That was where I belonged. In that place of unforgiving, empty terrain.
But for now … there were beds to be made. I pulled away from the window, rushing back to my cart. I actually had no idea what to do. We’d been given our assignments, but no real instruction to go along with the assignments. I supposed most dwellers knew how to clean properly, though, because most dwellers weren’t me. I hurriedly made the bed, punched the shape back into the pillows, and picked everything up off the floor. I didn’t know where to put any of it, so I just tossed it all onto the freshly-made bed. There were a bunch of big, cloth bags in my cart, with labels for me to put on each bag, so that made laundry easy. There was even a list stuck to the top of the cart—something that I only noticed after moving the basket of supplies that had been covering it. The locations of the laundry-rooms assigned to each hallway of dorms were listed, along with room numbers of resident dwellers tasked with ordering new supplies.
I finished with the first three rooms in record-time, but I was slowing down by the time I got to the fourth. I’d suffered three stubbed toes, one near-concussion, and an accidental rag to the face, because apparently jumping up and down and tossing a wet rag at the glass wasn’t the best way to clean a window. My shirt was damp with sweat and soap, my hair kept dragging into my eyes, and the hole in my pants had reopened. I was starting to wonder how I was going to survive a full sun-cycle of this, let alone a lifetime career of it.
I didn’t bother to knock on the door this time, because Emmy had been right, the dorms had all been empty so far—the sols obviously having arena practise. I pulled down the handle and turned around, pushing the door open with my butt while I walked backwards, dragging the cart, since I’d lost most of the strength to push it in front of me like a normal person.
“No, it’s fine, come right in,” a deep voice drawled, making me freeze.
I had a moment where I thought it would be a good idea to pretend that I hadn’t just waltzed into someone’s dorm, to pretend that I hadn’t heard them clearly admonishing me, and to pretend that I’d had a sudden, unexplained change of heart. I slowly started pushing the cart forward, instead of pulling it backwards. I didn’t stop until the door closed behind me, and then I just stood there, my internal organs threatening to explode with panic.
The door swung open behind me, a hand landed on my shoulder, an arm shooting out beside me to grasp the handle of the cart, and before I knew it, both myself and my cart were back inside the room, and the door was shutting behind us.
“Wrong room,” I squeaked, keeping my eyes fixed on the door. Maybe if I didn’t look at him, he wouldn’t look at me, and then he’d just forget my face and I’d never be punished for this.
“You mean wrong hall, maybe?” he asked, walking away from me.
I still didn’t turn. Instead, I just listened really hard. I couldn’t tell where he was standing anymore, but I could sense that he was still there somewhere. Well obviously … because he didn’t exactly jump out of the window.
“Dweller?”
“Will you reassign me?” I blurted, spinning around, and immediately wishing that I hadn’t.
He was sitting on the end of his bed, and he appeared all-too familiar, with glittery green eyes smoking to black around the very edge of the iris, and messy, textured hair, coloured in a meld of blood and ochre.
“Reassign you?” he asked, with an arch to one single, dark brow. He wasn’t quite smiling, but he was obviously amused.
Why me? That was all I could think. Why? Why!
I swallowed carefully. Another Abcurse brother. The last one. He looked just like Coen, the pain-gifted sol who had tried to kill me. They both appeared slightly older than the other three: Yael, the persuasion-gifted one; Siret, the trickery-gifted one; and Aros, the one who apparently had some kind of seduction gift.
I didn’t even want to imagine what kind of sol I was now standing alone with. It was too much for my minuscule little mind. I was going to have a breakdown and start screaming obscenities at any moment. He stood then, because I obviously wasn’t uncomfortable enough. I stumbled back a step, my eyes stretching even wider. He was huge. Massive. Like a freaking giant. Or a mini-giant, at least. Coen had been big, too, but this was something else. Coen looked like he tossed trees around for fun, but Room Number 2 looked like he ate trees for breakfast.
“You don’t happen to have a real happy-sunshine gift, do you?” I stammered, falling back yet another step. “Like flowers or butterflies?”
I was forced to let go of the cart—the cart was on its own now.
“You mean like Nature or Bestiary?” he corrected. “Because flowers and butterflies aren’t a real gift.”
“Yeah, right. Nature or Bestiary—except Bestiary still sounds scary, so scrap that one. Just nature. Is your gift nature-related?”
“No.” He grinned, his teeth flashing, his cheeks dimpling.