MORTALS

/18: We Play Laser Tag With Lethal Weapons. Fun!

"Everly, wake up."

I turned on my other side, trying to find the cool side of the pillow, but all I got was the cold, hard floor. I shifted uncomfortably.

"Everly, get up."

"What?" I groaned, curling up.

Someone yanked the thin blanket away, exposing me to the cold.

"Hey, give that back."

"You want food?"

My eyes opened against my will. I sat up and yawned, looking around. I was still in the living room, in front of the fireplace. The large windows were letting in a fair amount of sunlight, but the sun wasn't fully visible yet, so I'd say it was about 6:00. I yawned again, wincing as the skin over my bruises stretched. Someone made a noise behind me.

Despite my sleepy state, I whirled around, stopping my elbow just before it hit Asher's face. He stared at my arm, surprised. I sighed and put my elbow down. "Don't scare me like that." I whined, rubbing my eyes.

Asher smiled and gave me a cup of hot chocolate. "You never told me when you learned to do that."

I took a long sip and then shrugged. "I have three older brothers," I reminded him. "William played first table on the chess team, Oliver used to cry every time he heard a sad song, and when I was little and wanted to play dress-up, Stephan could really rock a cocktail dress and six inch heels. I wasn't about to let anyone give them any sort of crap for that, so I learned to beat up people bigger than me pretty early on. That ended up coming in handy when I earned myself a middle school bully, you know?"

"I don't know." Asher replied, gesturing at the nearest Coterie's table. "Take a seat?"

I sat down, Asher took a seat across from me.

"What happened at school?" He asked.

"The usual. Like I told you last night, I made the middle school bully a little mad. In return, he made the next two years of school a little hard for me. Every time I heard an obnoxiously loud set of footsteps, that was me acting out of self defense."

"So you should do fairly well in the stealth part of training." Asher noted.

I looked at him. "The what? What did I miss?"

"Nothing much. We just continued training the entire day. And we'll be doing so for the rest of the week."

"Yeah, but what about the stealth thing?"

"Oh. Today Graves said we would be practicing a stealth situation with our Coteries. Each of the assignments are individual and will be done privately."

"Oh." I sighed. "That sounds cool."

"What;s wrong?"

"I don't want to miss another day. What if Tiffany sets me off?"

"You better control your temper, young lady." Asher said mockingly, wagging his finger.

I smiled.

==== ====

"So how was it?!"

"Agh!" I shrieked, my fist inches away from Addy's beaming face. "Tell me all the juicy deets." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me to her bed. I flopped down on the mattress, exhausted. "Tell me everything!"

"We talked...?"

She huffed. "More, give me more! I need to know!" Addy whined.

I got up from the bed, walking toward the bathroom. "Addy, I'll tell you everything later, but we have to get ready for training."