
Coen leapt out of his chair, looking disgusted. A few mouths dropped open.
“What?” choked Siret.
“Am I supposed to be your sister?” I was still speaking in that voice that was part-screech. “Are your parents going to adopt me? Are you going to marry me? Isn’t that illegal? No, wait, it’s just procreation between sols and dwellers that’s illegal. I remember now, Emmy told me.” I was clearly rambling at this point, but I couldn’t stop myself. “So I guess … technically, marriage is legal … but I don’t want to get married! I’m too young to get married! I still need to learn how to cook! And … and I—”
“Calm down.” Yael’s voice washed over me, stealing the bubble of words from my mouth. “Sit down.”
I looked down at my chair. I hadn’t even realised that I’d jumped out of it. Had it been when Coen jumped out of his? Maybe I had reflexively copied him. Which was weird. I sank back down.
“Take a deep breath, Willa,” Yael continued, the smallest of smiles spreading across his face. “There’s no way in hell that you’re going to be related to us.” He paused, meeting Coen’s stare. Coen had arched a brow at him. He turned back to me, his expression darkening. “Because you’re a dweller,” he needlessly added. “But you are going to stick with us from now on, and we will protect you. We will send the message to this academy that anyone messing with you is messing with us.”
I nodded, my eyes falling to the table. That could work. It would also help with the pain I felt whenever they weren’t near me, but what would happen when classes ended for the sun-cycle and everyone went back to their dorms? I would still need to be near them. The realisation hit me with a heavy, sickening clarity.
Shit. Shit! I can’t sleep alone!
“Why not?” Siret blinked at me, forcing me to reel in my thoughts.
“What?” Either I had lost my damned mind, or I kept accidently saying my thoughts out loud.
“Why can’t you sleep alone?”
Okay, maybe both. I had lost my mind and I kept speaking my thoughts out loud. But … I knew I hadn’t actually said that last part out loud. There was no way, unless …
“I … I’m scared,” I lied, trying to deflect.
Rome was suddenly in my face and all air seemed to be sucked from the vicinity of my lungs.
“What aren’t you telling us?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing. “There’s something.”
Damn. Damn. Triple damn. I couldn’t hide things from them now. Apparently, I was not only required to be attached at the hip with the five of them, but they could also hear my thoughts. Some of my thoughts. I was pretty sure that was what was happening. But how?
Yael is a competitive bastard. I directed that thought as loudly as I could and, sure enough, darkness descended over his features. Before he could react, though, Siret spoke: “You didn’t move your lips. We all heard you say that, but you … you didn’t fucking speak.”
I swallowed, my breathing shallow as it rushed in and out of my mouth. “Apparently … you five can read some of my thoughts now.”
There might not have been many other sols in the room with us, but it seemed that right then silence reigned through the entire dining space. The Abcurses just stared at me, not moving or blinking until finally Aros’s hand landed on my shoulder, demanding my attention. His golden eyes had turned a dark bronze colour.
“How is that even possible?” he asked. “Rau’s power doesn’t work like that. He can’t have done this. Can you hear our thoughts?”
As if they’d just wondered the same thing, Yael, Siret, and Coen were on their feet in an instant, their fury now crowding the space.
Damn the stupid gods. I wished I could run away from all the crazy right now. How far would I get before the pain killed me? It was probably an experiment I would have to try very soon.
Since none of them were backing down, I decided to put them out of their misery. “I can’t hear your thoughts. This seems to be a one-way thing. And it doesn’t appear that you are hearing everything from me either, otherwise you’d all have clicked on ages ago that something weird was happening.”
Coen smirked. “Doubtful, Rocks. Something tells me there isn’t a lot going on up in that mind, and around you, something weird is always happening.”
Screw you, asshole.
His mouth dropped slightly, and now it was time for a smirk to cross my face. Before he could form any kind of a reply, Rome shoved his twin.
“Get a grip,” he demanded roughly. “You are acting like an asshole. We’re wasting time and energy. We should be figuring out what happened to her. What did Rau hit her with?”
I slumped back into my chair, burying my head in my hands as I tried to sort through the mess of emotions and thoughts I had going on.
“Dweller!”
I knew I should react. That feminine voice held a harsh bark of command, but I was so tired that I could barely lift my face again. By the time I did, there were three of them. The dweller-relations committee.
Elowin stood with her usual grace and perfection; her willowy body was wrapped in a flowing white robe, her golden curls perfectly arranged around her angelic face. The only thing to mar her perfection was her slightly open mouth, wide eyes, and creased brow. She was angry and confused. Henchman Number One and Henchman Number Two closed in on either side, and I knew this was the point where shit was about to get real. I had been living for the past few sun-cycles in a bubble, not in the real world. I was not a sol. I was not equal to these people, and I was definitely overdue for some knocking down from my imaginary pedestal.
Elowin recovered her composure, closing the distance between us. Her hands were trembling minutely—somehow I could see that, along with the fine beading of sweat across her brow. Why was she nervous?
The two Abcurses who had still been sitting, stood now, and the five of them did their wall of protection thing. Elowin and the two men halted. Like ground to halt, and suddenly I understood the sweat on her brow. She was afraid of them.
Trying her best to hide her fear, she cleared her throat. “We received word of a dweller who was seated at a table in the dining area. The same dweller who was reported missing to us several sun-cycles ago. She needs to come with us now for questioning and reassignment.”
Reassignment. Yeah, right! Just sign me up to be kicked-to-death-by-bullsen.
Yael was the first to speak, which was no surprise to me.
“Elowin, you should not concern yourself with this dweller. She has been assisting us for the past few sun-cycles, and she is going to continue to assist us for the foreseeable future.”
“You assigned her to us,” Rome stated from beside him.
“So she’s ours now,” Aros concluded, his golden eyes catching mine for a brief moment.
Ignoring the emotions that stirred inside my chest, I remained sitting, pretending to be an invisible, stupid dweller.
A torrent of words burst from Elowin then, as though she couldn’t keep them inside. “We have rules for a reason. You change them for one dweller and the rest of them are going to start wondering why they aren’t allowed to sit with the sols at dinner. Or go to class and learn with them. Our world works because everyone knows their place. The natural order. What would the gods think about this?”
The Abcurses took one look at each other, and then each of them lost their shit. Like doubled-over-almost-on-the-floor kind of laughing. I bit my lip to stop myself joining them, but it was probably the hardest thing that I had ever done.
Finally, Coen straightened. He rubbed a hand across his still broadly grinning face, and said, “Those gods don’t give a single shit what you do here. As long as you keep the worship and the sols coming, they wouldn’t care if you all decided to strip naked and have mass sol-dweller sex parties.”
Elowin turned a shade of g
reen which had all of the Abcurses leaning back from her, and then, with a huff, she spun on her heel and stormed out of the dining room, her henchmen trailing behind her.
Siret’s eyes were sparkling when he turned back in my direction, their gem-like nature very prominent. “Never liked that committee, think we should make it our aim to bring it down.”
His brothers laughed and chimed in with their suggestions, and for a moment it was as if all of them had forgotten that I was in their midst. Until suddenly they didn’t.
Chairs scraped as the five of them sat around me, and I had to admit: being the centre of all their attention had me squirming in my seat. So intense. Just so freaking intense.
Aros must have mistaken my unease for upset. He leaned in closer to me. “Don’t worry about the dweller-committee, Willa. We’ll make sure they don’t bother you. She knows that you’re under our order now, and they rarely ever mess with us.”
I had seen the dark look on Elowin’s face as she stormed off—well, dark and queasy—she would not be letting this rest. She was going to wait until they let their guard down and then she was going to destroy me.
“Do you think it’s safe for us to leave Rocks with the other dwellers?” Aros asked the others. “She’s the clumsiest one I’ve ever seen, even by their usual low standards.”
Yael didn’t miss a beat. “She’ll be fine, no one will hurt her in the dweller dungeons, it’s only above ground where the sols are that we need to keep an eye on her.”
Sitting right here, Assholes.
Five sets of eyes. Five identical smirks. In that moment, there was no mistaking that they were brothers, and that their mother was blessed with the gift of beauty.
“Double bonus that she can just project her thoughts and we can hear them,” Siret said. “If anyone bothers you, just call for us, Rocks, okay?”
Yep, sure, no problem. I nodded, and worked very hard to conceal my next thoughts. I wasn’t ready for them to know about the tiny problem of me not being able to be too far away from them. They would most likely regret taking me into their protection if they knew that I was going to be stuck to them like glue. Maybe I could sneak and hide in the supply closet near their rooms.
Dwellers appeared around us then, each holding a plate of food. Somehow, even though it wasn’t quite dinner time yet, they were feeding us … well, the Abcurses anyway. I saw more than one set of confused eyes and dropped jaws. No one quite knew what to make of me sitting right in the centre of a pile of sols.
“Stop.” Rome’s deep voice thundered around the room. “You didn’t serve Willa, she’ll have the same, and some fresh water.”
Some of the confusion turned to anger, and I could see that more than one dweller wanted to question Rome, but they knew better. They knew their place, and they probably didn’t want to get crushed. I was the only one stupid enough to end up in a situation like this, one which could tear apart the very fabric of the world we lived in. Elowin hadn’t been wrong … this could change everything. Damn Rau. Was this exactly what he was hoping for when he bound me to the boys? He was the god of chaos after all, and this was bound to get chaotic.
As we ate, I was trying my best to breathe and somehow still stuff as much of the delicious food into my mouth as I could. Top of my list for hating sols was that they got all the best food. Freshest produce, meat from fine cuts, even regular berries and sweet ice. I glared at Coen— who was on my right side—and hooked my arm around my small cup of pink ice as a barrier.
“What?” he asked, lifting one eyebrow with a sardonic stare. “Do you really think I’m going to steal your dessert?”
My eyes flicked between all of them briefly, and I tucked the small dish even closer to my chest. “I won’t let you have it, this is my crushed ice. I will end anyone who touches it.”
There was a gasp from behind me, and I spun with ice in hand to find Emmy standing there. Her normally golden features were pale and she looked tired and a touch thinner than the last time I had seen her.
“Willa …” it was a whisper of my name, but it still drew the attention of the sols who were around us. Dinner time was starting now, so the room was slowly filling. “Willa!” she screeched this time, and now every single face was turned in our direction.
My best friend glanced around, her eyes darting frantically. She knew she shouldn’t draw attention to us like this, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from reaching out and latching on to my arm. Here we go again. I was hauled out of the room by her super muscles, and as soon as we were outside and the doors closed again, she let me have it.
“I have been going out of my mind with worry. Two full sun-cycles, Will! TWO! You just vanished. I thought you were dead, that the Abcurses took off with you and dumped your body in the forest. How could you do this to me? I thought we were best friends. I thought we were family.”
I was trying to listen to her while also hoping an explanation would come to me. One which would make sense to her. I needed to comfort her because it was killing me to see her so distraught, but I could scarcely concentrate around the pain in my chest. It was okay, not at dying level yet, but it was making it hard to focus.
“Emmy,” I finally started, cutting her off mid-rant. “I’m so sorry for disappearing on you, and trust me, it was not my decision. I would never have left without telling you first, if I’d had a choice. Something happened with the Abcurses … well, we ended up a long way from the centre ring and had to walk back. It …”
What else could I tell her? I had no idea who was listening, and there was no safe place to talk about the gods and what had happened in Topia.
She opened and closed her mouth, looking like she was gulping for air, but maybe she was trying to speak and couldn’t get around her shock. I waited patiently, my hand now on my chest as I rubbed it in slow circles. It didn’t ease the pain.
If anything, the pain was getting worse.
Crap. The Abcurses had finished their meal and were leaving the dining area. Which meant that they were probably going to their rooms. It looked like we were about to test out the distance I could handle.
My head spun as the sharp stabbing sensation in my chest increased. It was almost like my heart was being pulled through my ribs, shredding it in the process.
“Willa, are you even listening to me?” Emmy must have started talking again, but I missed what she said. Her eyes were narrowed on me now, the colour darkening. “Are you okay, Will? You don’t look good.”
I crouched forward and narrowly missed vomiting on her shoes. All of my delicious dinner was exiting my body and that was about the worst thing to have happened to me this week. Including being hit with a god-bolt.
“Willa! What can I do? We need to get you to a healer.”
I shook my head, stumbling away from her, my hands raised, like I could keep her back. I didn’t want her making a grab for me. She’d use her super-muscles to drag me off to the nearest healer, and unless it was in the direction of the Abcurses, there was a good chance that it would actually kill me.
“I … I’m sorry, Emmy,” I choked out through the pain, stumbling back into the dining room.
They were moving fast. I could feel them now, drawing further and further away. I spun on my feet, narrowly missing a passing dweller, and sprinted through the dining hall toward the back doors. People jumped out of my way, but the furniture wasn’t so intuitive. I smacked hard into the side of a table, which sent me spinning in the opposite direction. I went over a chair, and then my face was slamming into the ground. Dark spots flashed over my eyes, the pain seizing up my body into small convulsions. I could hear Emmy screaming my name. She was getting closer.
I forced my head to clear, forced my body to stop shaking as I drew myself to my feet, and then I was struggling toward the door again. There was a cut on my leg, blood dripping down my calf. It reminded me that I wasn’t wearing pants, only Rome’s shirt, which admittedly looked like a dress, but still …
“Will.” It wa
s only a statement. Not a question. An acknowledgement. I needed help, and my best friend was going to give it to me.
She linked her arm through mine and I leaned a good deal of my weight on her, raising a shaky finger to point toward the back door. She started to drag me that way, her head tucked down and her stride purposeful, as though she would be able to trick the surrounding sols and dwellers into thinking that there was nothing out-of-the-ordinary going on. It almost seemed to work, too. Some of them turned away from us, going back to their meals.
We cleared the dining room and I pointed again, showing Emmy the way to the Abcurses dorm rooms. It was much faster with her than it was to walk on my own. I gained strength with each step, which meant that we were moving in the right direction, if nothing else. When we were in the hall outside their rooms, I tugged on Emmy’s arm, and we stopped moving. I drew her to one of the supply closets, able to walk on my own now, and gently pushed her inside. We sent two of the cleaning carts into the hallway to make room and then closed the door, sitting against it in the darkness.
“Will …” she started again.
“I’m okay.” I sighed, dragging my hands over my face. “I need a bath, and something to wash out my mouth, but I’m okay.”
“You can tell me what’s going on, or I can sing Leader Graham’s stupid Settlement Anthem until your ears bleed. Your choice.”
“Harsh.” I cringed, but followed it with a laugh. It was almost nice to think about Leader Graham and all of his hair-brained plots to make the dwellers more like the sols. Life had been much simpler then. “I snuck into Topia, and then one of the gods, specifically the god of Chaos—Rau—hit me with this weird smoke ball of light, and I think it did something to me. Also, I stabbed someone, but it was an accident. And I met this cool slave named Jeffrey. You would have liked her. She was a stickler for rules. I’m pretty sure we become Jeffreys when we die. Just saying. I mean, it makes sense. They’re only half of what we are. It’s like the Creator plucked them on their way to death and then set them in Topia, where they would have to continue to serve. For eternity. So when Teacher Marcks told us that dwellers are destined to be slaves, and have no further purpose outside of their slavery, he really wasn’t kidding. You know what happens when a Jeffrey does something bad? They get sent to a banishment cave. They’re bound to it. They turn into these creepy, twisted, shadowy things, and they just … amass. There must be thousands of them in there. Maybe more. Holy shit. I didn’t have time to think about that until now—”