KY$ ✓

Nine | Knives & Uno

SOTC: Low by Flo Rida (ft. T-Pain)

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A nudge on my shoulder jolted me awake.

"Clara!" whispered a familiar voice.

"Ada?" I questioned after getting my soul back in my body, sitting up. "What are you doing here?"

She grabbed my hand. "Come with me!" Her giddy whisper became a squeal when I followed its tug to get out of bed and out of my warm bedroom.

She led me through the hallways illuminated by the glass windows staining quartz walls and the floors in glimmering moonlight, a blessing my eyes drank in until we reached a stairwell. Ada led me down it until we reached a small, attic-sort of room with bean bags draped with colorful blankets and board games.

"Good evening," Achilles chirped. He sat at a bigger bag with the second oldest brother, Basil, who nodded at me oddly stiffer than one does for the motion. Calix silently spread out cards on another.

"What's going on?" I yawned.

Ada turned to me with the giddiest smile. "Achilles, Basil, and Calix and I play late-night board games every Tuesday, and we wanted you to join us!"

"It was her idea," Basil said audiably then groaning out when Achilles's hand struck his rib.

"How you like being his new assistant?" Achilles asked me when Ada and I sat on a bag.

My eyes flitted upward from the lines of my palm. "New?"

"Xerxes switches them for every new assignment he has. They're always temporary."

I guess he knew how to pick the suicidal girls. Or judging by the teardrop staining his eye's corner, he didn't.

What a scary thought.

But I guess it reduces the risk of anyone getting attached to me here, my sure fire way to eliminate a traumatized body from this world as quickly and quietly as one could. Excluding the method it would be done in, containing a bang.

"What the hell made you app—" Basil started, a growl tinting his tone.

He was cut off by Achilles again. "Do you know how to play Uno?"

I nodded.

With that, four rounds of Uno commenced. Ada and Achilles spewed inside jokes along with Basil faster than the Molasses disaster. I have no iota what problem Basil had with me nor did I care, but I glanced away every time he tried incinerating me with his eyes before contributing to the conversation again.

At the end, Achilles won two rounds of Uno, Ada won once, and I was about to win until Calix had two cards left- one being a wild card.

Calix stayed silent the entire time, not a peep from his mouth. I spoke occasionally when Ada asked me questions.

"We need snacks!" Ada announced, slapping her thighs against her flowing nightgown. "Calix, will you take Clara with you to get them?"

Calix whipped his lead up from an astray card to Ada then me.

She looked at me. "Is that alright with you?"

"Um, yeah sure," I said.

Calix stood up and I followed him out the door, noticing Basil's knives for eyes on the way out.

Through the quartz hallways lit by moonlight I followed him at his side, silence almost making this spiritual wall between us thicker than the universal one between strangers.

"You shouldn't mind Basil."

I tore my eyes off an unlit decorative torch to the side of Calix's face. His voice resembled the Elsa human-hotpocket from that one anime, Todoroni I think, with a depth yet softness to it.

He continued. "He's always been vocal about his opinions, especially about Xerxes and anyone associating with him."

"Oh." I suppose that was my answer to the suspicions. "Is it a sibling rivalry thing?"

"No." He seemed to notice my facial confusion and added, "The family keeps quiet about their opinions on Xerxes except Basil. He's outwardly hated Xerxes since the war, even more when he became leader of House Christakos."

Well that was somewhat a vague answer, not that I wanted much further.

But I felt a need to be polite. "Is it Calix?" I asked after a pause.

"Is it Clara?"

I nodded, and he added, "So I am Calix."

"We're both eighteen, right?" I asked quietly.

"Mhm."

We rounded a corner into a room filled with cabinets. Calix went to one of them and pulled two small brown sacks out of the cupboard, one of the bag's handles so loose it covered his soulmate scar. It was when we quietly went out and back into the hallways Calix spoke again.

"Tomorrow. If Polly or the younger ones ask any questions after the meeting about Maria, say you know nothing. Xerxes might kill you for saying anything."

"Who's Maria?" I asked. That made no sense.

"Xerxes's soulmate. He found her a month ago and he's been postponing her introduction because of all the business stuff. You'll meet her tomorrow and the rest of the family will the day after to plan their wedding," Calix explained.

So...

Xerxes has a soulmate, no one has met the soulmate, when they meet her they're going to plan the wedding for a soulmate.

Who's fanfic is this family's life?

"We only hope for one thing from her." Calix's head hung, his eyes trailing the floor.

"What's that?"

"That she'll never mentally abandoned her family like her soulmate did."

We came back to the bright faces of the hungry Uno players in the attic-like room, where Calix opened the bag to reveal grapes, cheese, and crackers. Everyone continued to play in the fashion they had been, with more jokes and more silence from the silent, just with the addition of the quickly gone snacks.

I with a quickly wondering mind.

Next Chapter Teaser: Clara learns more about Xerxes life on the way to the first meeting.

Thank you all for 100 reads on the first chapter of this book, Pancake Ass. Also for 2.7K reads on Grey Testament. I prayed for even just 1K and some of you guys currently reading this book contributed to doubling it in two months.

Merry Christmas,

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