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 topretendthat I hadn’t just waltzed into someone’s dorm, topretendthat I hadn’t heard them clearly admonishing me, and topretendthat 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 wronghall, maybe?” he asked, walking away from me.
I still didn’t turn. Instead, I just listenedreallyhard. I couldn’t tell where he was standing anymore, but I could sense that he was still there somewhere. Wellobviously …because he didn’t exactly jump out of the window.
“Dweller?”
“Will you reassign me?” I blurted, spinning around, andimmediatelywishing 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 heate 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. “Becauseflowers and butterfliesaren’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.
Mind momentarily blown.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the arena?” I was mostly just keeping him talking now, so that he wouldn’t notice me backing toward the door.
“They don’t let me train with the others. I keep crushing them.”
“So that’s your gift, then?” I squeaked. “Crushing?” I couldn’t really believe I was having this conversation with a sol alone in his bedroom, let alone having this conversation atallwithout a whip cutting across my back.
His smile disappeared and he jumped into motion, backing me into the door much faster than I had been backing myself into the door.
“Strength,” he whispered, pressing a body against me that kind of felt like a giant boulder. Or a brick house. Or maybe a stone mountain. “Strength is my gift, dweller, and I’m not going to reassign you, so start cleaning.”
He was off me instantly, pulling open the door hard enough to send me sprawling on the ground. He then slammed it shut hard enough to knock the broom off my cart. It hit me in the back, of course.
“Strength,” I mocked, picking myself up off the floor and kicking the broom away. “Clean my room, slave! Or I’ll crush you like a bug because I’m abig strong sol!”
I was working myself up a bit. I realised that … I just couldn’t seem to prevent it. Yanking the door open, I leaned out and peered down the corridor. I was pretty happy to see that Number Two was nowhere in sight, because I definitely would have tried to kick his ass, and definitely would have ended up in someone’s soup come morning. I glanced to the top of the door, on the outside, reading his name.
Room 2: Rome Abcurse.
I pulled the rest of the way out of the room and moved to Room Number 3.
