“Come on, dweller!” Coen shouted. “It’s time to go.”
Emmy stopped me before I could leave, whispering in my ear. “They don’t look at you like you’re nothing. They’re going out now to take on Elowin because she hurt you. They care … maybe try to let them in.”
I closed my eyes briefly, fighting down the emotions, before I opened them again and smiled sadly. “The problem is, I already have let them in.”
They were moreinthan anyone else had ever been. Even Emmy. They all literally held a piece of my soul in their hands, and it scared me on a primal level that I had never experienced before.
Seventeen
Apparently, we hadn’t moved from the bathroom fast enough because the door slammed opened and Coen was suddenly filling the space. His eyes were extra bright as they bore into me, before his gaze dropped slowly to run over me.
“Are you okay, dweller-baby?”
Those low, gravelly words grazed across my skin, igniting it as though my whole body was straining in anticipation of the pleasure-pain that his touch could bring. Emmy nudged me in the back, and when I glimpsed her from my peripherals, she was grinning like a crazy person. I turned to glare at her more fully and she mouthedtold youbefore turning to make her way from the room.
Coen moved aside to let her free, and then there was more than just his giant form filling the area. Siret, Yael, Rome, and Aros pushed inside, each of them taking a moment to inspect me for injury.
I decided right then to not worry so much about their pact. For now, this worked for us, whatever this was, and I wasn’t going to ruin it by thinking too hard about it. They were my kindred souls. The rebels. The rule-breakers. The guys who gave the middle finger to the gods, the same way I had, my whole life. They were the friends I had been born to find, and I wasn’t going to let my annoying feelings push them away.
“So,” I said, smiling at the Abcurses.
Eyes narrowed, brows furrowed, and suspicion crept into their features.
I let out a huff. “What? It’s not like I never smile. I was hoping one of you could fill me in on the plan.”
Yael shook his head, before reaching forward and dropping a stack of clothes at my feet. “We’ll explain on the way. Put some proper clothes on. This isn’t the time for your usual penchant for nudity and those clothes look off, like you tried to mop the floor in them.”
That would have been the bucket of dirty soap water that had been poured all over me—wait, saywhatnow?
I so did not have a penchant for nudity.
It just happened to me. The rest of the asshole-brothers were grinning at Yael.She so does have a penchant for nudity, the looks seemed to say.
How dare they unwittingly counter my thoughts!
I was so riled, I whipped my shirt up over my head and tossed it across the room without any hesitation whatsoever. My bra was next as I flicked it free, shorts and underwear following soon after. Well, kind of. I got them to my ankles and then as I tried to kick them free, I tripped over backwards, clipping the edge of one of the sinks and landing flat on my face. My shriek would have been loud and piercing, if it hadn’t been muffled by the shirt I’d landed on. The one I’d just flung off my body. Like a stubborn idiot with a penchant for nudity.
I really need to think things through more often.
There was a beat of dead silence, before one of them groaned. Aros’s words were far less smooth than usual. “I’m out, guys.”
The sound of steps and then a door shutting followed. I knew I should roll over and get back to my feet, but now that I’d managed to make a fool of myself for the hundredth time in front of them, I really didn’t want to move. My ass was showing, but nothing else. Which seemed like something I could deal with.
Something warm draped over my body, and I lifted my head to find Siret crouched right beside me. “I thank the gods every single sun-cycle that you tripped into our lives, Soldier.” His smile was so bright, like he was on the verge of laughing. “But you really need to get dressed now, otherwise Chaos might get his wish.” He stood and was almost out of the room when he turned back and said, “Move that perfect ass. You have one click or I’ll be back to dress you myself.”
He was gone then, and the room felt so empty without them in it. I pulled myself up from the bathroom floor, praying to the gods—except Rau, that asshole was getting no prayer from me—that the floor in there was cleaned by a super-dweller like Emmy or Atti, and not a lazy, face-planting dweller like me.
Stumbling across to the pile of clothing left by the Abcurses, I found clean sets of everything I usually wore. Underwear, dark fitted pants, and a simple black shirt. My boots were sitting a little further away; I pulled them on when I was dressed.
I pushed the door open to find the Abcurses lined up and ready to get out of there. I caught Coen’s eye, since he was standing closer than the others. His gaze dropped from my face for a moment, settling on my chest and then flicking lower, before he quickly pulled his head up and stormed off down the hall. He really needed to stop looking at me like that. I was kind of regretting the nudity now, because my legs were a little too weak. It wasn’t good to have weak legs right before a kick-ass mission. Not that I had any experience with kick-ass missions. But … I assumed.
“Let’s do this,” I announced, filled-to-the-brim with a confidence that didn’t really make sense, since I had no idea what we were actuallydoing.
I knew that we were going to hunt down Elowin, and that she was going to wish she’d never messed with me on account of the five badass sols apparently hell-bent on defending any threat to their pack—a pack that I was now a part of. But that was where my knowledge reached a bit of a hurdle, because I didn’t know how we were going to get our revenge, and I didn’t even know if it would be possible. The boys weren’t normal, but they weren’tgods, and Elowin was older than them. Older—with more experience, and enough of a brain to get herself out of Blesswood. Just in case.
Maybe she was trying to draw them out. Maybe they also presented a threat to hernatural orderof things. Maybe she was pissed at them for dragging me out of my place and standing me above the dwellers; for excusing me from the duties that she had given me, and refusing to accept the repercussions of their actions.
Maybe …shit, maybe this washerrevenge-plan.
