Through the Lungs and Back

Chapter Five

 "Back so soon?" Molly's back is turned to us, but she knows we're here. "We bought supper." Aline says, giving her the tray. "Sweet. One of my favourite volunteers." Molly takes the tray. "I thought you didn't like volunteers." I say. I probably shouldn't have said that in front of Aline, but I'm on a roll of doing things I'll regret today. "I never said that. I said, 'do me a solid and stay away from those volunteers.'" Molly replies, sitting back down in her chair. "And nice try with the hero thing, but Ellis already bought me something to eat, and now I have to work. Ellis said he needs a new implant, so now I have two orders to fill, android nurses to reprogram, kill codes to find, and people hanging over my shoulders." Molly scribbles something down in the notebook sitting on her desk. Aline nods her head towards the door. "Then we can leave. Do you want the food, or not?" Aline asks. "All yours." Molly says, writing more things down in her notebook. She hands the tray back to me. Aline and I leave silently, and we meet Ellis outside. "I didn't have enough time to warn you guys about her mood." Ellis shrugs. "Let's go eat." He says. We walk together to the cafeteria. I must look odd standing in between two volunteers, because people are giving me weird looks. They probably think I got in trouble. "You two were out marking houses, right?" I ask. "Yeah. We saw someone mark Keller's house. Be the way, we gave up on nicknames." Ellis says, even though I already figured it out. "Was Keller inside?" I stop and grab Ellis be the collar of his black lab coat. He's too calm about everything, and sometimes it's hard to find any emotion in there at all. You have to really pry the emotion out of him. "I don't know." He says. His green eyes stare right into mine, and I can't find any emotion. He's telling the truth. I let him go, and his blonde hair spills back onto his forehead when he goes back to his full height. He's just a little bit taller than me, and I'm just a little bit taller than Aline. Ilaria is around my height, and everyone is taller than Keller.

Aline shoots me a warning glare, and it catches me off guard. She's always been a little protective over Ellis, and Ellis has always been a little protective over her. I think they're cousins. They've got the same green eyes, freckles, and curly hair, but Aline has dark hair, and Ellis is blonde. "What were you doing with Molly, anyways?" Aline asks as casually as she can. "She was sizing me up for a new transplant." Ellis says. "And I bought her food." He continues. "Did you eat?" I ask him. "No." He replies. Ellis and I sit down at a round table, and Aline goes up to the counter and gets something for Ellis. Both of us stare in opposite directions, not wanting to talk to each other. Ellis obviously isn't very social, so starting conversations with him is difficult. He must get along with Molly well, but then again, Molly is a talker. Aline walks back over with another tray, breaking the awkward silence. She slides the tray over to Ellis, then she hands one bowl to me on the other tray, and she takes the other. It's hard to believe that one spilled bowl of soup could cause forty minutes of dysfunction.

"You two are quiet." Aline says, glancing between us. "Is that a problem?" Ellis replies, not looking up from his bowl. "No." Aline looks down at her own bowl of soup.

Something is wrong. I can feel it. Both Aline and Ellis are acting weird, and I don't like it. Those two are like Ilaria nad I, but creepy. And they're not actually related, but you get me. Soon enough, one of them is going to snap. That one probably being Aline. Ellis is like the most durable brick wall ever when it comes to emotions. He's just always been like that.

I remember when we were all around ten years old, and one of us broke a vase at Aline's house. Her mom interrogated us for thirty minutes, and Ellis was the only one who didn't end up crying. It's actually insane how emotionless he is.

"I can't do it anymore. I can't." Aline stands up and slams her fists on the table. Everyone in the cafeteria--which is a lot of people--turns to stare at her. I knew she would break first. Common knowledge. "So what happened?" I ask, sitting back in my chair. Aline doesn't say anything more, she just walks away. "So what happened?" I repeat to Ellis. "Bronson girl wrongly marked Keller's house. Now it's under quarantine." Ellis says. We make eye contact for a brief second, then Ellis goes back to eating his soup.