To Be A Warrior

Chapter 68: Human Again

I huff, and with a quick snap, slam my book shut. "And I'm done with this."

Sam looks at me with a scoff. He, Peter and I are all sitting on a couch in the accommodations block of the oil rig. Well, Peter and Sam are sitting. I'm laying down with my head in Peter's lap and my legs draped over Sam's as if they're my personal pillows. I suppose they are in this case.

"Didn't you just start reading that?" He asks as I set the book down on my stomach.

"Yes, and I don't like it, so I stopped reading it."

"Must've been pretty bad. Usually you push yourself to complete it whether you like it or not."

"What are you reading?" Peter picks the book up before I get the chance to answer, his blue eyes squinting when he reads the title. "The Tales of Odalia the Seer: Book Nine. Book nine? Is that the only book in the series they had on this rig?"

"No, I've just read all the books before it," I say, and he raises a brow.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Some runners brought in like the first seven books in the series once for the Abel library and I started reading them, and then Ellie gave me book eight for my birthday a few months ago. I think she was trying to make me feel better since I was so scared that you almost..." I close my eyes tightly as if trying to dispel the memory. "Anyway, I haven't been able to find book nine, but I saw they had it on the rig, so I thought I'd give it a read since we have all day to do nothing now that we've finished that training exercise so..."

Sam looks amused as he props his elbow on a cushion and rests his face against a closed fist. "And it turns out you hate the ninth book?"

"I don't hate it. I just don't like it."

"The author must have done something really bad to make you stop reading after you read through eight whole books. What happened?"

I sigh, looking up at the two peering down at me, waiting for my answer. "I don't think the author-look, it's a stupid subplot thing but I am a bit upset. It hasn't happened yet, but I don't know if I want to keep reading to see if it does happen, you know?"

"Uh, no," Peter replies. "That's why we asked for you to explain it, so we can engage in conversation. I'm surprised you're sounding so hesitant. Usually you love having my attention."

Sam and I both roll our eyes at that, but then he gasps. "Oh, I know. It's got to do with the romance aspect, doesn't it? You love reading all that sappy stuff. It's enough to make me feel all gross."

"Be quiet, and yeah, sort of. I-well, it's just since I started reading, Odalia, the main character, is always hinted to get with this one character, okay? And it was an extremely slow burn. They didn't get together until like the end of book four."

"Uh-huh," Peter says, a smile on his lips.

"Okay, so they had their ups and downs, but overall they did really good and worked out really well. And they got married. Well, book seven had this huge cliffhanger, and they did some magical adventuring in book eight, and it wasn't really my favorite book, it still was okay. The villain needed some better development. Anyway, the good thing about book eight though is that Odalia and her husband get even closer, but then in book nine..."

I sigh and lay my hands over my eyes. "In book eight a new character came in, and I didn't think nothing of her until I saw in book nine, Odalia's husband was spending a lot of time with her. Nothing like cheating, but it was a little overprotective, and then Odalia starts spending more time with her best friend, Perry. And Perry has some... issues he's dealing with, and Odalia's getting upset because Perry is friends with everyone in their group, but it seems that no one cares about the fact that he's hurting but Odalia.