That’s not a challenge, Rau!
Speaking of the evil god, I hadn’t been back in the arena since Rau had manipulated the fights and wrangled me into the ring with Coen. Then, just for kicks, he’d also frozen my vocal cords so that I couldn’t surrender—forcing Coen, a god of pain, to knock me out. I’d woken in a bare, underground room, where I figured the dwellers probably reported for cleaning duty. If not that exact room, then at least somewhere in the vicinity of it. There had to have been a reason that I’d been dragged down there. They certainly wouldn’t have left me in a ‘sol’ area to recover. So that’s where I was heading.
The sunlight slowly dissipated as I attempted to navigate my way back to the lower levels. Even though it got quite dark and dreary in the stairways, I could still see clearly. Which was helpful in not tumbling to my death. Although, whether I could die if the Abcurses didn’t, was still up for contention. Everything was starting to look familiar as I hit the flat ground of the lower levels and a voice caught my attention … oh holy crap, it was a dweller meeting.
I had literally stumbled into some sort of dweller gathering and now twenty faces were turned in my direction. I lifted my hand and gave a weak wave.
“Hey there, just reporting for cleaning duty,” I said, trying my best to ignore the many stares being shot my way. I dropped my gaze really quickly toward my chest and was relieved to see that there was no nudity going on. The looks were not because of my boobs, for once. Nope, they just hated me in general, clothed or unclothed.
A familiar face pushed through the crowd and my shaky knees were given a shot of confidence. I took a few steps closer.
“Atti!”
He was my best friend’s boy-toy, or whatever they were calling it, which meant he had to be nice to me. It was a girl rule.
“What are you doing here, Willa?” His voice was not as friendly as I would have liked, but I was running low on ally options, so I was willing to trick myself into thinking that he’d just extended a hand of support to me.
“I’m supposed to be on arena duty … at some point,” I told him. “And I realised I’ve never been here or had orientation or whatever. So … here I am!”
He leaned in really close, his voice barely audible. “Do you think that’s a good idea? How are you even away from the Abcurse brothers?” Everyone knew they had taken me into their inner circle, just as everyone knew that they were insanely protective of their inner circle. None of them knew why, except for Emmy, but I was sure that they had their suspicions.
I shrugged. “Too soon to tell about the good idea part, and one of them is probably lingering around here somewhere, but they aren’t going to be any trouble.” My words about the Abcurses not being trouble … well, those were an outright lie. If the gods themselves couldn’t control those five, I had zero hope, but I needed to stay where I was for Emmy’s sake. I could still see the distress on her face when she told me about that dweller. She was upset, and I would not let her be upset because of me.
I could see that Atti still wasn’t convinced that this was a good idea, so I brought out the secret weapon. “Emmy came to me. She wants me to get back into the swing of being a dweller, you know to …” I was now the one whispering, “stop all the rebellion.”
Atti straightened and all doubt was magically wiped from his face. Wow, he had it bad. Something which I was going to use to my advantage as often as possible. I seriously needed all the dweller backup I could get. He turned back around to the crowd of staring people and started talking in his no-nonsense voice. Which I found hilarious, because Emmy had a no-nonsense voice just like it.
“Willa, despite having the only exemption ever available to a dweller, has graciously asked if she can be included in the cleaning roster again. This will free one of us up for those other little tasks which have been going astray.”
In fear of Abcurse retaliation, I had been recently excused from all of my dweller duties. Blesswood didn’t really know what to do with me, so I semi-existed as a sol. Which meant on top of my cleaning duties, I also had to accompany one of the Abcurses to class. I’d be starting the very next sun-cycle—something I had kind of forgotten about.
I raised my hand and Atti called my name straight away. “Yes, Willa?”
“Um, so I’m only going to be able to do chores when I’m not in class, but I promise to do my very best to fill in wherever I can. If that’s okay …”
Atti let out a bit of a sigh, but he took the news well, considering. Unlike the other dwellers, who had resumed staring at me with dark gazes. I just couldn’t win at the moment. It didn’t matter what I did or where I was—someone was out there hating me. Some of the tension in my chest eased even more, and I knew that one of the guys was getting closer. The last thing I wanted was for them to walk into a room full of dwellers. It would cause an absolute riot. I needed to get my cleaning schedule and get out of there, as soon as possible.
I started mentally urging Atti on, but just like Emmy, he had to do things the slow proper way. Which meant that it took half a dozen clicks for him to assign chores, because apparently they changed each sun-cycle. After he was done, he made his way across to me.
“Alright, Willa. Now it’s your turn. To be part of the arena dwellers, you need first to be cleansed by the gods. There is absolutely no way that I can let you come in here without that.”
Of course he couldn’t.
“What exactly does this cleansing involve? I’m not going to lose my clothes, right? Because I have some new rules about that.” Rules I was still a bit annoyed over.
In the back of my mind, I continued to think of ways I could punish the guys for their little sex talk, but so far anything I’d considered would only end up punishing me. I’d eventually figure it out, though. As soon as I got through the next few rotations with Atti.
He shook his head at me, motioning for me to follow him into another room.
The ritual to be cleansed for the gods consisted of Atti dousing my forehead in a sticky, yellow substance, which I was to wear for the next three clicks. Then, I had to utter a chant, which was comprised of praise for the gods, praise for the sols, and … nothing for the dwellers.
Typical.
Finally, after I was done genuflecting to a statue of Staviti, which was located in a grand entrance that I had never seen before, I was considered cleansed enough to … clean the bathroom. A dream come true.