The Red Pyramid [BTS adaption]

29. A Godly Birthday Party - I

Jimin POV

THEY TOOK NAMJOON TO A DIFFERENT dormitory, so I don't know how he slept. But I couldn't get a wink.

It would've been hard enough with Seokjin's comments about passing our tests or dying, but the girls' dormitory just wasn't as posh as Seo Joon's mansion. The stone walls sweated moisture. Creepy pictures of Egyptian monsters danced across the ceiling in the torchlight. I got a floating cot to sleep in, and the other girls in training—initiates, Seokjin had called them—were much younger than me, so when the old dorm matron told them to go to sleep straight away, they actually obeyed. The matron waved her hand and the torches went out. She shut the door behind her, and I could hear the sound of locks clicking.

Lovely. Imprisoned in a nursery school dungeon.

I stared into the dark until I heard the other girls snoring. A single thought kept bothering me: an urge I just couldn't shake. Finally, I crept out of bed and tugged on my boots.

I felt my way to the door. I tugged at the handle. Locked, as I suspected. I was tempted to kick it till I remembered what Seokjin had done in the Cairo Airport broom closet.

I pressed my palm against the door and whispered, "Sahad."

Locks clicked. The door swung open. Handy trick.

Outside, the corridors were dark and empty. Apparently, there wasn't much nightlife in the First Nome. I sneaked through the city back the way we'd come and saw nothing but an occasional cobra slithering across the floor. After the last couple of days, that didn't even faze me. I thought about trying to find Namjoon, but I wasn't sure where they'd taken him, and honestly, I wanted to do this on my own.

After our last argument in New York, I wasn't sure how I felt about my brother. The idea that he could be jealous of my life while he got to travel the world with Dad—please! And he had the nerve to call my life normal? All right, I had a few mates at school like Lisa and Jisoo, but my life was hardly easy. If Namjoon made a social faux pas or met people he didn't like, he could just move on! I had to stay put. I couldn't answer simple questions like "Where are your parents?" or "What does your family do?" or even "Where are you from?" without exposing just how odd my situation was. I was always a different girl. Asian girl, the American who wasn't American, the girl whose mother had died, the girl with the absent father, the girl who made trouble in class, the girl who couldn't concentrate on her lessons. After a while one learns that blending in simply doesn't work. If people are going to single me out, I might as well give them something to stare at. Red stripes in my hair? Why not! Combat boots with the school uniform? Absolutely. Headmaster says, "I'll have to call your parents, young lady." I say, "Good luck."

Namjoon didn't know anything about my life. But enough of that. The point was, I decided to do this particular bit of exploring alone, and after a few wrong turns, I found my way back to the Hall of Ages.

What was I up to, you may ask? I certainly didn't want to meet Monsieur Evil again or creepy old Lord Salamander.

But I did want to see those images—memories, Seokjin had called them.

I pushed open the bronze doors. Inside, the hall seemed deserted. No balls of fire floated around the ceiling. No glowing hieroglyphs. But images still shimmered between the columns, washing the hall with strange, multicolored light.

I took a few nervous steps.

I wanted another look at the Age of the Gods. On our first trip through the hall, something about those images had shaken me. I knew Namjoon thought I'd gone into a dangerous trance, and Seokjin had warned that the scenes would melt my brain, but I had a feeling she was just trying to scare me off. I felt a connection to those images like there was an answer within—a vital piece of information I needed.