“No.”
“Hmm.” She looks up like she’s thinking about it. Like that’s information I wouldn’t have remembered.
I should’ve known by the yellow of her dress that she isn’t one of Aurelius’s whores. He would’ve made her a Seraph, not a Cultivator.
It’s obvious now that it’s in front of me, and that only brings me more unease. I should be paying closer attention to these people, trying harder to learn their practices, their way of thinking.
We walk toward the center of the compound, each ranks’ home connected by sidewalks leading to a center point. Wilcox’s initiation ceremony was this way. I wonder if we’re walking toward another.
“Okay, you caught me.” Zephyr finally lets go. I tuck my hands in my pockets to prevent her from trying to hold anything and hone in on her somber expression. She has the tendency to ramble, but for once, I’m all ears.
“If I’m being perfectly honest… I didn’t mention it because I was enjoying you not knowing.” She tucks hair behind her ear while her breaths deepen—nervous. “My father is a powerful man. It’s hard to step out of his shadow.”
My shoulders unwind at the innocence that softens her voice—and even more her intentions. “I see.”
“Do you?” She hovers closer to me as someone walks around us. Her steps have slowed. Wherever we’re going, we’re crawling there.
I nod. “You just want to be seen as your own person. Not as someone’s daughter. I get it. We’re all good.”
“Can you relate?”
CanIrelate?
I can feel her staring at me like she’s trying to look inside my head, and just like that, the discomfort returns. She’s strange, but that can only be expected from someone who’s grown up in a place like this. It isn’t even her words that hit me as eerie. It’s her voice. Her even yet full voice, held with an intensity of a microphone in your face.
It’s hard to get used to.
“It’s just that,” she goes on with a light, nervous chuckle. “I feel like I’ve read so much about you, yet I know little. I don’t know where you come from, who raised you. It’s amazing what the authorities haven’t been able to find.”
I agree.
“I’m so curious…”
She lets her words hang there a minute while she waits for me to tell my life story to a stranger. Except in her mind, we aren’t strangers. We’re friends. We’reclose, like all the time she’s spent reading about me has counted as conversation.
If I walked into her room and found a collage of photos tacked to her wall, I wouldn’t be shocked.
“I can relate.” I blow out a long string of air like I’m reliving something. My father is a drunk who’s spent his life in limbo between his beer-stained recliner and entry-level work that’s never lasted more than a couple of months. His shadow is so small, the police can’t find it.
I keep waiting for the day he sees my photo and tries to turn me in for a reward, but he’s too busy watching college kids throw a ball around to turn on the news.
Or maybe he’s dead, his remains waiting at a morgue for someone to love him. It’s been twenty years since I’ve seen that man, and I would bet my life that no one will ever claim that box of ash.
“My father was a businessman.” A crowd appears up ahead, looking up at a stage they must’ve put up for this occasion. “I tried to follow in his footsteps, but…” I shrug. “I could never make him proud doing what he does. Sometimes the only way to be seen is to realize you have the capability of going it alone.”
I watch her face pinch as she considers my words. Always so considerate, so hungry to learn. She might be a little loony, but out of all the women I’ve met in this compound, she’s most tolerable.
Zephyr doesn’t say a word as we approach the back of the large crowd peering up at a pale young woman with red-rimmed eyes and greasy hair. She looks like she’s trying to smile but is in too much pain to be joyful. Thorne stands by her side, an uncharacteristic lightness in his stance while Aurelius converses with a teary-eyed middle-aged woman. She has the same color hair as the girl, similar facial features. They must be mother and daughter.
“So how are things with the girl?” Zephyr asks after a few minutes of silence. I peer ahead into the forest as Keepers approach like a pack of wolves strutting from the forest in the direction I’ve spent countless hours exploring. One of them has the coiled weapon I’ve seen before, only now it’s elongated and slung over his back.
Oh, it’s awhip. A metal whip with a handle that looks like more than just a handle, like it’s got a button on it. An electric whip. Odd choice of weapon, but all right.
Now where thefuckdid they come from?
“Sawyer?” Zephyr prompts, placing a hand on my shoulder. I’ve counted fifteen Keepers before I turn to her.
“Hmm?”
