“You have a headache.”
“I know.” She pauses as she stands and looks at me. “Is that going to hurt you?”
“No, I can’t feel the pain, I can just hear you thinking about it.”
“Well, I will try not to bitch about it too much then.” She sits in her oversized chair and says, “Hopefully the medication will start to work soon.”
I sit where she wants me to, and ignore the errant thought wondering if she could get me to do something silly.
When she immediately reproaches herself, I pretend like I never heard it.
Sheknowsbecause there was no waythiswas going to work if she didn’t.
“Alright. Tell me how the last month has been. Did you take any nights off?”
When I exhale, thinking about everything that has happened, she sits up a little straighter. “Uh oh. What’s happened?”
I’m not sure where to start, so I start with the part I think is most important. “A woman fell out of the sky and I’m in love.”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
CHRYS
Margot ismildlyterrifying.
It felt that way with a computer screen and a bajillion miles between us.
It’s so much stronger with herrightthere.
“You’re taller than I thought,” I say, because I can’t actually tell her she scares me.
“It’s the boots.” She kicks her feet, and I look down at boots that do not havethattall of a heel on them. “When you have to constantly threaten to crush the nuts of a guy who’s six-nine, it’s easier to do when you’re close to their height and look like you’d enjoy doing it.”
Margot presses her lips together, smiling at me like she knows a secret, and then slips off the desk to stand again. “Is there a fourth Ardem sister back on Earth? I bet we could get her heresofast.”
“No, just Jess, Laurel and me.”
“You three could be the basis for an argument that falling in love with Sian men has a genetic component. Anecdotal, of course, and Jessica wouldn’t like that.”
She laughs and holds her hand out, gesturing in the opposite direction to the one Arc went.
Falling into step beside me, she says, “Obviously you’re not allowed upstairs. Unbonded women don’t get to go play.” She smiles like there’s a joke in that statement.
“I’m fine to stay down here. There’s no one up there I want to play with anyway.”
“I didn’t think there was.”
We reach the end of the curving hallway and Margot hauls open a pair of doors, waving me through. I only walk far enough inside that I’m sure she won’t run into me.
“Wow.” I look up at an impossibly high ceiling for—what I’d assumed was—a basement. “Where are we?”
There are poles off to one side, a basketball court in the far corner, a full bar, and a wobbly circle of random chairs and sofas close to it. Further on, around the continuing circle of the hall’s path, there is a line of lit mirrors and fancy stools.
“It’s a lounge space, training room, chemistry lab… Whatever we want it to be, really.” Margot says from behind me. “We have smaller sitting areas with the dressing rooms on each floor, but this is the place we keep fully separate from the club for us. It’s where we do ‘girl’s night’ away from the Zone, too. So, you’ll be back again with your sisters.”
“Assuming Jess doesn’t kill me when she finds out I’m here.”
