Dark Nine ❈ Dark Nine Universe Bk1 ❈

Chapter Twenty-Eight & Kor Glossary

2 weeks later

I had settled my self with some of the Freed in Light Metropolis.

It was a small big city, not the biggest intergalactic city, but the third largest.

Danger and Iris farewelled me as I moved into a boarding house with a bunch of other Freed.

They were working odd jobs. They were usually busy and no one intruded on my privacy.

It was really, really nice – until I started to feel lonely again.

Two weeks into being freed, a week, give or take, until I was due to give birth, I was basically perpetually curled up on a couch, covered in blankets, watching the news constantly, from morning till dusk. As dumb as it sounded, it was easy to keep track of official Kor movements by the news sources.

My limbs were aching, and my appetite was quite large.

An eldery woman called Hapeet, was cooking everyone meals every day. She owned the boarding house and the rooms, and the Freed never had to do anything other than pay and promise not to break anything.

Hapeet wasn't one to talk much. She'd cook and sometimes leave all day to travel around Light Metro. Today she was staying back, cooking dinner early.

Most of the day I watched as the young Freed dropped in briefly for lunch breaks.

I had made one friend, although she was working every day, so I only saw her for an hour at a time.

I hadn't made much of an effort to get to know her. I was scared being too close to any females, but none of the males were too interested in me, and I think it's because they knew I was a runaway Kor Queen.

The Freed themselves had a code, however – no snitching, no bounty hunting. They had their own honour codes. It worried me for some time, since honour only held so much weight, but after a week of not being sold back to the Kors, I trust the strangers in this boarding house.

It has the best views of Light Metropolis, which is just an absolutely gigantic mega city. Skyscrapers never stop scraping. It's hard to see the tops.

There is no bottom. The architecture has no level floor. Everything is connected everywhere. It's just a gigantic metal maze. This city was always alight with energy and life. The rooms could block out all noise and light pollution though, so it was still easy to sleep.

The two bigger Intergalactic Cities, The Away and the largest, The Vrooma, were larger in space overall.

Light Metroplis was compact.

My room was painted yellow and always clean. I hated the colour but I wasn't complaining about the freedom. I shared the room with my friend, Jitters.

She was quite calm for someone addicted to so much coffee.

Of course, Jitters was her nickname. All the Freed had one. No one seemed to share their legal name.

I hadn't chosen mine yet.

Although I liked to imagine I'd just be called Idiot.

My confidence had been growing, though, with each day. I might not be an idiot. Just a victim of circumstance. Some people were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. If they went for a walk by the beach and a freak wave knocked them down and drowned them, they weren't idiotic. You could avoid all danger but then you stop living.

So, with awesome self-pity based logic, I wasn't an idiot anymore, just a victim. Argh.

And the only reason I don't leave the boarding house is my pregnant condition.