Page 21 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

Even if your face lies, your body can’t help but show the truth.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I notice a woman in the line clutching her purse at my words. Her blue fingernails dig into the leather, and as I study her face, there’s a sense of her fear and anxiety. So, I shift my attention to Toma before she catches me analysing her.

“Well, that’s a real shame. She was a truly fantastic worker,” Toma remarks, shaking his head in disappointment.

What’s his game? He doesn’t seem like he’s planning to run. Will he stay and avoid taking any action? That might be best for me. I won’t have to look for another fucking guard. Still, I want to go hunting. I’m sick of being stuck inside Flesh. It stinks.

The woman bows her head, casting her gaze down, squirming. Do I make her uncomfortable? Why? She’s not fawning like the flashes from the cameras I can hear on either side of me.

I eye her, then leave, but as I look back, she hands Toma a passport and an envelope. A letter of acceptance? Yet, a letter of acceptance is usually for elemny with a strike. A known thief who has done their time. She doesn’t look like a thief as she speaks to him spiritedly, as if she weren’t a nervous, awkward mess a moment before.

I’m curious.

She walks into the hall as I step into the crowd and inadvertently bump into her. “Fucking arsehole,” she hisses venomously, and I doubt she wanted me to hear it.

I watch—suspicious of her behaviour—as she moves with the crowd until she reaches a group of friends. Not only friends. She has a lover, and she clings to him desperately, displaying signs of how she acted when she was chatting with Toma.

There’s a look of concern, a hint of relief in her body language, adoration, and…lust. Definitely suggestive lust. But underneath that layer, her boyfriend touches the side of her waist and grips her hip tightly. Her brown eyes waver, and calculating and subtle, the woman shifts out of his grasp until she stands beside him.

Her boyfriend and their two friends leave for the toilets while she uses her phone. I watch from a distance, hidden in the shadows of the pillars. When she talks to her mother, I leave, rendering my suspicions of her desperation because I’m itching for a satisfying kill. But as I walk away, my mind drifts back to when she clutched her purse at the mention of smugglers. Then again, her attitude versus outward demeanour—and the fucking envelope.

What did she give to Toma, and why did he hide it?

Fuck it. I’ll bite.

Who is this fucking unawakened woman?

Chapter 11

Pandora Hart: Sixteen years old

The body lands with a thud on the floor after Mother pulls the knife out. I eye the livid look of disgust registering on her face, and then the pale loss of colour on the neighbour’s face. Before this happened, she was helping Mother with cooking a Sunday roast. One moment, they were laughing. Next, Tiffany spoke ill of Dad, and Mum snapped.

Sure, I mean, why not stab the fucking neighbour? Talking it out is overrated, right?

“Our yard’s not big enough for another body,” I gripe.

Mother soaks the knife in warm water. “Not with an attitude like that, Pandora. Be a good girl and help me take her to the yard.”

I gaze at the dead woman and find it strange that my heart doesn’t race, nor is there a trace of remorse. Often, I wonder if it’s due to how my parents raised me. This isn’t my first time seeing a dead body, and it won’t be my last. Still, I know my reaction is out of place when Typha comes downstairs with her hands covering her mouth and going as pale as a ghost upon seeing the corpse in the kitchen.

Is there something wrong with me?

Sometimes, I dream about what it would be like to be Typha. I’d hang out with friends, listen to music, sneak out to parties, and live a more lively life instead of following Dad to his work and grabbing guns for fun.

“Pandora,” Mother snaps, crouching over the body as she pulls the neighbour by the legs. “Help me.”

I grab the arms, and as I shuffle out the back door, my mind transports me back to the kitchen, where the neighbour called Dad pathetic for not sealing the deal with Typha and the water elemny prince.

The disdain for my dad, expressed in a pitiful comment, set Mother in motion, and the knife was there in her hands, ready to use against the unfortunate ice elemny who thought it wise to speak ill of my dad.

Ice elemny have barbaric tendencies.

I drop her body in the yard, and Mother opens the shack, grabs a shovel, and hands it to me.

“You’re not gonna help me?” I stab the spear's end into the ground and shovel the clump of snow to the side.

“I need to crystallise the body. Otherwise, the rot will attract stray animals in the area,” Mother says.