Under: an Adult Dystopian Paranormal Romance: Sector 5 (The Othala Witch Collection)

by Conner Kressley

  It was still trying to come at me, still bloodthirsty and looking at me as if I were dinner. But I was a force. At least I was at this moment…and nothing was going to stop me.

  Giving one more massive push, I screamed, and the world disappeared. The alarm, the wall itself, all the people I was sure had come to help me by now—they were all gone. There was just me, the ravager, and the power that was more intricately intertwined within me than I had ever imagined.

  Outside of the wall, the monster fell back.

  Instantly, I shifted focus. My bright blue energy went to work at rebuilding the wall, stitching its energy back into place. In a matter of seconds, it was firm. Whole again. I could feel it. The connection was strong, and nothing was getting through it.

  Its power rushed through me, mixing with my own and making me feel like I was standing atop the universe itself.

  I belonged here.

  I knew it.

  Tears filled my eyes as the real world returned.

  I felt arms at my back, patting me and shouting congratulations. Looking around, I saw the hall was full of officers, all staring at me in awe.

  Most of the workers were still fighting back the wall, and some new people had stepped in to replace those of us who had just spent our energy fighting off the worst of it. That left about a dozen of us just standing around, and something told me that this wasn’t the kind of place where you just stand around. Even if not protecting the walls, we should be doing something. I just didn’t know what.

  Aarid was back on his feet. He slapped me on the back and started chanting my name.

  My face got hot and my heart pumped faster, but for a completely different reason than it had just a few seconds before.

  “Enough!” The loud voice sounded throughout the hall, silencing everyone.

  I looked up to find the source of the voice. From the second floor, I saw a man glaring down at me. He was about my age, with sandy-brown hair, light eyes, and chiseled features that would have been striking even if they weren’t trained on me with enough intensity to turn coal into a sparkling gem.

  “Stop acting like children!” He shook his head. “Do you think this is playtime? Do you think we get exalted for doing our job?” He pointed to the wall. “This is what we do. It’s the job. It’s more than the job. It’s the only thing standing between everybody you love and complete destruction.” His mouth twisted in disgust. “We don’t throw a party because we narrowly escaped getting ourselves killed. And we don’t throw pink-cheeked children on our shoulders and treat them like Prince Park just because she fixed the mistake of someone who should have known better than to get distracted in the first place.”

  “Oh, loosen up, Henrick,” Aarid called out. He threw his arm around me and squeezed hard. “Bright ‘n Shiny here did good. She earned herself a drink. And, by the regent, I’m going to buy it for her.”

  Henrick looked to Aarid before turning back to me. He shook his head. “Idiots. All of you.”

  Then he disappeared back behind the bannister, but, for some reason, I couldn’t stop staring at the place he’d just been standing.

  Chapter 2

  The rest of the day was a blur of congratulations and self-doubt. Had I really just beaten back a ravager all by myself? And if so…how?

  I wasn’t some impressive magical prodigy. I was a farm girl from the Dustlands. I hadn’t even known about my powers until a little over two years ago. And if a girl from the Dustlands having abilities was unheard of, then a girl from the Dustlands having abilities that she didn’t even know about until well after her twentieth year was downright impossible.

  But it had happened. Because of it, I was here, at the wall, and I had beaten back that ravager. I had stared it down, ugly teeth, groping claws, and all. I made a mockery of its efforts.

  I hated the idea of giving myself a proverbial pat on the back. Back on the farm, Father used to tell Gemma and me that there was no room for such celebratory sensation in a life well led. Celebration bred laziness. And nothing was more destructive on a farm than laziness.

  But I wasn’t on the farm anymore. Judging by the smiling faces of my coworkers around me as they downed drink after drink, it was clear that no one here shared Father’s oppressive work ethic.

  “You’ve got to do better than that,” Aarid said from beside me, motioning to the bubble water I’d been nursing since we walked through the door nearly an hour ago. “Otherwise, people might start to think you’re boring, Bright ‘N Shiny.”

  “Maybe I am.” I clinked my fingertip against the glass just to hear the tapping noise.

  “Yeah. I kind of doubt that,” he said, looking me up and down. “Something tells me that a girl who clawed her way out of the Dustlands has to have a couple of interesting quirks.” He grinned. “I think you’re just a fan of keeping all the good stuff tucked under the surface. Such a shame.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said, sliding my hands back across the bar and letting them land in my lap.

  “Nothing interesting under there?” he asked, looking at me in a way that made me feel sticky in all the wrong ways.

  Still, I pushed through it.

  “No, not that,” I said, nervously running my hand through my hair. “You said I clawed my way out of the Dustlands, like it was someplace I didn’t want to be.” I shook my head. “That’s not true.”

  Okay, that was a lie. While I didn’t have an unhappy childhood, there was always a part of me that felt out of place living on a farm, doing chores, and being surrounded by people who thought of magic as nothing more than something to read about in the monthly constitutionals.

  Still, I wasn’t about to let some guy who had probably never been outside of the circle talk down about where I came from.

  It was my home. They were my family. My friends and neighbors. And, while they all drove me crazy on more occasions than I’d care to recall, they still held a place in my heart unparalleled to anything here. Regardless of how fancy all this was.

  “Fair enough.” He polished off what had to be his third drink and knocked on the bar to ask for another. “I just figured—”

  “That everyone there wanted to be here?” I offered. “That we all just sit around at night, looking up at the stars and wondering what the lucky people out here are doing?”

  “Well, pretty much,” Aarid admitted, chuckling.

  I tried to be offended, but I couldn’t be. The whole thing was too ridiculous. Besides, I was supposed to be celebrating…however that worked.

  “You know,” I said, eyeing the dark brown beverage the ale master slid in front of Aarid. “Maybe I will try one.”

  A broad smile slid across Aarid’s pointed features. When I looked at him, I realized he was almost handsome in an offbeat way. With a rounded hairline, dark eyes, and a long nose that threatened to shadow his mouth entirely, he reminded me of more than a few of the boys who used to vie for my attention back home.

  Was that what he was doing? Was he vying for my attention?

  “How about two?” Aarid asked, knocking against the bar twice to signify how many drinks the ale master was to bring to me.

  Okay, he was trying to get my attention. Or at least get me tipsy.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Given I had spent so much of my mental energy thinking about this new life, it struck me as curious to realize I had given next to no thought to the social aspect of it.

  Maybe giving in to Aarid’s advances—if indeed that was what they were—wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Then again, there was something to be said for decorum, and what would my no-frills father think about me flirting with a guy in a bar, even if that guy was my coworker?

  The ale master slid a brew in front of me. The sudsy top shook a little, and I stared at it, not quite sure what to do.

  Something strange prickled at me, a weight I couldn’t quite identify. The sensation told me to turn to the left. So I did.

  Henrick, the absolutely horrible man from the wal
l, sat staring at me with those piercing blue eyes and his hard-set jaw.

  If Aarid was handsome in an offbeat way, Henrick was stunning in a much more conventional manner. His sandy hair, brushed back and formal at work, now hung in his eyes in loose strands. But his eyes held the same unyielding intensity they had back at the wall. They held the same disapproval, the same hatred.

  “It’s not going to drink itself, Bright ‘N Shiny,” Aarid said, nudging me with his shoulder.

  I turned back to him, suddenly more upset than I should have been. “I have a name, you know!”

  Aarid’s eyes went wide. “Sorry,” he said, raising his hands as if to call me off. “It’s Razz, right?” He nodded. “I’ll remember it.”

  I shook my head and exhaled loudly. “I’m sorry,” I said, my hand instinctively wrapping around the cup. It was cold and wet with condensation. “It’s just been a long day.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Aarid said. “I get it. The days can get to you, especially if you’re new.” He slid closer to me. “I’ve never met anybody like you before—somebody who looks at everything like she’s never seen it before.”

  “There’s a reason for that,” I said, letting my hand linger on the cup.

  “Is it the same reason you’re letting your drink go flat?” he asked, his eyebrows darting up. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to.”

  My eyes trailed back over to Henrick.

  He was still staring at me. His eyes tearing into me like he was still judging me, still finding me lacking.

  Well, if he was going to do that, then I was going to give him something to tsk at.

  “Not at all,” I said. I lifted the glass and took a huge swig.

  The ale slid down my throat, burning like fire as it slammed into my belly, scorching my insides on the way down.

  I coughed loudly and leaned forward, setting the cup down with wide eyes.

  “Your first time?” Aarid asked, chuckling loudly. “And here I thought all the good stuff was in the Dustlands.”

  It took a minute to catch my breath, and then another moment to get my bearings.

  “It’s just—it’s different from what I’m used to,” I said, swallowing hard.

  “I bet,” Aarid said. He slid the other cup over to me. “Why don’t you give it another go?”

  I looked at him, and then at the cup. I wanted to look back at Henrick, but I stopped myself. What I did was none of his business anyway.

  Although, that didn’t stop him. Before I could decide whether I wanted to tackle another mouthful of that ale or not, Henrick had walked over to us.

  “Come on,” he said, crossing his arms and tipping his chin toward me. “You don’t belong here. It’s time for you to go.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “Do they raise them hard of hearing in the Dustlands?” he asked, glaring at me with that bright blue dagger-like stare. “I said you don’t belong here. Certainly, you can see as much for yourself.”

  He looked around the place before looking back at me, as if I were a pig in a henhouse.

  Aarid stood to meet him. “Come on, Henrick. Give the girl a break.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said without bothering to look at Aarid. “She might not see that now, but she will eventually.”

  “Is that what you think of me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “That I’m some naive child who just tumbled off the harvest truck? I’m not. I’m just as capable as anybody else, and I can make my own decisions.”

  “Obviously, you can’t,” Henrick said. His tone set my blood to boiling. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have made this one.”

  “To come to a bar?” I asked. “The same bar that you’re in at this very moment, I might add.”

  “Hardly the same thing,” he snapped.

  “Of course not. It never is for men, is it?” The sarcasm in my tone was palpable.

  It was like this back home, too—men doing whatever they wanted to, while living with none of the shame or consequences. Still, they wanted their women to be pure, virginal, and without so much as an inkling of the desires they saw as unladylike.

  I ground my teeth together. I thought things would be different here. It pissed me off that it wasn’t.

  Henrick’s biceps flexed, and his jaw clenched. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  I’d had it with this guy. He had taken it upon himself to singlehandedly ruin my big moment back at the wall, and now he seemed intent on stopping me from celebrating it. It was like he was a one-man mood killer.

  I stood. “Then what are you talking about?”

  “Come on, Henrick,” Aarid said, throwing his hands up again. “She’s new to all of this. We were all new once. We needed a little bit of help, and we went through growing pains like this.”

  “Your point?” Henrick asked, finally shooting a pointed look over Aarid’s way.

  “My point is that I’ve never seen you barging over here pulling anybody else off their stool.” Aarid looked almost confused.

  “Yeah,” Henrick muttered. “That was before.”

  “Before?” I asked, looking from one man to the next. “Before what?”

  Henrick glared at me, his eyes getting even harder somehow. Whatever he was talking about was no laughing matter.

  Aarid looked at him for a long minute before rolling his eyes. He looked to me apologetically. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Henrick’s just overreacting, as always.”

  “Aarid,” Henrick warned, a low growl in his tone.

  “It’s stupid,” he said. “He’s just afraid that Brula—”

  Henrick lunged at him, throwing a punch that connected with Aarid’s jaw. It knocked Aarid back against the bar, tipping over my still-full cup and spilling the horrid brew all over the floor.

  Instinctively, I pulled back.

  The entire bar turned to us.

  Aarid leapt back to his feet and rushed toward Henrick. He sent a flurry of punches into Henrick’s chest and face. None of them seemed to do much good.

  This sour man was a mountain of muscle and indignation.

  Henrick punched him again. Blood spewed from Aarid’s mouth as he hit hard against the bar again.

  I looked around. Everyone was just watching. No one was going to help him.

  “You’re a joke,” Aarid yelled through the gurgles of red spittle. “You think anyone sees you as anything other than a failure, as wasted potential? You’re a loser, Henrick! A loser at best. That’s why she left you. She probably wanted a real man!” Aarid scowled at him. “Maybe I’ll look her up.”

  The flare of anger that shot through Henrick’s eyes scared me deep down to my core.

  I wasn’t sure why I did it. Maybe it was the Dustlands girl in me, the one who never liked it when the runt of the litter had to fight his bigger brothers and sisters for his fair share.

  For whatever reason, I jumped in between them.

  Henrick already had his arm pulled back, readying to slam his fist into Aarid again. I could see the reaction spread quickly across his face when he realized what I had done.

  With a jerk, he pulled his fist to a stop.

  “Move,” he said flatly, his jaw tight, his breathing heavy.

  “No,” I said.

  “Get out of the way, Razz.”

  For reasons I didn’t understand, I got a buzzy feeling in my stomach because he knew my name. Maybe it was the ale.

  “You don’t want to do this,” I said. “I’ll leave, okay? I’ll never come back. But this guy’s just running his mouth. He’s blowing off steam. Ya know, it’s the same everywhere—friends say stuff they don’t mean, they fight, and one of them gets the better of the other one. But it doesn’t end there. Because do you know what I always see? Every time, without fail, the guy who gets the better of it ends up regretting what he did. Every time, he wishes he hadn’t done it.” I shook my head. “Do you want that, Henrick? Do you want to wake up tomorrow wishing you hadn�
�t done something?”

  Henrick looked at me, his hand still in the air. Slowly, he put it down and breathed a sigh. “Fine. Now do what you said.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll walk away, but you have to as well.” He blinked hard. “You said you’d leave and never come back. Go.”

  I turned to Aarid, and then back to Henrick. “Fair enough. Not much of a drinker anyway.” I slapped down some nuts and bolts, which were commonly used for barter. “I’d say I’ll see you around, but I’m not sure either of us wants that.”

  I turned back to Aarid one more time and nodded, then took my leave of the damned place.

  Chapter 3

  The next day, I tried to keep my head down. I’d only been working for twenty-four hours, and I had already been party to a breaching of the wall, a ravager attack, and a fistfight among coworkers at a local watering hole.

  They weren’t all my fault, but I still didn’t want to earn the reputation of a troublemaker. Especially when I hadn’t even had any fun out of it whatsoever.

  No more talking to absentminded coworkers. No more glaring over at the intriguingly intense naysayer in the corner, and certainly no more taking even a tenth of my concentration away from the wall.

  I saw what happened when that took place. I felt the rancid hot breath of those monsters—saw their talons, their fangs, and their disgusting faces.

  So much had happened since then, all the fighting, the conflict, and the congratulations, that I hadn’t gotten the chance to process how scary of an event it really was.

  I could have died. Aarid could have died. We were seconds away from one of those monsters tearing through our sector the way they had back in the old times.

  I stopped that. Me. And, if it came to it, I was going to stop it again.

  This job wasn’t all flashy. It wasn’t just a story youngsters heard about when their parents tucked them into bed at night. It was serious.

  For whatever reason, I had always believed the ravagers were more fairy tale than fact. Sure, they existed. Everyone knew that. But I’d always seen them as some far-off instrument of terror, a shadow dancing across the light, used only to keep people in their places.