After another run-in with a dweller, I found myself covered in some kind of sudsy water. I didn’t even want to know what they were using that water to clean. I just didn’t. I disentangled myself from the ground and the bucket and the girl, taking off at a run again, barely sparing her an apology. It was lucky that night seemed to have fallen, and so all the sacred little sols were tucked up in their sacred little beds.
By the time I crashed into the circular common area that headed their dorm level, my chest was heaving, and the water had evaporated a little bit, leaving my fresh—albeit already ripped from Yael’s manhandling—shirt all uncomfortably squishy and soapy. The boys were all standing around the common area, the only sols still out-and-about on their floor. They didn’t turn when I clamoured into the room. They were all facing inward. Facing someone. I frowned, creeping around to the side, shock slowly dropping through me as the female became visible.
It was me.
Except it sure as hell wasn’t! Because I was standing right where I was standing, and not over there!
“What are you trying to say?” Rome growled, taking a threatening step toward the pretend-Willa, who was even wearing the same clothes as me, sans soap.
“I have to leave,” Fake Willa replied, her voice deeper than I had expected. Almost husky. I supposed I sounded different when I wasn’t hearing the words as I spoke them. “I want to leave,” she added.
“Like hell you’re leaving.” Coen’s scowl was dark, a shadow passing over his face.
Fake Willa swallowed, her hands trembling behind her back as she eased a few steps away from him. Those idiots! They should have known that the girl wasn’t me. When did I tremble? Okay, maybe when one of them touched me for too long, or when Rau turned up … or those few other times that I had almost died … but not the point. I rarely trembled like a scared child.
And fake Willa was looking a hell of a lot like a scared little girl, with that wild mop of curls surrounding a face that was dominated by the tawny pools of her eyes. I kind of wanted to punch her in the face.
“What the hell did you say to her?” Siret demanded, bearing down on Yael, who immediately decided to do a little bearing-down himself. Okay, now I understood why this was taking them so long to get. Men were stupid. Too much testosterone had fried their brains and they were completely useless to me.
Although, surprisingly, Yael halted the attack, managing to use his mouth instead of his fists. “I didn’t say anything. She just … decided this, all of sudden. We were having dinner, everything was fine—I mean, a few sols tried to start some shit, but I headed them off, and then I took her for a walk, because I knew you guys needed to cool off for a bit. Then she came out with this nonsense …” he cut a glare to Fake Willa. “I brought her straight here. Straight to you guys.”
This was getting weird. Too weird for me to stand back and watch. I marched up, tapping Aros’s back. He turned around, his golden eyes passing right over me as though he didn’t see me. His eyes narrowed, for a moment, and then he was facing Fake Willa again.
What. The. Hell.
I tried again, and this time he swung around with a scowl, his golden eyes darting all around the room as if he was trying to discern what had just happened. I jumped up and down in front of him, waving my hands. No reaction. I pulled up the hem of my clean-once-upon-a-time shirt, outright flashing him.
Nothing.
He couldn’t see me.
How was this possible? What else had Elowin done? Hold up … Emmy and Atti had been able to see me just fine, so had a few other dwellers I’d smashed into when I was running through the halls. Dwellers could see me! Maybe that was the key to this, I was only invisible to sols. There was no one else around to test my theory on, but for now it would have to suffice.
“Hey, Rome … Siret … Aros … any of you!” I started shouting their names, but none of them turned to me.
You are all dumbasses! I shouted as loud, mentally, as I could, and there was an immediate reaction.
Yael growled, wrapping his right hand around the back of Fake Willa’s neck. “What’s with the name calling, dweller?”
Okay, mental link still in place, but it wasn’t that much use to me. They just thought it was this imposter speaking. I needed to figure out why I was selectively invisible. What had that bitch-face done to me? I also should probably use the mental-link to let the Abcurses know that I was standing right behind them, but I kind of wanted to see what else Fake-Willa had to say for herself. Or myself.
She blinked her big, stupid eyes up at my Abcurses. “Guys, can you all just please back up? I’m feeling a little weirded out right now.” She had my teeth grinding as she tried to slip out from the middle of them. Before she could escape, though, Rome let out a grumble. It shook his huge chest, and possibly even the floor that we were standing on.
His hand wrapped around her throat, the other under her arm as he lifted her into the air. The movement was considerably more violent than when Yael had reached for her. Even I was surprised. Rome had never attacked me like that before.