by S King
“You took it upon yourself to just use my stuff?”
He spread his arms wide, “what was I supposed to do here all day? You were gone twenty-three hours and I didn’t have anything better to do.” Sighing in defeat, he softened his tone, “look, I’ll buy you some new flowers, ok?”
“You can’t, you arrogant, know-nothing, pompous jackass!” I stormed to my office, slamming the door behind me and threw the lock into place. Tears sprang to my eyes as I clamped my mouth shut and stared at the ceiling.
He had taken the only thing that my mother and father left me before they…I pushed the memories away before my mind could go too far into the rabbit hole.
My document locator beeped with a warning of new documents coming through; thankful for the interruption in my fit of anger and depression, I pushed off the door and wiped at my eyes. I wasn’t one to cry or show emotion, but ever since I met Eikko, my hormones and mind have been out of sync and so had all of my reasoning.
After pulling myself together and approving another set of airstrikes, I fell back into my chair and wiped my hands over my face. How much longer was this protection detail going to take? The thought was cut short when I heard talking outside of my office.
“What in the…” I breathed, going to the door, and pressing my ear to the hard barrier to hear what was going on.
My grandmother and Eikko were talking in hushed tones but not low enough for me not to be able to pick up the conversation.
“…I don’t understand why she got so upset over some flowers. Aren’t there shops and fields of them around here?”
“No, Mr. Kangho, there’s not shops or fields of flowers in Padrieg. We don’t have the luxury of growing anything that requires,” my grandmother stopped, obviously looking for the word that she wanted to us. “Soil, we don’t have soil in the society and that means that flowers are a rarity for us.”
“I can get her some from Parlan when I go back,” Eikko wasn’t understanding what my grandmother was saying and I didn’t expect him to.
“Her parents left those to her right before they went on a rescue raid in the red sun; nothing will replace what you had destroyed, Mr. Kangho.”
Silence came from the hallway before Eikko finally got the message.
“You’re saying that I used the last thing that her parents left her?”
“Yes,” as usual my grandmother was unemotional and if I knew her as well as I thought I did then that meant her face wasn’t giving off any emotion either.
“That explains why she was so upset then,” Eikko mumbled more to himself than to my grandmother. “Why didn’t she tell me her parents were dead?”
“The dead are a part of the past, only the future is worth looking at,” movement on the other side of the door made me debate whether or not to move back to my desk, but I wanted to know how the conversation was going to end.
I held my breath as my grandmother spoke again, this time further away from my office door.
“Give her some time and don’t use something without asking again.”
“Yes ma’am.” Eikko sounded defeated. For a moment I almost felt bad for him, but then I remembered what he’d done.
“Godnat, Mr. Kangho,” my grandmother said from further in the domicile before a door closing followed the receding footsteps.
Naturally, Eikko didn't know how to respond and opted for remaining silent. I was thankful to my grandmother for having a talk with him, but I was still upset by my parent’s flowers being gone.
My document locator beeped once as a report started coming through the receiving slot. Not wanting to face the Parlan jerk just yet and my curiosity fed for a moment, I turned on my heels and went over to the machine. But what was coming out of the device, I wasn't ready.
A picture of me, smiling at a person unsee and holding something that resembled something that was uncommon for the purple sun society.
Pressing my communicator, I snatched the picture from the device.
“Captain Shaye, did you get it?” Orrie sounded just as perplexed as I felt.
I examined the photo of myself more closely, “what’s this?”
“Did you ever go to Parlan?”
“No!” One, I didn’t have time to go to the blue sun society and two, why would I? I didn’t like going to formal events in the entertainment district. Let alone get on an aircraft that was going to the better side of life and take a picture of something that I didn’t know what it was.
“Ok, I just had to make sure. But the weird thing is, we found this image within the Parlan database for ads and what not and saw it on a sign thing for their version of our arson wax. Whoever had set the detonation device was looking for you. At least, that’s what we’re thinking right now.”
I fell into my seat and dropped the picture on my desk as I massaged my temples, “I’ve never been to Parlan. I don’t know how this has even happened.”
“Well,” Orrie stalled as he blew out an irritated sigh, “the thing is, after searching more of the Parlan database we found more ads of the similar nature. In some of them, you were even talking.”
“What?”
“I’ll send them to you, by the way what is derma therapy?”
I threw my hands up; here we go again with derma therapy and what it was, “I don’t know!”
Orrie stayed silent for a moment, “either way, your doppelganger praises it from one end of the blue society to the other. I almost submitted an order for it.”
“Orrie, get back to the point,” I bowed my head, looking at my hands.
“Sorry. Anyway, on the brown box of the aircraft we found all of these things in its database and back memory. Whoever did this…they’re after you, Captain Shaye.”
My heart stopped and so did my logic. I didn’t know anything else. All I knew was there was another girl in the blue sun society that looked exactly like me and someone was obsessed enough with her that they caused a massive wreck and double the havoc as if they had come for me directly.
“Captain Shaye?”
“Find out everything,” I ordered, staring down at the picture, “once you do, get ahold of me and tell me everything. If someone wants to ruin my life, then I’m not going to make it easier for them to get to me.”
Orrie took the order and told me that he’d be in touch sooner rather than later, leaving me to figure out what in the hell I was going to do now.
I had enough on my plate with Eikko and his high maintenance needs, now I had to find out who in the Parlan society was so obsessed with an identical version of myself. Could this day get any worse? I hated myself for asking the question, but I knew what the answer was before I opened my office door.
The smell of something other than my normal meal wafted through the air and hit my nose with force.
“What now?” I walked to the kitchen and narrowed my eyes at what was on the table. Instead of kale, chicken, brown rice, and my protein drink, all of the selections were blended together to make one solid meal with the exception of the protein drink.
“What did you do?” I stared at Eikko as I continued to stare at the plates of mixed food.
He scratched the back of his neck and twisted his mouth, “your grandmother told me about the flowers and I’m sorry for using them for my own selfish needs. I wanted to make it up to you by doing something nice, but you don’t have anything in your refrigerator, and this was all I could find.”
Raising a brow at him, I pointed to the plate, “what’d you add to that?”
“Some celery and spices, it’s got to be better than what your used to eating.”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to keep the impending headache at bay, “Eikko, thank you. It’s nice, really,” finally I met his rose pink eyes, “but in the military district we have to adhere to a very strict diet and that means that what the delivery agent sends, it can’t be altered in any way. That’s how we keep our stamina and bodies up to par.”
He sighed in frustration, “so, I just ruin
ed your dinner?”
“In short,” I confirmed and went to the compartment that held my training gear. “But it’s fine. I wasn’t that hungry to begin with. You enjoy, I need to go to the training arena, and I’ll be back later.”
“Ana,” his voice stopped me from reaching for the door and glance back at him.
“What?”
He raked his fingers through his dark hair, looking at me, “I really am sorry.”
I didn’t know how to respond to his apology. It wasn’t like people in Padrieg apologized for something or anything, for that matter. Being in a society that treats everything as a business deal provided the luxury of never having to say you’re sorry.
“It’s…” I cleared my throat, “it’s fine, just forget about it. I’ll be back later, don’t stay up.” I let the door close behind me, ignoring the Parlan holograph wishing me a godnat.
During the walk to the training arena I kept thinking about how Eikko had sincerely been trying to make up for using my parents' flowers for a face mask. Although, I had to admit that his skin did look amazing after I found him in the kitchen. In turn, I had to wonder what the mask would've done for my skin had I used it.
I cursed under my breath as I pulled open the arena's door after swiping my warrior tags across the entrance reader. Why was I worrying about skin and facials and anything else that Eikko was doing?
“Ana!” Xerminara was spinning out of the way of an Eyno that was wielding its own weapon. With a backflip and an overhead stab, Nara ended any further combat with the thing and smiled at me.
Her strawberry blonde hair was pulled away from her face in a bun on top of her head while her tangerine eyes glowed of the wind ability coursing through her veins. All in all, she was an amazing warrior and tended to use more hand-to-hand rather than depending on her wind ability to get her through combat.
“What’re you doing here?” I sat down my things, wrapping my hands in resistance tape and looking at her stats.
She shrugged, pausing the ATP before an Eyno got the chance to attack her with a sucker punch or a burning blade.
“What else am I supposed to do?” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder toward the entrance of the arena, “Kendrick ordered all of us to stay grounded while we figure out this Parlan situation and what to do with Eikko,” she sighed on his name and stared blindly into a drone light, “and whatever his name is.” She waved a hand in the air.
“You haven’t heard anything then?” I dropped to my haunches and tightened the strings on my combat boots.
“Nothing, I don’t even know what they found on the aircraft that they were flying.”
Of course, none of the mechanics nor any of the upper officials would tell her what was going on. Xerminara was a low-ranking officer in the military and according to the military law, those of whom that rank below Captain are to follow orders and not ask any questions. It wasn’t their place and that meant that they needed to stay in their lanes.
“So, neither you nor Claud have heard anything?” I asked again, wanting to make sure that she wasn’t keeping something from me.
She shook her head, “not one thing, although, I did hear that Emric asked you to go to a projection with him at the end of the rotation.” She wiggled her brows at me as if I were supposed to understand what that meant.
“So?” I grabbed several of my wind slicing blades from my combat duffle and stretched while I twirled the blades over in my hands.
Nara balked at me, “so do you think that he’s going to present a proposal agreement to you?”
“Are you kidding me?” I scoffed, shaking my head, and nodded to the ATP, “let’s go.”
“He’s the perfect fit for you,” she pressed the proceed button on the ATP and stood beside me, “he’s within the ranks of the military.” We separated in different directions as the Eynos came at us in waves.
“I’m not interested in any proposal agreement with anyone, Nara. I don’t want it and I’m not going to agree to anything.” I blasted ten Eynos at once with a fire angel before slicing through several of the distorted bodies and cartwheeling out of the way of a double headed spear thrown from the rafters.
She grunted as she climbed the rungs of the ladder to the offending Eyno, “we all have to agree to one sooner or later, that’s the rules.” She flipped off the outer beam to come down to the fake terrain in a crouch with a squealing Eyno beneath her feet.
“I know the rules, Nara.”
“You just don’t want Emric as your lifelong partner?” A gust of wind picked up from nowhere, sending the Eynos scattering like rodents. The effect caused their seven eyes to dry out and forced their ability to see to become next to nothing.
I took down a group of Eynos as the wind slicing blades flew from my hands to impale themselves in different locations in the Eynos.
“That would be correct,” I commanded the blades to come back to me and glanced at her, “I look at him as a brother and nothing more. Who marries their brother?”
“I guess you have a point there,” she sighed, taking down another group of Eynos, “does he know that though?”
“He should,” I flinched and snapped my head around at the blade cutting through my shoulder.
Rage forced the flames to come out of me erratically; even though the holographs were nothing more than projected images, every time I got hurt in the training arena it felt like it was happening for real.
“What about Eikko?”
“What about him?”
“I mean,” she drove her own blades into the eye socket of an Eyno that was headed my way, “what do you think of him? I get it that it’s against the laws that you two be together but—”
“There’s no but in the situation, Xerminara.” I turned to her, taking in as much air as my lungs would allow, “as soon as we can get the aircrafts up and running again, they’re gone. Then we,” I blasted a couple of Eynos back with the outstretch of my hand, not taking my eyes from hers, “go back to normal and forget that this whole thing happened, got it?”
She raised her hands in defense, “sorry, but I can see the sparks between the two of you from my domicile window. I just thought…”
“I know what you thought,” I threw the last of my wind slicing blade into the last Eyno and turned my burning eyes to her, “you thought wrong and you don’t need to bring this up again.” I ripped the tape from my hands and commanded all of my wind slicing blades back into the bag.
“Yes ma’am,” she slammed the shut down button on the ATP and grabbed her things from their respective compartment. Slamming the arena door closed behind her as she left without saying anything else to.
She didn’t deserve for me to pull rank on her or how I talked to her, but she just didn’t know how much I was getting tired of Eikko and my supposed relationship. I knew that she wanted me to find my own form of happiness, but I wasn’t going to be doing that with someone from a completely different society and not only that. But I wasn’t going to be happy with Eikko. At least, I didn’t think I was.
After shutting down the training arena, I locked the doors and was prepared to go back home, but anymore I wasn’t relying on my usual routine.
“Captain Shaye,” Orrie came walking up to me with a pinched look on his face.
I sighed, turning to face him, “please tell me you have something that’s going to make my nakti a lot better.”
He gave me an apologetic smile and handed me a file folder, “not unless you think paperwork and investigative reports as making your nakti better.”
I shouldered my training bag and flipped open the folder, “anything new about my twin?”
“Other than she’s just that?”
My head snapped up, “what’d you just say?”
His dark blond eyebrows knitted together, causing his marmalade eyes to smolder with worry, “we pulled the health records of this woman and she’s got the exact same blood match as you. She’s your twin. Same parents and blood sequence.”
Chapter 5 Shoot for Sport
“Give me another one, Tybalt,” I rubbed my eyes pushing the glass to the bartender.
“Another, Captain?” He looked at me with worried dark sandstone eyes.
I cut my eyes at him, the warning burning clear enough for him to turn around and pour me a fresh drink and slide the glass back to me.