27 #2
Made of glass so clear I know commanded Avri must be maintaining it to have it as sparkly as the rest of the place, the roof is domed; you can see straight through it as if it’s not even there to the night sky above, allowing you to dance beneath thousands of glittering stars.
Only broken up by thin silver lines throughout that cross over to make large triangles, ensuring minimal view obstruction and a place for the compact strobe lights to cling on to, it’s breathtaking.
Only one thing is more stunning, and she’s not here to gawk at.
“Yay! Scotty, come on!”
Having somehow convinced Tate to dance, Tiger eagerly pulls him along to the bright tiles on the floor, Cooper following more reluctantly while he looks around the room with an almost grumpy expression, one I’m pretty sure by this point is his resting face; I think Tiger likes to call it a “resting man-bitch face”.
Alby hangs back, and I stay with him while he decides what to do, his huge eyes telling me he’s very much intimidated by all this.
When he catches me staring, the flush that’s always present on his face expands. “I—I don’t know how to dance . . . I was awful in the lessons for the ball at third school,” he says quietly, and I have to strain my ears to hear him over the loud music and unrelenting chatter.
“Don’t worry about it, this isn’t the same.
You can just bop on the spot or something.
Fuck knows I can’t do much better than that.
And if you’re worried about looking ‘stupid’”—I know he’s still largely self-conscious about many things, especially how he appears to others, even if he is a little more settled with us—“just know we’ll both be doing the same thing.
So no one will look your way twice, okay? ”
He smiles shyly. “Yeah . . . yeah okay.”
Walking over to Cooper, Tate, and Tiger—who’s dumped them all in the middle of the dance floor and is currently trying to teach Tate how to “flip his hair sexily while boogieing”—I smile the widest I have since The Bonding Games began and join in with my brother’s antics, bantering back and forth in a way I’ve missed with all the heaviness lately.
Cooper kind of just bobs his head to the music, while Tate pretends to play it cool yet repeats a more subtle version of my brother’s hair flip with the darker strands on top of his own head, and Alby follows my suggestion with his knees moving gently up and down while he bites his lip to contain a laugh as he watches the two.
I can’t keep my own amusement in, and it prompts the escape of Alby’s, earning us a frowning side-eye from Tate that has even Cooper’s lips twitching as he shakes his head at the lot of us.
But we have true fun, not even needing the buzz of alcohol to get to the point of hysterics when at one point, Tiger tells excruciatingly detailed, elaborate stories and acts them out like the lead role at a theatre, throwing his arms wide and pulling wildly exaggerated facial expressions.
Hours pass by without a hitch, and for the first time since before Name Generation Day, no heaviness permeates the air, providing everyone with some much-needed relief before we have to go back to the reality of the Games when the night ends.
***
It’s just after 11 p.m. when we decide to have a drink or two to take a break from the dancing, and the five of us jog up the three steps to the raised platform, heading straight for the bar, which luckily isn’t too busy at the moment.
When it’s our turn to order, most of us are entirely unsure what to have considering Evot Training School never exactly allowed for alcohol.
That’s not meaning to say it was forbidden, because that’s not the case at all, but rather that any credits weren’t commonly used for alcohol when most people wanted to visit family with them instead, just like I did every chance I could to visit Tiger and our parents.
I’ve still had some alcohol before, of course, even if only a few times, but when I ask what the bartender has to offer, I haven’t heard of a good portion of the options he gives me.
At a loss, I look to Cooper, who simply smirks and orders us some odd glowing blue substance that I’m scared to sip when it’s placed on the bar top in front of me.
“Is this safe, Coops? Or have you finally decided to attempt to kill us all with something other than your brooding?” Tiger picks up his glass and brings it close to his eye, which is near enough the same shade as the liquid he scrutinises as if it’s one of our opponents in The Bonding Games.
After paying with his spend card—which is no doubt thriving with credits considering how much we get for surviving and performing well in each Game—Cooper turns to face us with his own drink in hand and takes an obvious swig, then raises an imperious brow.
Tiger shrugs. “Just had to be sure. Thanks, broski—”
CRASH!
Glass rains down from the domed roof, spraying through the air and scattering everywhere as shards smash into even tinier fragments on impact with the floor, screams of terror and pain splitting the room apart in an instant.
The strobe lights sputter, and the music abruptly cuts off as figures in black with red-glowing Avri adorning their suits drop straight down from the broken ceiling, landing in offensive positions, opaque helmets I’ve only seen the likes of on one other obscuring their identities.
The five of us duck on instinct with shouts, protecting our heads with our arms, and I’ve never been happier for our limited wardrobes meaning we can only go out in our Avri suits no matter the occasion, the sinthe and sinthine ensuring no stray glass slices through to our skin.
And thank fuck it is only glass and not Avri commanded to harm, because that would be an entirely different story.
But our heads are unprotected without our helmets, and even ducked as much as I am, one catches the back of mine, pulling a hiss from me.
“Scotty!”
“Fine, Tiger! I’m fine!” I call back to my brother over the pandemonium. “Just a nick!”
Once the glass has stopped hammering down, our drinks shattered and spilled on the floor among the shards from the ceiling, we all whip our bodies around, facing the intruders.
“What the hell is going on?!” Cooper shouts as we try to comprehend the calamity before us, eyes frantically darting across each of the Exots indiscriminately slashing at innocent Evots, Neutrals, and even their own social classification if they come across any.
“There’s sixteen of them!” Alby cries in horror at the same moment I reach behind me for my armoury sticks—
Before remembering we’d had to take them off to be granted entry, leaving us as harmless as possible for the safety of everyone in the club. And now defenceless when we need them most.