Right. Luck. Because that was a thing I was totally familiar with.
“This sun-cycle we have to clean and set up the dining room before the sols get there. You can’t skip cleaning duties!” She was all aghast and stuff. Sometimes, I wondered if she knew me at all. I skipped my duties back in the village all the time. I literally couldn’t seem to help from breaking rules. Maybe that was curse-induced too. Or maybe duties just sucked. I didn’t believe what Emmy said; I didn’t have a death wish. I had the opposite of a death-wish. I had a life-wish, where I actually wanted to have a life outside of serving and working and being told exactly how to serve and work.
I patted her arm quickly, before sprinting toward the door. She lurched out to grab me, missing by an inch.
“If I get to the dorms early, there’s even less of a chance that one of those … sols will be back from their training,” I whisper-yelled as I left.
The words lingered behind me but I didn’t stop moving, grabbing a few pieces of breakfast rock-bread as I passed the common dweller area. I took the stairs one at a time, even though I wanted to jump up as many as I could. It was safer this way. A broken nose would slow me down and I was on a mission. The Abcurse brothers would not get a jump on me this morning. Willa was going to get one over on them. Yes, I now spoke about myself in the third person. It was that kind of mission.
The domed room was reasonably empty; I noticed a few dwellers slipping into the dining area—they had the not-be-seen-or-smelt thing down. Eating my food as I ran, I took a sharp left and continued sprinting toward the male dorms. My disguise instilled me with a little more confidence this sun-cycle, but I kept my vigilant observations up. I hadn’t roamed at this time before and had no idea who I might run into. The sols should be either at breakfast, or at training in the stadium, but it worried me that the Abcurse brothers had been missing for the second part of the previous sun-cycle. They were rule-breakers like me, apparently. Although, unlike me, it wasn’t going to get them killed.
There were no cleaning carts conveniently waiting for me, so I had to barge through the storage room door, rip a poor defenceless cart free, and push it at super-dweller-speed toward dorms 1-5.
The hallway was empty and I had this amazing feeling inside. All warmth and life. I was totally killing it at being a dweller slave this sun-cycle.
Killing it!
When I was almost at the end, doorway five sprung open, and a huge body emerged. With an audible shriek, I skidded to a stop and hit the deck, hiding behind my cart. I was still a few feet from their rooms. If they didn’t look this way, they hopefully wouldn’t notice a rogue cart just sitting in the hall, all on its own.
I heard voices, and keeping my breathing as shallow as possible, I peered through the small gap in the towel area on the cart. Lots of goldenness, muscles, and arrogance came into sight. I couldn’t quite tell, but judging from the glow, all five Abcurse brothers were leaving.
“We need to make sure D.O.D. knows that we’re done with his bullshit. When we get back, I’m going to rip his ungodly head off.”
Rome’s voice was distinct—a low growl which tingled down my spine and settled somewhere low in my body. Which I was so not okay with.
“We need to figure out how to end this banishment.” That was Yael, his velvety persuasive tone was enough to almost have me up and crawling toward him. He was dangerous. Affecting me way more than was safe. He continued: “I almost lost control of them the previous sun-cycle, it’s starting earlier than usual this time.”
They were moving away now; I could hear them still, but it was getting softer. Shifting my body forward a little, I decided to take a risk and see what was happening. Just as I got my head around the edge of the cart, blood red and ochre hair came into view.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Coen reached out and wrapped his arms around me, and even though he wasn’t as huge as his strength-gifted twin, he was still giant-size. He lifted me with ease, and I flinched, bracing for the pain. You weren’t gifted to cause pain unless you were a sol who took pleasure in it.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Rocks,” he said, whispering close to my ear. My eyes shuttered briefly as I fought for composure. I was potentially a click away from begging for my life, which was pretty uncool, considering my life hadn’t been outwardly threatened. Yet. “I prefer my pain in a different outlet to what you’re imagining,” Coen continued. “If I cause you pain, you’re probably going to like it.”
What the … holy gods of Topia, was he saying? I … why was my brain trying to sign me up?
Aros.
It was his fault.
Blame the seduction-sol—even if he wasn’t touching me. Seemed the simplest option.