“I don’t really want to talk about—”
“Kane pilfered some extra wine bottles from the folks in lux goods,” someone announced, loudly, as they entered. “So I thought we could—”
I turned to see a woman with wild, curly dark hair bouncing around her heart shaped face. Her lips, which formed a perfect o at the sight of Darius and I on the couch, were painted adeep burgundy and her eyes were lined with kohl to match. Her leggings were ripped to shreds in a way that felt almost on purpose, revealing uncontested inches of her smooth olive skin.
“You have a supervisor in your room,” she said, freezing in the doorway even as her spare set of keys, complete with a glittery pink butterfly key chain, dangled against the door.
With a sudden jerky movement, she slid the bottle of wine she'd been carrying behind her back in an effort to conceal what I supposed was likely a banned substance. Not that I’d had much time to review the manual or anything. But her reaction had told me as much as I needed to know about what the rules regarding alcohol were around here. I turned away, sliding my sleeves over the bars on my arm to obscure them, though I wasn’t quite sure why I did. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be different. Not with Darius and not with his new friends, either.
“No,” Darius said, standing and holding out his hands in a placating gesture toward his guest. “Adrian isn’t—”
“Adrian?” the woman gasped. Her wide, chocolate eyes swiveled from him to me. “TheAdrian? Shut up!”
She punched Darius hard in the shoulder as he approached before setting the bottle of wine on the counter and striding over to me on the couch.
“Ow,” Darius said,half-heartedly, rubbing his arm as he reached out to shut the door behind her.
The woman practically bounced onto the couch beside me as she sat.
“Darius has told me all about Sanctuary,” she gushed, leaning forward and placing one manicured hand on my knee as she spoke. “I was absolutelyobsessed. That’s why I’ve heard so much about you. You and Graham, Sophie, Harrison, all of you.”
“You’re not from Sanctuary?” I asked, hesitantly.
She shook her head, curls bouncing everywhere as she did.
“No. I was born down here,” she told me. “My whole family has been for generations. Not many of us are from topside anymore. That’s why they take so few in the Culling. We keep them pretty well stocked on our own.”
I nodded slowly.
“I bet you’re so happy to see her,Dar!” she exclaimed as he sat on the coffee table in front of us.
She leaned forward and kissed him, leaving his lips a tad darker when she pulled away, and I couldn’t help the way my own parted in surprise. Unfortunately, she noticed.
“You didn’t tell her?” the woman asked, looking between Darius and I.
“I didn’t have time,” he confessed, rubbing the back of his neck the way I knew he always did when he was uncomfortable. “We just got here.”
“Ah, well, Darius and I are together which I hope is okay. I mean, I know you two weren’t ever a thing but you were super close so I just hope it isn’t weird.”
“Oh, no,” I told her, quickly and uncomfortably. “It’s not weird at all. I guess I just…hadn’t expected you to already have built a whole life down here.”
I said the last part to Darius who was still rubbing his neck as he gave me a lopsided grin.
“It’s been over a year, Adrian,” he reminded me, voice soft.
“I know,” I whispered back.
The woman looked between us for a moment before breaking out into a broader grin.
“Right,” she said, happily. “Well, I’m—”
“Roxy, I presume?” I asked, raising a brow.
She laughed at that.
“And you, of course, need no introduction,” she replied with a grin. “But I know you didn’t come down in the Culling so how—”
She stopped mid sentence, eyes going wide. Then she lunged forward, grabbing my sleeve and pushing it up past my elbows. She let out a gasp, jaw dropping at the bars she found branded into my skin.
