“Hey,” said Mountain Man—who, by the way, I was starting to get a little suspicious of. I was running into him with the same frequency that I ran into Emmy, which was not normal, considering Emmy was my best friend and pseudo-sister, while Mountain Man was just some guy whose lap I’d accidently sat on that one time.
“Hey?” I replied with a question, wondering why he wasn’t recoiling in fear from the sight of the nightmare-cleaning-closet-from-hell.
Siret must have hidden them all again. Apparently I was still the only one his powers didn’t seem to cloak anymore.
“Were you spying on the dweller meeting?” Dru asked. “Seems like they would have welcomed you in, since they couldn’t stop talking about you. You shy or something?”
I frowned. “You were spying on the dweller meeting?”
He released me, and I tried to take a step back, except my foot landed against something that felt like flesh. Possibly a guard’s arm. I cringed, staying where I was, which was uncomfortably close to a sol I didn’t especially feel like talking to.
Or did I?
“No,” Yael muttered, his persuasion ringing through the air and wrapping around my neck in a gentle caress. “You don’t.”
“You’re right,” I answered automatically, my mouth speaking the words required of me, even though a small part of my mind wondered why I was speaking at all.
“I’m what?” Mountain Man was confused, the smile slipping off his face. “I was just saying that I saw a bunch of them sneaking below the temple and I followed them.”
“Oh, huh?” I tried to focus on him, but he was starting to waver in my vision. I wanted him gone. Now. “I wasn’t paying any attention. Can you leave now? I’m super busy.”
His frown began to form, twisting his handsome features into something more familiar on the face of a sol: disapproval. His eyes flicked over my right shoulder, and then my left, before settling back on my face.
“What are you doing?” he asked, a hint of force to the words.
“Practising my speech,” I automatically replied, not even blinking an eye. “I want to be ready for the next secret dweller meeting. ‘Specially since they’re all expecting big things of me. I’m probably going to be the leader of the dweller rebellion. They’re probably going to make me the dweller queen.”
His grin was back, and he was rubbing a hand along the base of his neck, considering me. “I think you’re the worst liar I’ve ever seen. Dwellers are usually really good liars.”
The urge to get rid of him was building, clamping around my neck with less gentleness and more urgency.
“I HAVE MY PERIOD!” I choked out in an abrupt shout.
The smile dropped off his face again and both of his eyebrows shot up, framing his face in a perfect display of shock.
“Right,” he said. “I guess I’ll … just … leave you to it, then?”
He seemed to be asking for my permission, but when I only gave him a dumb look in response, he quickly backed out of the room. I turned to face the others as Yael’s Persuasion finally began to trickle out of me, leaving me with a body full of fury and a temper that was willing to let me act before I could think through what it was I was doing.
“You.” I seethed, marching right up to Yael and poking him in the chest. “You are going to pay for that.”
He caught my finger, easily pulling it away, and I tried not to flinch at the angry fire in his eyes. Why the hell was he angry?
“Try it, Willa-toy,” he taunted.
“Guys, let’s clean up the mess before we add to the body pile, huh?” Siret was the voice of reason—for once.
He did have a point, though. The bodies had shimmered back into existence and I could see that the puddle of blood was growing larger.
“Did you kill them?” I asked Siret.
“No, he didn’t.” Coen was the one who answered me. “Let’s get out of here before Strength punctures an organ.”
I swivelled my head toward Rome, who was a little red in the face, and gave a nod, quickly pushing out of the room. Yael caught my elbow before I was even out of the door, and I tried not to lean into his touch.
You’re angry at him, I reminded myself, because he’s an asshole.
“Actually,” he countered carefully, “I was trying to avoid a disaster and we didn’t have time for that idiot to hang around playing some pathetic sol flirting game.”
“He wasn’t flirting,” I shot back, a little of my anger returning.
“Yes, he was.” Yael was really digging his heels in. Nothing new there.
“Kiss and make up, you two,” Coen grumbled. “We don’t have time for this shit.”
Yael’s eyes immediately flicked down to my mouth, and a spark flared up inside me, hot and urgent. I stumbled right into him, my body tripping itself up just to get closer to him, and his hands caught my arms just below the elbows. He was suddenly so close, his scent surrounding me, his eyes darkening above me.
“Not literally, for fuck’s sake.” Coen grabbed the back of my shirt again and pulled me away from Yael, spinning me around to face the bodies in the store room.
The heat dropped right out of me.
Well that’s an effective mood-killer.
Siret chuckled, bending down by the body on top, his hands disappearing along the side of the guard’s neck.
“They’ll be fine,” he announced, stepping back and kicking the door shut. “Although you’ll probably want to make sure they never see your face again. It might be a bit hard to explain how you—a dweller—managed to single-handedly take down two Minateur guards without even lifting a finger.”
“I have skills,” I announced. “By the way, you only checked one of them. The other one might be dead.”
“Would you rather know that he’s dead, or live with the hope that at least one of them is alive?” he asked, already walking away from the room after Rome and Aros.
Yael followed, and Coen finally released my shirt, though he gave me a nudge in the direction of the others so that I wouldn’t attempt to go back into the storage room.
“He’s just lazy,” I told Coen, glaring at Siret’s back. “He’s trying to make me look like I’m overreacting, but he’s too lazy to check the other guy’s pulse.”
“You should get revenge on him,” Coen advised.
“I should!” I immediately tried to kick my walk into a run—taking Coen’s suggestion as permission to punch one of them—but he caught my shirt again.
I was forcefully halted, bouncing back onto the balls of my feet. When I glanced over my shoulder, Coen was grinning. Actually grinning.
“I didn’t mean now,” he told me, shaking his head. “How about we get back to the rooms first, and then you can shout about your period for a little while.”
I flushed, even though I should have been beyond shame by that particular point in my life. “Four was using his stupid power on me.” I dragged my feet as we followed the others out of the temple and back into the courtyard.
It was much colder now, and somehow even darker than it had been when we had gone in. I could feel the cold of the pavers seeping through my boots. I had the oddest sensation creeping over my neck, too … as though the statues of the gods were watching me walk away.