Cursed by the Gods

Chapter 8

Early the next morning, Emmy was in lecture mode.

"You're playing a dangerous game, Riles. Why did you have to challenge them? Why would you call attention to yourself? Sometimes I wonder how much of your idiocy is God-given, and how much is your insatiable need to stir up your sun-cycle. Your boredom is going to be the death of you!"

She'd been at it since after the early bells. I'd spilled on the 'classroom incident' while we got ready, and now I wished I'd kept it to myself.

"How can you just take the abuse, Em? It's not in me to lie down and let them crush me. I refuse to lay down and let them walk all over me, and if I can help it I'm trying to help the other dwellers as well"

If it's a fight they want with me, then it's a fight they'll get. Besides now they owe me one.

With a huff, Emmy pushed back her mass of silvery hair, artfully twirling it up into a neat knot on top of her head. I ran my fingers through my short strands and she gave me an odd look.

"I've been meaning to ask, why the haircut? Why the whole boy persona?"

I sighed and got dressed as I responded. "Emmy this is what it's going to be like from now on, I have to hide which means that the closer people get to me the closer they get to my secret. No way is that happening and since Rome caught me with long hair I needed to cut it and change the look. He already knows that someone with long hair has abilities. If he traces that back to me then were both in the deep end."

"I'm heading out now," I announced, interrupting Emmy as she started on her next lecture. "I want to make sure I'm done before any of them return." I hoped like hell that Rome wasn't in his room. He'd know that I was coming this time and with a little luck, he wouldn't be there.

Right. Luck. Because that was a thing I was totally familiar with.

"This sun-cycle we have to clean and set up the dining room before the sols get there. You can't skip cleaning duties!" She was all aghast and stuff. Sometimes, I wondered if she knew me at all. I skipped my duties back in the village all the time. I literally couldn't seem to help from breaking rules. I didn't believe what Emmy said; I didn't have a death wish. I had the opposite of a death-wish. I had a life-wish, where I actually wanted to have a life outside of serving and working and being told exactly how to serve and work.

I wanted to do something useful like I don't know be able to use my powers. Not have to hide them from the sols who would without a doubt kill me if they found out. It's not like a dweller with these sorts of gifts pops up every day.

I patted her arm quickly, before sprinting toward the door. She lurched out to grab me, missing by an inch.

"If I get to the dorms early, there's even less of a chance that one of those ... sols will be back from their training," I whisper-yelled as I left.

The words lingered behind me but I didn't stop moving, grabbing a few pieces of breakfast rock-bread as I passed the common dweller area. I took the stairs one at a time, even though I wanted to jump up as many as I could. It was safer this way. A broken nose would slow me down and I was on a mission. The Abcurse brothers would not get a jump on me this morning. Riley was going to get one over on them. Yes, I now spoke about myself in the third person. It was that kind of mission.

The domed room was reasonably empty; I noticed a few dwellers slipping into the dining area—they had the not-be-seen-or-smelt thing down. Eating my food as I ran, I took a sharp left and continued sprinting toward the male dorms. I hadn't roamed at this time before and had no idea who I could run into. The sols should be either at breakfast, or at training in the stadium, but it worried me that the Abcurse brothers had been missing for the second part of the previous sun-cycle. They were rule-breakers like me, apparently. Although, unlike me, it wasn't going to get them killed.