The heavy tread of the crew home from the mine, gear thumping, deep voices, the day’s quiet shattering. They round the corner and see us. My brothers stop and stare. At the board between us, and the abandoned lunch plates, and the way it’s obvious that we’ve been here all day.
“Are you two,” Heavy says slowly, “playing that outrageously boring game that everyone hates except for Rook?”
“He finally found someone willing to suffer through it,” Cannibal laughs.
“And she’s good too, maybe she’s as good as him, if not better,” Scar observes, from the back. He’s looking at the board, reading the positions the way he reads everything, and there’s something almost like approval in it.
“I won,” I protest. “I won all three games.”
“This time,” Scar says. “Give it a few more and she’ll be the one who is winning.”
Hallie claps her hands with delight.
I shake my head.
My brothers laugh, and somebody claps me on the shoulder hard enough to rattle my teeth. And they start teasing me. “Rook finally found a partner.”
Hallie looks at the board, a little flushed, but she’s got a satisfied tilt to her mouth.
Claws says to her,“Are you going to teach the rest of us too, or is this a two-being operation?”
“You couldn’t handle it,” she responds.
And my brothers howl in response.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asks me, quiet, under the noise of my brothers, just for me.
“Same time tomorrow,” I agree.
Chapter 6
Hallie
By early evening I’m still thinking about Maxon’s personal crystal.
Really, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life. And he said it was lit up like that, for me?
Amazing.
I’m in my room. The cleaning bot, Max, has been through already leaving it spotless and my bed made. There’s even a nice stack of fresh pajamas and an outfit for me to wear tomorrow, including shoes, socks and underwear.
This brings a smile of gratitude to my lips.
I turn the day over in my head like a stone I can’t put down. My whole body vibrates with energy. This has been a surprisingly good day, made better by the addition of Maxon in my life. That sexy miner was a joy to hand out with today. The games. The way he laughed while we spent basically the whole day playing Karrec together.
Now that I’ve stopped running and reached my location, I am having the best time of my life, and I need to stop. I need to stop right now. Because the cooking smells are drifting down the hall and there are children shrieking somewhere. The whole compound is gearing up for dinner together and of course I’minvited to share this with them, because they’ve easily taken me in like one of their own. Every minute I let myself sink into this comfort, I’m forgetting the fact that I’ve brought killers to their door.
There’s a knock.
I open the bedroom door to find Scar, Ines and Maxon standing in the hallway.
“Oh, hi.”
“Good afternoon,” Ines smiles in response. “We read your write-up.” She holds up her tablet. She has the brisk, bright energy of a person who’s found something she’s been hunting for a long time. “Thank you for this, Hallie. I’m thankful to have this written down and so organized. It’s very helpful. You have no idea how rare that is, most witnesses give you a mess and you spend a rotation untangling it. You’ve handed us a map.”
“I’m a Keeper,” I say. “Organizing things I’m not supposed to understand is the entire job.”
“Which is why I have about forty more questions,” Scar says.
