The Exiles

Chapter 1) The Atlas Situation

1) The Atlas Situation

            The alarm on her phone screeched and Violet Ward rolled over. She slammed her palm down on the nightstand but the beeping didn’t stop. Slowly, she cracked an eye open and reached out to turn it off. 6:30 AM. She groaned.

Violet hated mornings, and Mondays. But for the first time in her life, she didn’t have to go to school. She had to go to work. She stretched and cracked her neck, taking her time to get out of bed. For a minute, she lay in the quiet room and watched the porcelain dancer on the jewelry box Daniel had given her. It was her favorite thing in the room. Daniel was more excited for her to start her job than she was. He’d even threatened to come see her off this morning, but that would be so embarrassing. And in front of her parents too?

            She stepped out of bed and over to the pile of clothes her mother had laid out for her. Violet snorted as she surveyed them and gingerly picked up a black pencil skirt that looked more like a torture device than clothing. She never understood why everyone in the City dressed like that, but she was an adult now and it was time for her to start acting like one. Or that was what everyone said.

A few minutes later, Violet wobbled across the room in a pair of heels that squished her toes together too tight. Her brown hair was sleek and straight for the first time in months, and the heels made her pale legs look too skinny. She grimaced at herself in the mirror. Still, she had to make a good impression. Her father was on the Council after all, and being a Ward in the City meant Violet had a lot to live up to.

Violet knew she would never be the perfect society girl her mother had been, but she didn’t care. She was pretty enough, with wide hazel eyes like her father’s, but she always thought her thin lips looked awkward. Still, she was smart, she was happy, and above all, she had Daniel, and Daniel could make her feel perfect.

For a second, she thought she heard his voice, but it was only her mother. She glanced longingly back at her bed, but then she heard it again. Violet flung the door to her room open and clacked down the stairs. Sure enough, there he was, standing at the door with her mother.

            “Dan!” Violet smiled. She tried to rush towards him and slipped sideways off her heels.

            Daniel let out a giggle that he quickly disguised as a cough. Violet flipped her hair out of her face and walked up to him more steadily.

            “I think you’re taller than me,” he said with a grin at her shoes. She looked down and made a face.

            “Look at you,” Leona Ward swooped in, catching her daughter in a hug. “You’re all grown up!”

            Violet rolled her eyes but hugged her mother back.

            “So, Leto, excited for your first day of work?” Daniel said.

            “Don’t call me that,” she said. Leto had been her nickname as a child, back when she’d first met Daniel, and he was the only person in the world who still used it. He did it just to annoy her.

            Daniel pulled her into a hug and buried his face in her hair. “You look ridiculous,” he mumbled in her ear.

            “I know,” she whispered back.

Daniel was dressed in a dark grey suit that looked oddly wrinkled. Violet thought the whole professional look had always worked better for Daniel than it ever had for her, but then again, so had everything. There was something about Daniel that she had never quite understood. It was as if he had an underlying faith that everything would just work out alright, and it always seemed to for him.