SENTINEL 555: WAR ✔

5 LAST MEAL

Dev was no stranger to boys; Senji wasn't one to care about making his presence known at every turn. She figured something must have been wrong with her and perhaps every other female cadet leader there with how the boy cadets all meandered about rather than getting into the showers.

Down the rows, the girls shuffled in, under the water no less, and pulled the glass closed before undressing.

Regret pulsed through Dev who focused on Sen's recruit's awkward expression. He wasn't going in. In fact, he, and most boys there, refused to enter with the opposite sex.

"We'll take too long," Dev muttered through gritted teeth. "Get in there."

The boy stared her down, defiant.

She wanted to bark an order at him but as she didn't yet know his name and with all the fanfare of her miserable family still fresh in everyone's minds, she didn't dare bring attention to them.

Down the row, the female head cadets ordered the girls out before a proper cleaning and shoved the boys in.

That was an option but the manual said a proper delousing. Dev couldn't do this part way.

But with the seven girls...everything took forever. Absolutely, everything.

They squabbled behind the opaque glass. One and then another insisting they understood the mechanics of the shower better than the other. The mechanics. It was just one efos button. Just push. It wasn't even hot!

Her mind finally made up, Dev took one step toward that shower but the boy stepped in her path.

"Don't," he pleaded. "Girls are smaller. When we get water rations, they don't always get enough. Some people steal from them. So let them play in it. Lotsu said the shower's the best part and the only thing anyone'll care about if they don't make it."

Play?

Dev stared past him to the glass then back again. They were...playing. And she was ineffective in getting her urgency across.

When she met eyes with the boy, she demanded, "And how do you plan to get in if you don't go through it. They'll use up every bit of water."

He considered her words, concern creased in his face. "Lotsu always said—"

Dev shoved him aside and marched in.

A flurry of panic ensued. One girl even slipped.

What Dev witnessed was hell on earth. They were filthy, so dirty, in fact that grime lined the walls. She didn't dare to think wherefrom. But they weren't playing as the boy suggested, but rather...cleaning.

The simpletons, absolute abject simpletons, had no business in the division.

Eyes narrowed, Dev marched back out, grabbed the boy by the arm and dragged him down to the nearest shower filled with boys.

He had trouble finding his footing, struggling to keep up with her. The first available slot they found came with a female head cadet, puffing her chest out in protest.

Dev caught her by the caller and dragged her forward. "You look at my arms, and look into my very impatient eyes. This vermin is getting into that shower and if I hear one peep out of you, you'll find out the hard way why I've got three bands on my arms and you've got one."

She shoved open the glass door and tossed the boy inside.

Immediately ready for retaliation, Dev turned and took a fighter's stance. Her father always said, when coming for a fight, follow through.