Chapter 38
I was shaking as I climbed out of my pod.
I was a giggling mess as I got back to my dorm, and I star-fished onto my tiny bed like I was the absolute greatest warrior that ever lived.
Late as it was, and tired as I was, I was too filled with adrenaline and joy to just pass out like I should be doing.
I won.
I won!
I fucking won!
Best of all, tomorrow was a free day, so I didn’t even have to wake up early.
I didn’t know how to celebrate this achievement yet, considering I wasn’t allowed to leave campus at my paltry rank, but I would think of something somehow.
I was too high on life to let anything bother me.
I’d get back to struggling come Basics on Monday, but for now, I was going to stay on top of the world.
I had to say though, I’d really thought Elio might be one of the remaining soldiers in that game. Whoever it was, no one else showed up to help Sebastian in the end. I must have missed someone along the way who simply never found me.
Strange. But fortunate.
I might not be laying here victorious right now if I’d been tag teamed by both of them.
So instead of stressing on it, I rolled over in my bunk and hugged my pillow like it was my best friend. The scratchy pillow case had grown on me over the months, and I almost tricked myself into thinking it was legitimately comfortable.
Glancing at my CHRONO, I opened up my messenger, and I located my own name.
I contemplated sending a message back home, wondering if Vann had woken up yet or if he’d gotten out of the hospital.
I wondered if he could have guessed what I’d done, or if he was mourning me all these months.
I’d not made any contact with home since I got here, too worried the messages might be monitored, and suddenly, that felt like the most unfair part of my existence.
I knew better.
I frowned, wishing I didn’t, but that wasn’t a risk worth taking when I’d come so far.
Plus, if he had woken up, he would have surely initiated a message thread first. He wouldn’t be sitting around using my CHRONO without trying to reach out to me.
It had only been three months. He was likely still waiting for his prosthetic to come in.
My frown deepened.
As thrilled as I was, I really didn’t have anyone to celebrate with. I couldn’t shout from the rooftops. I didn’t have friends. At best, maybe Breaker would give me a pat on the back, but he was more Sebastian and Elio’s friend than mine.
I rolled onto my side and my whole mood sank.
It shouldn’t matter. I didn’t need praise.
I was doing this for the greater good, not because I wanted to be some kind of renowned hero.
Any achievements here were necessary technicalities, not something to throw a parade over.
I wasn’t special. There were 999 other soldiers at Astaroth who qualified to pilot Shinkas, too.
I nuzzled into my pillow and closed my eyes. Reality had taken the thrill from me. It was barely a moment before I let my tired body fall asleep.
“Up and at ‘em.” The words had barely penetrated my unwillingly conscious brain before I was tugged from my bed in a violent jerk, landing face first onto the floor in the most unwelcome déjà vu I’d ever experienced.
My ribs had recovered, but my nose was now going to take a minute.
“This is your only free day. You’re not going to waste it sleeping. ”
“Sleeping is never a waste.” I groaned, as Elio kicked me onto my back so I’d be forced to stare up at him from my entanglement of sheets and blankets on the floor.
“You can sleep when you’re dead, Pipsqueak,” Breaker said, who was apparently standing right next to Elio and somehow condoning this violation of my one and only day to enjoy peace and happiness.
Fucking traitor.
But for some reason, they were both wearing button-up shirts, dress pants, and sport coats, like they were some kind of low rent mafia.
“Oh, so all I have to do is kill us all right now, and I can go back to enjoying my bed?” I was a burrito of bedding, and I resented that I was at their mercy. “I took out twenty of you fucks yesterday. Don’t make me take out twenty-two.”
Nineteen, technically, but the point stood.
“Mishka, Mishka, Mishka,” Elio shook his head and tsked, and I had no idea what he was doing right now.
It wasn’t like he liked me, so I could only see how this could go badly.
The fact that Breaker was here wasn’t the comfort it should have been.
If he was choosing to ally with only one of us, it wasn’t going to be me.
“You think you’re going to just waltz into the top one-thousand, when I’ve personally done everything in my power to keep you out of it, then spend the next day sleeping? ”
I stared flatly, completely unamused. “Oddly—and hear me out here—that sounds better than spending the day having you kick the shit out of me on the floor of my room.”
Breaker grinned widely in a way that sent a cold shiver down my spine. “He doesn’t know the rules yet, Firefly. You can’t expect him to make good decisions all on his own.”
“I literally never expected him to make good decisions, even with help.” Elio’s fiery eyes sparked as he rolled them. His playfulness was disturbing.
“You guys are so sweet.” I deadpanned them both from my continuously embarrassing position on the ground. Not wanting anything to do with any of this, I attempted to worm away, squiggling in my burrito wrapping without anything as heavy as dignity left to weigh me down.
“Nope. Where do you think you’re going?” Elio smirked, and Breaker was no damn help at all as my most hated roommate crouched down and grabbed me, still trapped in my sheets, to hoist me over his shoulder like a sad sack of hopelessness.
“What the fuck, put me down!” I thrashed, but there wasn’t a whole lot of motion available to me here. It was a pretty pointless effort even by my hellish standards.
“Grab him something cute. Then let’s go get fucked up and do some fucked up shit.” Elio’s tone was one of a man having entirely too much fun, and Breaker’s actions were of a man who reveled in his betrayal.
“All he has is gym clothes and pajamas.” Breaker scrunched his nose, and my eyes widened as he started digging through my clothing.
I didn’t have anything in there that was questionable, did I?
No, calm down, I prepared for this. My boob tape was all in my first aid kit, which no one would ever question, and thank fuck I was coiled up enough right now that my lack of bindings wasn’t obvious.
I’d made an active point to only pack manly underwear, said tape eliminated the need for bras, and everything else was pretty neutral.
The only thing he could encounter that would give him pause was my Sanitary Evac Unit…
Fuck—he’s about to find my Sanitary Evac Unit—
“I have some pants in the closet. Just grab those.” I pleaded, trying to get him to stop going through my drawers. Breaker obliged, and I released a sigh of relief as I watched him from my perch as a sack on Elio’s shoulder.
“Is this really how you dress in your off time?” Breaker pulled my jeans from the closet, then with a disapproving lift of a single eyebrow, he tossed them aside.
Rude.
“Well shit, he’s not going to fit anything of mine. Both of his arms would fit in one of my jacket sleeves. He’d look like a little kid.” Elio pondered this dilemma like it was a problem I actually wanted to solve.
“He’s way too short and tiny for my stuff,” Breaker added, equally stumped by this unfortunate development.
“Well darn, I guess you’ll have to leave me behind.” I spat back.
“That’s fine. I’ll buy him clothes when we’re out. I’ve got too many credits that I never spend anyway.” Breaker concluded with a shrug, and I groaned aloud, eliciting a laugh from both of them. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but it had no chance of being good.
In a humiliating display, Elio walked me all the way across the campus, still wrapped in sheets and slung over his shoulder, out in the open where my fellow squad mates and peers could gawk and whisper and laugh.
I’d long since given up fighting. If I’d learned anything about Elio Marx since I arrived, it was that he just did whatever he wanted, and if this was to be my fate, then I just had to accept it.
So I just glared at the floor, and definitely not his ass, while he carried me like I was a heavy sandbag that needed to be hauled up a mountain.
This was a skill I wish none of us had right now.
I held my most perturbed expression on my face like I was doing pissed-off isometrics, just so any onlookers were aware that I wasn’t happy about this.
I squirmed in my bindings, trying to see where the hell we were even going, only to see we’d arrived at the front gate.
“Is this going to be your first time ever exploring Mictlan, Pipsqueak?” Breaker asked as he placed his palm on the access panel.
Wait, were we going outside?
“I thought first years weren’t allowed out of the gates.
” I protested, as the bars retracted. “I don’t want to get in trouble.
I can’t go out there.” Was this the plan?
Force me to break the rules, so I lose my rank?
Fuck, I should have known they were up to something. “Let go! I don’t want to go out there.”
I started kicking and squirming again, but Elio just squeezed me against his bicep like I was a baby bird in a bear trap.
“Aww, come on, don’t you trust me?” Breaker looked at me with puppy dog eyes that, admittedly, suited his too friendly face. “I would never do anything to mess up your standing.”
“He would though.” I whined as I kept fighting, but Elio, unbothered as ever, just smacked me on the ass.