by S King
I wasn’t much of a drinker and knew what awaited me in the jutro, but after Orrie’s bomb, I needed to wash away my thoughts if only for a nakti.
“What’s going on, Ana?” Emric sat down beside me and nodded to Tybalt.
I slid the file over to my friend and threw back the drink like water. Running my fingers through my hair I stared at my reflection in the mirror shelving of the bar.
Someone out there had the same face as mine, the same hair. The same expressions. The same blood and the worst part of all of that was, I had no clue.
“What is this?” Emric looked as if someone had sliced him with a wind slicing blade.
I raised a brow at him and downed another shot, “what does it look like?”
“You’re telling me that there’s someone in the Parlan society that’s related to you?”
I laughed under my breath, “more like she’s my twin. There’s two of me, Emric. What do you think of that?”
He remained silent going back to look over the file Orrie had created. I didn’t know what I thought about the situation that had just unfolded in front of me. But I was curious to know what Emric thought.
“Tybalt?” I shook my empty glass at him and sent another warning look at his stubborn look of defiance. I had already pulled rank on Xerminara and there was nothing saying that Tybalt was going to be excluded from that club.
He sighed and poured me another shot, “I can’t give you anymore, Captain Shaye.”
I pointed to him, “you can, and you will as long as I’m paying.” Before he could protest, I tossed several dolara on the bar top and pointed to the bottle of the snake venom alcohol, “just give me the bottle.”
Tybalt opened his mouth when Emric looked at him, “you better just give it to her. This isn’t something worth the argument.”
The bartender relented, snatching the money from the bar, and handed over the bottle to me.
“Now was that so hard?” I ignored his mumbled insult and poured myself another drink.
“How accurate is this?”
I shrugged, rolling my eyes as I threw back the alcohol, “it came from Orrie, do you want to question him on the validity of the information?”
“Not really,” he rubbed his hands over his face and sighed, “so, what’s the plan now?”
Again, I shrugged. I didn’t know what I was going to do. The person that had caused the wreck and forced Eikko and Somsang into our lives was wanting something that I didn’t know how to give. If they thought that the girl in Parlan was me and I was the girl in Parlan then things just became a whole lot messier. If it was the reverse and the person that caused the wreck knew that I was one half of a whole, then they knew more than I did and was after something bigger than just causing a wreck and creating chaos. The question was, what?
“I can’t go to Parlan and Parlan can’t…” I trailed off, the pieces clicking together in my mind.
“Can’t…what?” Emric was confused beyond a simple explanation.
I shook my head, grabbing my bottle and file folder, “I’ll see you sutra, godnat.”
I didn’t wait for Emric to answer, I had an idea that needed to be tested before it got too late in the nakti and I sobered up. Taking another pull from the snake venom, I quickly and not so elegantly made my way to my domicile and stumbled into the front hall with a thud.
“Welcome home Captain Shaye,” the holographic Parlan woman smiled at me as I righted myself and closed the front door.
“Thank you, pretty woman.” I tapped her holographic nose and smirked as she disappeared back into the wall.
Turning around, I squeezed my eyes shut before opening them and frowning. I was seeing two different layouts of my domicile and couldn’t determine which was real and which was an illusion.
“Ostana?” Eikko’s gracious voice filtered through my drunken haze.
Haphazardly turning to him, I focused my eyes and pointed at one of his chests, “I have some answers to ask you and you’re going to question them for me.”
From what I could tell he was frowning at me and tilted his head. Or maybe I was tilting my head, I couldn’t tell but right now, I needed to find out what he did not or did know.
“You’re drunk?” I think I saw a sliver of a smile crossing his baby soft lips, but I didn’t know if my mind was continuing to play tricks on me or not.
“I may or may not be a little drunk right now, but that isn’t the point.” I stumbled my way into the kitchen and fell against the counter as I looked in the cabinets for a glass. I wasn’t done drinking just yet and I was going to continue until the bottle was empty or I passed out. Whichever came first.
“Then tell me, Ana, what is the point?”
“Ah!” I found a black ombre glass and poured my snake venom in the cloudy crystal, holding my finger up, “do you know who I am in Parlan?”
“What?”
I turned to him with my glass in my hand and took a sip from the glass, “me. Parlan. Do you know who I am?”
He raised a brow at me, “you’re not from Parlan, Ostana, trust me. I would’ve remembered something like you from my home society.”
I tossed the file on the table and pointed to it with my glass, “I have proof to say to the contrary.”
Eikko snorted as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe, “no, Ana, you have proof that there is someone that looks like you, not someone that is you.”
“What?”
“I’m assuming what you found in that folder is in regard to an actress, model, and singer—”
“What can’t she do?” I sarcastically asked, staring down into the dark green drink.
“She can’t shoot guns, or light people on fire whenever her temper gets out of control. She also doesn’t have a cute pout when she’s flustered.”
I looked at the man across the room at me and focused on his smile. His teeth were perfect and so was his skin; he was perfect. Nara was right— I shook my head, taking another drink from my glass. I didn’t need to think about whether or not Eikko was perfect. What I needed to figure out was how to get the room to stop spinning.
“What?” I asked, focusing on his rose-pink eyes and the purple flecks that twinkled more at noćenje than they did during the day.
Another beautiful smirk covered the velvety flesh of his lips, “she’s not you, Ostana and she can never be you.”
I blew a raspberry and rolled my eyes, “good to know that you pay attention to her.”
“Would you like me to give you more attention?”
“No!” I said a little too loudly and slapped a hand over my mouth. The last thing I wanted to do was wake my grandmother up. Although, she may know something that I didn’t. Not that I could ask her right now, I couldn’t. Maybe in the jutro.
“No, no,” I waved my finger in his face and finished off my drink before pouring another, “do you know her or not?”
He considered me for a moment before tilting his head again. I’d really wish he’d stop doing that.
Finally, he smiled easily at me and shrugged, “I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting her.”
“Really really?”
“Yes, Ostana, really. Now, it’s time for bed for you,” he picked up my file of information and handed it to me before scooping me into his beefy arms and handing me my bottle of snake venom.
“I can go to bed on my own, you pompous,” a yawn cut off my insult as I rested my head on Eikko’s shoulder and closed my eyes. His heartbeat was in sync with mine and had I not been so far gone; I’d have knocked him away from me and ran in the other direction but listening to his heart blending with the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears, I felt at peace. That was slowly becoming a rarity that I couldn’t afford.
When the softness of the mattress met my back and his heartbeat disappeared from my hearing, I fell asleep. But not before hearing him whisper something to me and feeling something on my forehead for a moment.
I wouldn’t think abou
t what he was saying nor doing because in a moment I would have to wake up and face whatever new drama waited for me when the purple sun came back to life for another dana.
My communicator beeped loudly in my ear, making me bolt upright only to have to grab my throbbing head and pray for the wave of dizziness to go away. I pressed my communicator and swallowed down the bile trying to erupt from me.
“Captain Shaye?” Orrie’s voice sounded louder than normal.
“What?” I turned the volume down to the lowest level and cradled my head in my hands.
“We have an ETD for the aircraft,” he shuffled some papers around, “we're looking at two mjeseci.”
Two mjeseci? It was really going to take that long to get the Citlail and the Magdolonian up and running again. Which meant that Eikko and Somsang would be here for two mjeseci and I didn’t know if I could handle that.
“I know I didn’t hear you right. Are you saying that this circus isn’t going to get resolved any time soon?”
“Yes ma’am. I asked the guys to work harder but they’re still saying that it’ll be at least five tjedans before the aircrafts can even be field tested.”
I rubbed my forehead and sighed in frustration, “is that all?”
“Yes, I’ll be in touch if anything changes or we find out anything else on your twin.”
“Thanks,” we disconnected our contact.
I had almost forgotten about the woman that had my face in the blue sun society. Then I remembered how I had acted sinoć; I’d showed Emric and accused Eikko of knowing about the woman that was being mistaken as me.
“Damn it,” I breathed, forcing my body into movement, and going to the washroom. I needed to eat something instead of throwing a tantrum about the estimated time of delivery for the aircrafts, but how could I not when I had more pressing matters to deal with at the moment?
After washing my face and using the facilities, I walked out to the kitchen and hoped that Eikko wasn’t awake just yet. Unfortunately, my hopeful thoughts were useless because sitting at the kitchen table with his protein drink in one hand a fork in the other was Eikko.
“Good morning,” he didn’t bother to look up at me as I fell into the chair and pressed the accept button on the sustenance delivery system.
“Jutro,” I grabbed my meal from the waiting delivery tray and took the lid off my protein drink. For once I was thankful for the dark pink liquid and guzzled the entire thing before I started eating my kale, chicken, and brown rice.
“Sleep good?” He finished his meal and tossed the tray in the recycle compartment before coming back to the table and staring at me.
I nodded, shoving the food in my mouth, “just great. You?”
Thanks to the protein drink my hangover was almost completely gone and my headache was beginning to become nothing more than an annoying ache rather than the pounding that I had when I first woke up.
“Good, feeling better after your rant?”
Slowly, I lifted my eyes only to be greeted with an easy smile on his face. I was hoping that he wasn’t going to bring up sinoć but again, my wishful thinking was tossed down the drain.
“You really don’t know her?”
He shook his head.
Quickly, I finished my meal and tossed the tray in the recycling compartment.
“I have to go to work—”
“I want to go,” Eikko shot up from his seat looking a little too excited about going with me to my office.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been in here for the past three days?” He answered as if the fact that I’d kept him locked away was obvious.
I grabbed my things from the hidden compartment and walked to my office, “you can’t.”
“Why not?” He followed me like I was going to disappear.
Thankfully, no one had sent me anything last night through the document locator and I didn’t miss anything important. Grabbing the file folder about my twin, I turned to face Eikko.
“Because I don’t have time to disguise you. The last thing I need right now is you getting shot just for walking around in the society.”
He balked at me, “you’d let me get shot?”
“In a heartbeat,” I walked past him and headed for the front of the domicile.
“That’s messed up, Ostana, seriously messed up.” Even with my admission that I’d let him get shot, he still followed me to the door and stood behind me, waiting for the front door to open.
I narrowed my eyes and looked at him over my shoulder, “you really don’t care about the rules in Padrieg, do you?”
“Not particularly, no,” he shoved his hands in his pockets and smiled at me.
Debating with myself whether to knock him unconscious or just allow him to come with me seemed to become the new norm. On one hand, Kendrick could see for himself just how irritating the Parlan jerk could be while on the other hand, I would have to pull rank on a lot of officers should they decide to point their weapons at him while we went to the military official offices.
“Come on, Ana, I won’t be any trouble. I promise,” again he gave me one of those heart melting smiles.
Knowing that I was going to regret the decision I had just made; I growled in frustration and ripped the door open.
“Let’s go, but,” I turned back to him coming chest to chest with him, “you make one wrong move and I burn your hide from here to the blue sun, got it?”
His rose-pink eyes twinkled with mischief as he looked at me, “anything you say, Ostana.”
I rolled my eyes, leading the way to the military base; as I figured, Eikko and I were met with screwed and tormented looks from passing officers. Whispers and heated hushed arguments met us from all angles until we got into the military official offices.
“Captain Shaye,” the officer manning the front desk looked from me to Eikko as he granted us passage to the main building.
“Don’t ask,” I snapped, walking past the waiting area and basic checkpoints, I sped walked to my office and pointed to the chair across from my desk, “sit.”
“Yes ma’am.” Eikko smirked taking his seat across from me and relaxed into the chair like it was the best thing since getting stuck here. “What can I do to help you?”
“Nothing,” I sat my things down, grabbing the file that Orrie had given me after sitting down in my own chair and turned on my information projector.
There had to be some way that I could find out more on my twin and what kind of dangers she might have inadvertently sent my way. I had no doubt that she had her own worries and stressors but with just her being alive, someone from her society was now gunning for me and I wasn’t going to play victim in this little game that had begun to unfold when Eikko and Somsang arrived.
Looking over the pages and comparing my own notes with Orrie’s, I found out that Theodora Elysian was my age with just as many accomplishments in her career choice as I had in the military.
Academy awards for her acting, singing awards and the title of the most beautiful woman in all of Parlance preceded her career and all-around life in the blue sun society. Well, one thing that I could say about my sister was she had made good on her life choices and didn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.
I sat back into my chair, staring at her life history and tapped my pen on my desk as I let my mind wrap itself around the fact that not only did I have a twin but that she was seemingly perfect and so was her life in Parlan. What I couldn’t figure out was where she was right now. She had completely fallen off the face of the blue sun right before Eikko and Somsang crashed into the war zone.
No communication, no notes, nothing to tell anyone where she was going or when she was going to be back. Who could just fall off the face of the sun without a trace and get away with it for so long? A knock on my door made me look past Eikko and wave Emric in.
“What’s going on?” I asked, ignoring the fact that Somsang was standing right behind Emric and looked just as nervous as he had when they crash
ed into the war zone.
Emric came into the office, only glancing at Eikko in acknowledgement and handed me a black envelope.
“This is our budget to take care of these two,” he hooked his thumb over his shoulder at the other two men and looked at me, “I already have my books balanced out and got the daily totals. Kendrick wanted you to do the same for Mr. Kangho and then give him the returns.”
Taking the envelope, I nodded, “thanks.”
“When’s lunch?” Eikko interrupted and looked between me and Emric.