“Asister?” Coen interrupted, his face creasing up in disgust.
“No.” Yael shook his head. “Fuckno. A girl-brother.”
“That sounds like a sister—”
“A girl-brother and that’s final!”Yael snapped.
The others looked at him, some of them in frustration, some in amusement. I noted that none of them seemed shocked. Maybe Yael had a habit of demanding that people believe in contradictory things—what was I saying?He wasPersuasion! Of course that was a habit of his.
“Are we in agreement?” Siret wanted to know.
Although more than one expression crossed their faces, not one of them disagreed. In fact, all of them slammed their hands out into the centre of their circle and did some sort of shake. It was fast, I couldn’t quite see what was happening, but it was clear that they had all agreed.
Sweet Topian gods, were they for real?
Those five assholes were standing around makingpactsabout not kissing me? About treating me like a … like agirl-brother?It was …what the actual freak?
I would never admit it to them, or myself really, but deep down a part of me was hurt. Okay, so yeah, Ihadjust admitted that to myself. I knew I was just a dweller; that fact had been slammed into my head more times than was really necessary. So I knew my place in this world, but the Abcurses didn’t generally treat me according to my place in the world. Not really. Now it seemed they were making this decision without even consulting me. Sure, they had apparently done it to save my life, but it wasmylife.
Rome spoke, distracting me momentarily. Although ‘spoke’ was a bit of an understatement. His words slammed out into the room like stones smashing into a brick wall. “Elowin needs to be destroyed. As soon as the dweller finds us our information, we can take care of her. It has to be fast, our powers are starting to strain. We’re going to have to cross over again soon, and this time we know that someone will be waiting for us.”
I had no idea what he was talking about with his powers, so I decided to focus on the one thing that Ididunderstand. Their pact: it was pissing me off in a way I hadn’t expected. I fought against being in Siret’s mind. I didn’t want to see anymore; I was too mad. I wanted to wake up and kick all of their asses. I was distracted from my struggle, however, when the door slammed open and a small figure burst into the room.
It was Emmy. Coen was at her side in an instant, and even her unflappable confidence faded under his glare. “Did you figure out where she is?” he asked, his voice a rumble of menace.
She nodded quickly. “Yes, Atti gained entrance to her office. He found her address in Soldel. She apparently put in for some time off and is no longer in Blesswood.”
Coen turned his back on her, dismissing her in one motion. “We need to find her now, and her companions.”
Sounded like Fake Willa was still on the run too. All of them skipped out of Blesswood; they already had this little escape planned. I was afraid they were going to bail then, leaving me behind, but thankfully they hadn’t forgotten about our connection. I was sucked from Siret’s mind the moment Aros put his hands on me.
I shot up in the bed, my heart pounding as I tried to bring my mind back to itself. It was so disorienting being in someone else’s mind, even just for a little while.
“You’re fine, Willa …” The seductive sol started to say, but before he could finish, I had already lunged from the bed, prepared to storm out of the room.
A plan which went badly astray as my legs tangled in the bed sheets and I took a head-first dive into the floor. Or I would have, at least, if Yael hadn’t been there to scoop me up. I wiggled against him, wanting to stay mad, but as always … I just couldn’t. My stupid, co-dependant soul just wanted me to like them. That was my story and I was not budging from it.
“You okay, Willa-toy?” Yael’s moss-green eyes missed nothing as he let me stand on my own feet. “You’re looking flustered, even for you.”
Breathing in and out, wanting to scream and yell, I decided there was no point. They had made their choices, and to some degree, I understood them. I didn’t like that they had decided without me, but I understood that it wasn’t exactly a conversation that we all needed to have together. And the conversation itself made sense, even it ifwashurtful. We couldn’t actually get involved romantically. It was impossible because there wasn’t a single one of them that I preferred over the others, which would mean that … well, it would mean that I would be getting involved withallof them. It was taboo enough for a dweller to get involved with a sol in Minatsol in the first place, let alonefiveof them.
So instead, I just pointed to the front door. “Need to use the bathroom.”
It was the only thing I could think of to get a moment awake to deal with what had happened. In Siret’s head, I had been mainly angry, but now that I’d had a moment to think things through a little more calmly, I found that I was a mix of emotions. None of which I wanted the Abcurses to know about. Thank the gods Emmy was still in the room. She stood near the door and when I got close, she linked her arm through mine.
“She’ll be fine with me,” she declared over her shoulder to the five sols, all of whom were closing in on us. She looked a little bit confused.
Coen shook his head just once, and I knew that there was going to be a fight.
“We can protect her, dweller.” He had that look again. The murder one. “She needs us.”
I was one click away from rushing outside and slamming the door in their faces, but even though he’d declared it in that way, he was still right. I couldn’t separate myself from them.
“I can pee alone, guys. You can wait right outside.”
Coen kicked the door open and stepped out. “Come on,” he said bluntly, striding down the hall in the direction of the bathing chamber.
Emmy and I hurried after him, my best friend whispering to me as we went. “We aren’t allowed to use their bathing chambers, Willa. We’ll get in trouble; they’ll send us back to our village.”
