by Abbie Lyons
And then he was back to Violet.
“Hey, Quinn! Quinn, was it?”
I shook myself back to awareness, reminding myself I was actually at a party, even if I wanted it to be some stupid spy mission, and looked up into two huge blue eyes.
“Oh,” I said. “It’s Steve.”
“It sure is,” Steve said. He looked considerably more relaxed, his soldier-straight posture slackened a little. “I’m finally done with door duty. Man, I’ll tell you what, I’m always happy to do my job right, but that is one high-pressure situation. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a bouncer long-term.”
My lips involuntarily formed a smile. Something about this guy was so wholesome that even a black-hearted person like me felt the warmth. “Why’d you do it at all, then?”
“Tradition,” Steve said, gulping something out of a goblet. “The new guys in the house always do the, er, bitch work”—he lowered his voice—“at the parties and stuff. Part of the deal with living at Casablanca.”
Interesting. “You don’t say?”
“Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s not exactly a typical dorm, right?” He spread his massive arms and chuckled. “Got certain regulations and responsibilities here.”
Hmm. “So how does a person end up living in this house, then?”
“A person,” Steve said, “does not. It’s males only. I know, I know, totally sexist, but it’s a thousands-of-years-old traditional. You know how Elysium is.” He shrugged.
Against my better judgment, I wanted to share. “Actually, I don’t. I’m human, so—”
“Whoa, seriously?” Steve looked equal parts surprised and delighted. He gulped more ambrosia. “Mom’s side or dad’s?”
“I’m not sure,” I white-lied. “So yeah, this is all pretty new to me.”
“Dang,” he said. “I’ve never met anyone with human blood before. But you look pretty normal. I mean, no offense!”
“None taken.” I wondered if I could gently nudge this conversation toward the topic of Funeral Guy, who, as far as I could tell, still hadn’t appeared in this party room. But how to broach the subject?
“Wait, hang on,” Steve said, his thick brows knitting. “If you’re human, how do you know a Halloran sister?”
“Who?” It took me a moment. “Oh, you mean Lucy? We just met on campus.” I pressed my lips together. “What’s the deal with that, anyway? Thanks for letting us in,” I added, lest he think I was being ungrateful. “I just mean...”
“You don’t know?” Steve’s golden face went ashen. “Oh, dude, I...woof.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“Woof?” It was unintentionally hilarious for him to say that. He really did look like a golden retriever.
“The massacre,” Steve said, his voice lowered a few notches, and way less jovial. “Your friend Lucy...her whole family was killed. Well, whole except for her.”
I didn’t think many things could shock me any more, but this news came as a blow. I stared across the room, where Lucy was chatting animatedly with the red-haired Pippa and a host of other guardian students. “But Lucy’s always talking about her sisters!”
“Yeah...” Steve shifted from foot to foot. “Well, they’re definitely dead.” He winced. “Sorry, that sounded bad. But yeah, it was bad. I knew there was one survivor, but I didn’t realize she was our age.”
“Massacre,” I said. “By whom?”
“It was a few years ago,” Steve said. The pained and somber expression on his face was like someone relating what had happened on 9/11—awful to recount, and also not something you’d ever think you’d have to explain to someone. “A bunch of powerful guardian families were just decimated. Dead in their houses, totally bloodless. Messed-up shit, pardon my French. So I guess you can see why she wouldn't have brought it up right away. Maybe she just talks about her sisters because it's easier. She doesn't have to consider the fact that she lost everyone.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, that does make sense.” I felt really bad all of a sudden. Ever since I’d arrived at Elysium, I had been assuming that I was the one dealing with the massive tragedy, that I was the one with the gaping hole in my life. That everything around here was just oriented to helping me figure out what had happened to Scott.
And that was true, in its own way. But other people had tragedies too, tragedies on a scale that I couldn't even imagine, tragedies that were both more existentially dangerous and far beyond what I had experienced emotionally.
“Anyway, sorry to be such a creeper slash downer,” Steve said. “How are you liking it here so far”?
I didn't know how to answer the question. “I'm liking it fine, I guess,” I said. “Some people are nicer than others.” Maybe I could bait him into telling me more about Marius or the Order of Eden, even if I didn't have a good lead on Funeral Guy.
“Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not one to talk since I'm living here in Casablanca, which is, you know...” Steve, somehow had obtained another full goblet of ambrosia, which he drank to the bottom. “A bit snobby, I guess.”
“So it's just sort of like an exclusive residential hall,” I said,
“Yep,” Steve said. If he was lying, he was really good at it, because his answer seemed totally unrehearsed, off the cuff. And frankly, there was something trustworthy about his answers that I didn't see in someone like Marius, or even in Violet. In fact, of all the people I’d had sustained conversations with at Elysium, Steve seemed to be the only one who hadn't concealed some truth or another from me.
“I kind of have it in the family,” He said. “You know, dad, dad’s dad, and dad’s dad’s dad all were Casablanca guys.”
“So that means what, exactly”?
“That they lived here!” he said.
Well, ask a stupid question. “Gotcha.”
“Hey, you guys want to try some good shit?” A slim dark-haired dude elbowed his way through the crowd, and opened his palm between me and Steve. Inside he cupped a few capsules that were golden...and glowing.
I may not have seen this exact batch before, but I knew drugs when I saw them. “No, thanks,” I said.
“Nah,” Steve said. “Good for now. Just chugging that sweet ‘brozh.”
I snorted and tried not to laugh. “So people do drugs here too,” I said, as the guy looked elsewhere in the crowd for someone to fob his wares off on.
Yeah, Steve said. “I mean, just because we have magic doesn't mean that we can keep ourselves entertained all the time, you know? Kind of opens up more possibilities if you think about it.”
“I suppose so. It's a huge problem back where I come from—drugs, I mean. Like, for humans.”
“Yeah, it doesn't really help us get shit done around here,” Steve said, thinking. “But you know, school doesn't start until tomorrow. Classes can wait, am I right?
Classes. The word struck itself against my head like a clapper inside a bell.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “I've never been a really good student.” And I have a feeling it's very different than human school,
“Probably!” Steve said, then frowned. “Although I've never been to human school, so I couldn't really tell you.”
Around us another knot of people was forming and I could hear them start to chant something. But the words weren't becoming clear until Steve looked back and took in what was going on.
“Spin the bottle!” came the chant. “SPIN the BOT-tle!”
“What? That's a thing here, too?” I said.
“Yeah,” Steve said, “I mean, I don't know how you guys do it, but it's not exactly that complicated kind of translates to a lot of different settings if you know what I mean. You want to play?”
“No,” I said abruptly. “Absolutely not.” True, everyone here was good looking—even if they had a real bad attitude like Marius. But I was not here for any kind of kissing or...anything else. That part of my body felt pretty turned off, possibly permanently.
A circle was forming on the carpet below us. I stepped back to make room and S
teve tucked one ankle behind the other and plopped down, crisscross applesauce.
“All right!” he said. He drank another glass of ambrosia. Maybe he had one of those self-filling things like this sparkling water on my bedside table. Seemed like a recipe for alcohol poisoning. But then again, Steve was pretty beefy. And who knew how ambrosia worked compared to regular alcohol. “Guess I'll see you later,” I said to Steve. Not that he was really listening. I started to pick my way out toward another part of the room.
And then I froze.
It was Funeral Guy, sitting in the circle directly across from Steve. I would know that fucking face anywhere.
I ground to a halt and plopped myself down. Steve looked surprised. “Changed your mind?” he said, not sounding unhappy about it.
My heart was pounding a wild tattoo in my chest. If Funeral Guy had even glimpsed me, he hadn't noticed it was me yet.
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” I said.
Chapter Nine
So there I was, about to play Spin the Bottle.
My mind was racing, frantically trying to concoct any kind of plan. I knew I didn’t want to make a scene. The vestiges of whatever I’d avoided—narrowly—by accidentally barging in on Marius and whoever else at the temple still pumped adrenaline into my system any time I thought about them. Not to mention that everyone here had—as absolutely batshit as it sounded—supernatural powers, and for all I knew they could laser blast me into angel dust with one zap from the eyes. No, the only real way for me to get through this was to lay low and absolutely not Funeral Guy out of my sight. And then, whenever it seemed plausible and possible to do so, corner him alone and interrogate the hell out of him.
I pressed my lips together, my throat suddenly dry. There was a sheen of sweat forming on my skin that I was somehow only now aware of, giving me a natural flush that was all too visible in the skimpy draping of Lucy’s halter-top jumpsuit.
“Okay, who’s first?” A raven-haired girl wearing a pearl choker above a delicately pink mini dress dangled something in the air that I couldn’t quite identify. It looked like a piece of jewelry, or maybe a watch? But she was “flirtatiously” wiggling it to and fro so hyperkinetically that I couldn’t get a read on it.
And since when did Spin the Bottle have props? Beyond the bottle, that is.
I darted a glance at Steve, who gave me a friendly smile, then, seeing my evident confusion, pouted out his lower lip and shrugged. He seemed confused why I was confused. No hope in communicating wordlessly the depths of my confusion.
“C’mon, y’all! You’re so lame.” The girl pouted, her Southern-Belle drawl coming out even more profoundly. But as she did, I finally got a glimpse of the thing in her hand: it was a kind of brass compass, a flat metal disk with two arms mounted to the front that swung around wildly. “I said, are y’all ready?”
“Woo!” Steve said, throwing his arms into the air in a victory pose. When no one else cheered, he quickly backed off, evidently because the other Casablanca guys did not approve. That was the other thing—was everyone in Casablanca also involved with the Order of Eden? Had I been wrong—was Steve really keeping something from me after all?
I brushed off the momentary disappointment I felt. I didn’t know the guy; he didn’t owe me any more than I owed him. Which was nothing. I was here for answers and he was here for...whatever he was here for.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter.
“Just put the bloody thing down, Honoria,” muttered one of the other guys, his voice lilting with a British accent. I didn’t look up to see which one he was, preferring to keep my gaze firmly but not weirdly fixed on the center of the circle, on the blue patch of carpet. No one could catch my gaze, and I knew that if the deep brown polished tips of Funeral Guy’s shoes stirred and moved, that was my cue to jump up, too.
“Fine, fine, guv’nah,” the girl named Honoria replied. It was a real United Nations of accents over here. A breeze from God knows where drafted across the room and over my skin, and I felt goosebumps spring up.
One person was already staring at me, I realized. Marius.
“Round and round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows!” Honoria finished the rhyme with a flourish and a giggle and plunked her watch-clock-compass thing in the middle of the circle—and fortunately, right into my field of vision. I watched as its tiny arms swung madly back and forth, spinning and listing, twirling and twitching back and forth. Gradually, they started to slow, fell into more predictable arcs, and the gathered circle of people oohed and ahhed and ohhhed as the hands began to settle...wherever they were going to settle. No one had explained the rules, but I could put the pieces together. Instead of spinning a literal empty bottle, guardians used this spinner thing. I had a sudden flashback to childhood games of Twister: right hand red! Then Scott would take the opportunity to pin me and dangle a glob of drool in my face.
Funny how I’d kill for even one of those stupid experiences, just one last time.
“Bingo!” cried Honoria. I jerked myself out of my reverie and felt the heat sweep over my skin before I fully realized what had happened.
Everyone was staring at me, because one of the arms was pointing directly at me.
And the other was pointing at Funeral Guy.
“Ooooh,” rang out the collective reaction. I blinked, my ears ringing lightly, cursing myself. How could I be this much of an idiot? Playing the game meant playing the game, not just sitting the circle.
“All right, you two!” The girl named Honoria winked obnoxiously at first me, then Funeral Guy. “You know the drill.”
Funeral Guy looked distinctly nauseated. Marius, a few places away to his left, was barely concealing a smirk. A small flame of anger flared in my chest. Oh, of course this was funny to him. Just hilarious.
I didn’t move, solid as one of the stone statues holding up the temple. Funeral Guy didn’t either. This, it seemed, was not acceptable to Honoria.
“C’mon now, y’all—”
“Yeah, c’mon, Quinn!”
At the sound of my name—my real name—my heart dropped to my toes. It was Steve. Innocently cheering me on, calling me by what was actually my name. I wanted to be mad, but I couldn’t. He had no idea he’d done anything wrong.
Marius, on the other hand—
I barely dared glance at him. But I couldn’t avoid glimpsing his face out of the corner of my eye, and what I saw took my breath away.
Pure rage.
He was tamping it down—for Violet’s sake, I assume, since she was sitting just at his elbow—but there was no mistaking it. The weird thing was, he didn’t seem to be directing his furious gaze at me and me alone.
He also looked pissed off at...Funeral Guy?
“Ugh!” Honoria threw up her hands and got to her feet. “Do I have to do everything ‘round here? I swear...”
Next thing I knew, she was dragging me by the elbow to my feet. Funeral Guy was yanked along by her other arm. And with one high-heeled foot, she kicked open one of the bookshelf panels. It spun on a pivot—a hidden door.
“Now see y’all in seven minutes!”
With a sharp push between my shoulder blades, I fell forward into darkness.
And so did Funeral Guy.
“Holy...” I breathed. The light narrowed and disappeared behind us; someone shut the door. In the blackness, I spun and pounded a fist, but it was no use.
I was trapped in a closet-sized space with a stranger.
I’d wanted to get him alone to talk, but not like this.
And for some reason, the first words out of my mouth were “What the hell kind of Spin the Bottle game is this?”
From somewhere to my left came a soft, snorted laugh. “The only kind there is?”
“There’s no bottle, though?” I grit my teeth. “Never mind.”
“Well, yeah. It’s just an expression. Like...’when pigs fly’ or whatever.”
“It...” I closed my eyes, even though it made no difference in the dark.
I didn’t care enough to have this argument. I needed to get my bearings.
But I hated small spaces.
Focus, Quinn.
“Just so you know, I’m interested in someone else,” Funeral Guy said. “I just got dragged into this game. I—”
“Who the hell are you?” I spat. I hugged my arms around myself, trying to take in all the absurdity. “I need explanations for like six different things, and...and...”
“I’m Aidan,” came his voice. “And I...whew. Yeah. Lots to explain, huh?”
“So start explaining,” I said. “I think you owe me at least that much. You’re the whole reason I’m even here.” My voice cracked against my will. I didn’t have to say it, but the words were burning in my throat. You know what happened to my brother—don’t you?
“Yeah...man.” There was a faint sh-sh sound, like he was shaking his head and his hair was brushing the wall. “Damn, I’m going to be in deep shit for this.”
“You already are,” I said.
“No, I mean, with...” He stopped abruptly.
“Why did you bring me here?” I demanded.
“I made a bad decision,” Aidan said, after a pause. Then another long pause. “I was supposed to find Scott.”
My chest went tight and cold.
I hadn’t heard anyone say Scott’s name out loud in...it felt like years, but in reality it wasn’t more than a few days. Still—
“Keep his fucking name out of your mouth,” I cried, hoarse. “What did you do to him? What do the fuck do you know?”
My emotions were a heady swirl, rage and pain enveloping me so blindingly I couldn’t think.
“I don’t know anything,” Aidan said.
“Liar. Fucking liar!”
“Listen, Quinn, you have to believe me. You have to listen and I’ll explain everything. As much as I can,” he amended. I heard him take a deep breath. “Scott was a guardian. I was supposed to recruit him for—to bring him to Elysium. But I...well, I didn’t get the chance to meet him. I shouldn’t have intervened at all, and I regret it. But I felt like going to the funeral was the right thing to do. And then I saw you and—”