by Lucy Smoke
I grumble but make no complaints at having the rest of the day to myself. Instead, I make my way back to the elevator banks and stairs. My gaze lingers longingly on the stairwell, but I don't know if I can make it up the nearly ten flights of stairs to the penthouse.
I have to get used to it, I remind myself, pressing the elevator button. Haze jogs back out of the training center. "You're taking the elevator?" he asks.
I nod, and the elevator chimes its arrival. He steps in with me. "I'll come too."
I don't turn him away.
We're both quiet as we ascend to the top. My foot taps restlessly against the floor. My eyes jump from wall to wall, to wall, to doors, to floor, to ceiling. When the doors finally slide open, I bolt from the tiny little box of doom. Maybe a little melodramatic, but it’s whatever.
“So, what did you follow me up here for?” I ask curiously, heading through the sitting room towards the hallway where our rooms are.
Haze follows behind. “I wanted to ask you something.”
I stop outside my bedroom door, hand on the knob, and turn back. “Yes?”
“What did you tell Levi when you went down this morning?”
I pause, looking up into his face. Dirty hazel eyes stare back at me. "I think that's something that he should tell you if you want to know," I say.
He nods. "Okay, I just wanted to know if you would tell me." Haze steps away and moves further down the hall. I narrow my eyes at his back. "Were you testing me?" I ask.
He stops and turns back. "I don't know what you mean."
I frown, stepping away from my bedroom door. "You followed me all the way up from the training center to ask me that?"
He shrugs. "Yes."
I’m not sure I trust that, but Haze doesn’t give me a second to interrogate him further. Instead, he flips around and disappears back into the penthouse. I debate for several seconds on following him but shake my head and decide against it. I may be feeling more like my normal self, but I’d rather not fight right now.
I enter the bedroom, avoid looking at the bed, and make my way to the ensuite bathroom. The shower stall is small, but still twice as large as anything I had in the old pod complex. When I get in, my knees and elbows don’t bang into the glass. I step out feeling clean, and equally exhausted.
Changing into a fresh pair of synthetic cotton pants, I still don’t move towards the bed. I won’t get any sleep if I stay in here. Instead, I move back to the door and head down the hall. Penny is busy placing flowers in a vase on one of the tables in the sitting area in front of the elevators. I sit down and watch her work.
“Where do you get those?” I ask, finally, gesturing to the flowers. They’re so rare on Tartarus.
Penny smiles and touches her fingertips to one of the yellow roses in the bouquet before rubbing her baby bump. She pulls one free and walks over to me, reaching out to offer it to me. I blink, taking it from her hand and nearly jump at the sensation. The stem is warm, a bit rough. But it’s nothing like the blades of grass that I’ve seen and felt before, the little weeds that grew outside of the detention home I once stayed in.
It’s nothing like real plants at all, because it’s not. “It’s fabric,” I say, shocked.
She nods. “Vincent has offered to import flowers for me,” she explains, “but I can’t stand the thought of having so much more than everyone else here already.”
“Why doesn’t he just take you to one of the other cities?” I ask.
Penny sits next to me as I let my fingers trail across the fake petals of the flower. “I’m not allowed,” she admits. “I was exiled from Arawn, remember?”
My gaze jerks to hers as she leans forward and slips the rose from my grasp, holding it in her lap. She continues talking, “I would have been executed if it wasn’t for Noaz. He, too, suffers for my mistakes.”
I nod. “I remember,” I say. Glancing down at my hands, I debate my next question—the last time we had talked about this, all she had said was that she had committed a crime. But what crime could be so bad? Before I can think better, I ask again. “What did you do?” I breathe the question, almost afraid of the answer.
Her eyes don’t raise to meet mine like they usually would. Instead, she continues to finger the flower. “There are a lot of ways to commit treason in Arawn,” she says quietly. “So many that it can be argued that it’s easier to commit treason there than to remain innocent. It’s a dark, dark place—the Capital city. I was born there, you know.”
I swallow around a thick throat as her head tilts back. She meets my gaze, eyes serious. “My baby is coming soon, Cassie. I doubt we’ll all be safe before he does.” She places a hand on my cheek, her fingers cold despite the warmth of the fake flower. “Exiled is not the worst thing I can be,” she says.
She’s right. Noaz saved her from nomadic life, he saved her from death. Kida’s face flits through my mind—except this time, it doesn’t consume me and drag me into the depths of my grief and despair. Instead, it morphs into Aaron’s face, Levi’s, Haze’s, Thayer’s, Noaz’s, Vincent’s, and Penny’s.
I don’t want them to die. I don’t want to suffer losing them either.
Penny stands, her hand falling away from my cheek. She smiles down at me before turning and replacing the flower in the vase that I now see is filled with small metal pebbles. “You should sleep, honey,” she says in that motherly tone of hers. “You’ll need your rest.”
Letting Go
Penny is right. I'm fucking exhausted. So exhausted that I fall asleep in the sitting area right in front of the elevators even though the day isn't even halfway over. I only wake when I hear the chime of the elevator again and the boisterous sound of the guys talking as they exit.
I sit up, rubbing my eyes. "Hey, Firecracker." Thayer approaches with that ever-present smile of his. "Did you fall asleep here?"
My jaw cracks open to yawn before I can even reply. That’s answer enough it seems as the others chuckle. Levi steps up next to Thayer. "Come on, Troublemaker." He reaches down to help me up. "The others are gonna go shower and get changed. Why don't we go make something for dinner?"
As the others wander off towards their respective rooms, I look around with blurry eyes—blinking at my surroundings. The room is much darker than when I first fell asleep. I look to the windows.
"How long have I been out?" I ask.
"Well, from the looks of it, I think you slept most of the day." Levi tugs me in the direction of the kitchen.
Another yawn cracks my mouth open. "Why do I still feel so tired?"
"Probably because you haven't been sleeping well for the last few weeks."
"I slept like a rock today," I reply. "Didn't even notice when I fell asleep."
"What were you doing in the sitting area?" he asks, glancing back over his shoulder.
I shrug. "Penny was there at first, then I was just looking out the window—watching the city."
"Hmmm.” His hand is warm in mine. I blink at the back of his head as he faces forward once more. “Well, I'm glad you got some sleep. Hopefully you'll be able to sleep again tonight. Noaz wants us to go down to the docks tomorrow to check out the airship."
"Why?"
Levi rolls his shoulders absently. "Who knows what that man plans."
We go looking through the cupboards in the kitchen and find small, thin bags of dried vegetables and broth in cans. "Soup?" Levi suggests, throwing them on the counter.
I shrug and nod. “I'm just here to help,” I say. “I don't know much about cooking. I usually just ate rations straight from their packages.” Levi shoots me a look—brows drawn down low, lips pinched as if he wants to say something, but he doesn’t.
We're halfway through meal preparations when Noaz returns, his hair dripping wet from a recent shower. Water slides towards the ends of the dark strands and drips onto the thin white shirt stretched tight over his frame. Wearing white, his skin looks even darker bronze.
"Hey, would you mind watching the pot?" Levi
asks, disrupting my thoughts. He looks back at me as I finish tearing open the vegetable packages. "I wanna catch a shower before we sit down to eat."
I nod. "Sure."
I move towards the pot as Levi disappears out of the kitchen. Noaz props himself against the table and thumbs through a communicator. What does one think when there is silence in the room? I mean, there isn’t complete silence—I hear the sound of Noaz’s thumb tapping almost rhythmically on the communicator—but there’s enough to give me a sense of peace. Or is this peace?
Lately, every free waking thought has been consumed by my thoughts and memories of Kida. But right now, I feel empty. Not the hollow, pricked emptiness that I felt before—but at rest.
“Cassandra.”
I jerk when I hear Noaz say my name and realize that I’ve been stirring broth for the last several minutes without putting in anything else. I turn quickly and snatch the dried mushrooms, asparagus, tomatoes, and other veggies from the counter top and drop them into the pot.
“Cassandra?” Noaz steps up alongside me, and I turn my head—looking up at his rounded jawline. Fissures of heat lick up my skin as he reaches out and touches my wrist. He stares down at me. I wonder what he’s thinking. I always wonder what he’s thinking. The others are a little more transparent. Even Aaron is easier than Noaz. Thayer is a jokester—someone who makes me smile, even when I don’t want to sometimes. Aaron is a protector, a quiet presence and the solid foundation that I’ve been relying on lately, while Levi is his companion. Levi can be both fun and serious. And Haze—well, even though I haven’t figured him out yet, I have a feeling it might be easier than this man.
Noaz’s hand circles my wrist and pulls it up and away from the edge of the pot. He’s so close, I can smell the soap he used. Something simple, I can’t truly make out the scent, but it smells clean.
“Be careful,” he says. “You’re getting too close to the metal. You don’t want to burn yourself.” Of course, I think, my breath shuddering out from my chest. He’s just checking on me. Practical—that’s what he is.
Noaz moves away and sits at the table as Thayer and Haze walk into the kitchen. Thayer moves behind me, resting his head on my shoulder as he peeks into the pot. “Smells good,” he says, wrapping his arms around my stomach. I smile back at him.
“You do, too.”
He grins, nuzzling into my neck—making me laugh, until suddenly he’s yanked away. “Hey!” he yells.
I turn and am less than surprised to see Aaron holding Thayer by the back collar of his shirt. He takes one look at me and winks before dropping Thayer and leaning forward, pressing a kiss to my cheek. My mouth hangs open as he joins the others and Thayer, rubbing his head and messing up his already messy hair, follows behind.
“Okay! I’m back!” Levi bounds back into the kitchen and nudges me out of the way. Droplets of water hit my cheek.
“Did you even dry off?” I ask. His shirt sticks to his chest, outlining the definition of muscles in his chest leading down to his stomach.
Levi grins wickedly, tilting his head down towards me and shakes wildly.
“Wha–No–Stop!” I shriek, jumping away. I trip and fall back towards the table. The scrape of chairs hits my ears just as two strong arms come around me, stopping my descent. I look up as Haze casts a disapproving scowl at Levi.
“Be careful,” he warns.
“Sorry, sorry.” Levi stirs the pot and looks back at me, blinking innocently. I shake my head but can’t keep the smile from my lips.
After dinner, I help clean the kitchen and even though I slept most of the day away, my muscles are still sore from my attempt at the obstacle course of death. I'm still exhausted.
"You could catch nuts in your mouth if you yawn any wider," Levi says just as I finish a particularly loud yawn. I wrinkle my nose at him.
"Heh, nuts," Thayer says absently flipping through a tablet. Levi shoves him, and Thayer nearly drops the tablet to the floor, jerking his head up. "What? What did I say?"
I chuckle. "I think you're right. I'm probably going to go to bed early tonight."
"My room?" Thayer asks.
"I don't want to bother you."
Thayer sets his tablet down on the table and looks at me. "You never bother me," he says.
A blush rises to my cheeks. "Um... then yeah, if you don't mind."
"Not tonight," Noaz says suddenly. All eyes turn to him. He doesn’t meet our curious gazes as he thumbs through his communicator, but whatever he sees there obviously doesn’t make him happy. He’s been doing that since dinner started. "I need you to work on something for me."
Thayer sighs and gives me an apologetic look. "You can wait up for me—if you want?"
"You’re welcome to stay with me." Thayer and I both turn and look at Haze, who gazes back with an impassive expression. "I know it's hard for you to sleep alone, and I don't mind."
"That's... um… are you sure?” I ask.
He shrugs. "You need to sleep. You being in my bed won't bother me."
“That should work.” Noaz slips his communicator into his back pocket and stands. “Aaron, Thayer, and Levi will be with me tonight. We’ll be preparing for our departure.”
“We still have a few days,” I point out.
He nods. “We still have preparations to make. I don’t want you here alone.”
“Penny and Vincent will be here.”
Noaz looks at me. “If you don’t want to stay with Haze, that’s fine.”
“That’s not what I said,” I reply quickly, my eyes darting to the man in question. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to offer. It’s fine. I can sleep in my own bed.” I stand and move around the table, dumping my plate—the last one left to be cleaned—into the sink before making my way past the group. “Don’t worry about me,” I call back as I head to my room.
As kind as they are to offer, I need to learn to be on my own again.
When the scientists and engineers—who designed cities—built Tartarus, they were more concerned about creating enough space for as many people that would be chosen to survive the apocalypse of the Earth's surface. Which is why each pod is the same and they are set out like square boxes, stacked one on top of the other.
My bedroom in Vincent Diamond's penthouse is the largest I've ever had. It's practically the size of a pod living area. Normal bedrooms are just wide enough for a double bed—some only wide enough for a single—a dresser, and maybe a nightstand or two. This one is far wider, and yet, I dislike how large it seems. It feels like I'm being swallowed whole into the mouth of a great beast. The bed is my life raft and I'm just floating on it, curled on my side while stormy seas take me deeper into the belly of the beast.
My eyes remain wide open as I stare at the ceiling and the four walls that surround me. I'm tired. I know I'm tired. I'm fucking exhausted. Why can't I sleep? Am I broken?
When the door creaks open, I sit up. A familiar form fills the doorway. "What are you doing here?" I ask.
Haze doesn't reply. Instead, he lets the door swing closed behind him as he makes his way across the room. When he gets to the other side of the bed, he toes off his boots, kicking them against the wall and then yanks his t-shirt over his head, before looking down at me. I gulp back a breath, saliva coating my tongue as I watch him crawl onto the sheets. He pauses there for a moment as if rethinking his actions, and when he stands up again, I'm afraid he's changed his mind, but then he sits on the edge of the bed and reaches down to remove his socks. Finally, he turns, pulls back the covers, and slides beneath. I release a breath I hadn't realized that I had been holding.
"Go to sleep, Cassie." I turn back to the wall and stare at it. Just as I close my eyes, finally ready to surrender to the blissful oblivion of sleep, I feel the paper-thin touch of lips against my hair. And it, too, reminds me of oblivion.
Thunder rolls overhead, the dark gray clouds hovering low. Lightning flashes across the sky. An electrical storm brews. This is what I imagine the surface
must have been like. Grass—real grass—under my bare feet. Except it isn’t dried and dead like the weeds outside the detention center had been. No, this stuff is fresh. Wet. Dewy. It smells like rain even though the rain hasn't come yet.
"Cassie?" Kida's voice isn't far. In fact, it's coming closer. But this time, I don't move towards it. I'll let her come to me if she wishes. I remain where I am, and I feel the grass under my feet as I wait for the rain.
I know I'm asleep. That much is made obvious by the sight and sound of Kida's footsteps as they grow steadily nearer. She's dead. If I wasn't dreaming, then she wouldn't be here. It's almost fitting though, that we're on my dreamscape of the Earth's surface, since that's where we sent her body back to. Back to where our ancestors came from. Back to where we all came from at one point in time. I wonder if we'll ever go back.
"What are you doing here?" she asks.
I shrug. "I'm waiting for the rain," I say.
Kida stands in front of me, watching me curiously. Lightning flashes again; the storm is getting closer.
"You're changing." It's a statement, not a question, and she's right. I am changing.
Days ago, I would have been in this place and it would have been cold with my pain and grief. I would have heard her voice and sprinted for it. Now, I understand that this Kida isn't really my Kida. My Kida is gone, and nothing can bring her back. And no, I'm not okay with that. Maybe I never will be. But it's not exactly something I can change. Even if I'm not okay with it, that doesn't necessarily mean I can't accept it.
A droplet falls on my forehead and streaks down the side into my hairline.
"It's warmer than I thought it would be," I admit. "Down here."