Hazy Dreams
SEVENTEEN
Elena
“Hey, sis, are you coming to hear me sing tonight?” Jenna tugs up her bustier, plumping the tops of her breasts. She’s wearing a sparkly midnight blue gown with a slit up the side.
“No,” I mutter, looking back down at my tablet and scrolling through several more commercial space listings.
For the past two months I have been waiting for a store unit to hit the market, a spot in one of the higher caste commercial wards just off the main hallways.
A place near enough to the shops and restaurants that is also close to the business sectors that are located a short distance away.
A spot like that will go fast, and my realtor doesn’t always do her due diligence.
So, I have too.
I’m hoping for a small place, something manageable with just a couple of employees. My inheritance is limited and I want to invest wisely. I might not make the type of money my parents want me to make, but I’ll be happy. I don’t need much. I’ve never needed much.
Growing up as a talentless child next to one who is very talented has made me appreciate how wonderful it truly is to be in the shadows.
Nearly everyone in the upper castes on The Dreadnaut knows my sister.
She’s beloved. But they don’t know me, and having been witness to the dark side of my sister’s fame—the stalkers—I want to keep it that way.
Thankfully, my sister’s long-term boyfriend has enough money to provide her round-the-clock security detail.
I don’t have security detail—nor do I want to ever have the need to pay for them.
Tea is safe. It calms people. It invigorates them. It doesn’t need security.
Jenna sighs. Looking up from my screen once more, I pick up my cup and take a small sip of sapphire dew, giving her the attention she craves.
“You never come these days,” she whines. “We rarely spend time together anymore.”
I set down my cup, and cross my arms, only to cringe when pain floods me. Reaching up to rub my right shoulder, the pain within it fades. Weird.
“You’ve been singing every evening and have been with Mateo the rest of the time.
And you know my opinion on the first. It’s getting dangerous out there.
I mean,” I wave my hand at her, “it has always been a little dangerous for you. But outside your stalkers, the people in the lower castes are mad.”
“Mateo hired the best security team on the ship—and it’s not like I sing on the lower floors. We’re on floor seventeen tonight, which is perfectly safe and far from the dregs.”
How can I tell her I don’t want to go because being in her world makes me miserable? How can I put it into words that I’m willing to sacrifice our relationship for my own mental health?
I’ll never be like my sister. I’ll never be as good at anything as her. I learned at a very early age that we’re opposites in every way possible.
I turn away and look down at my screen. “I can’t. I’m waiting for a comm from my realtor.”
“You haven’t seen me sing in nine months…”
I wince at the pain in her voice. She groans, pivots, and leaves our parents’ unit behind to enter the embrace of her security team and friends awaiting her outside. Catching her gaze for a final, brief moment, my shoulders sag in relief when she’s gone.
I feel guilty but the guilt isn’t enough to put myself in uncomfortable, potentially unsafe, positions.
Catching a whiff of something in the air, my nostrils flare. Ilubriam chocolate?
The pain in my shoulder comes roaring back, and as I reach out to grasp it, I find my other arm trapped. The room around me gets yanked away and the room within my parents’ ship appears in its stead. There are people surrounding me. I’m on my bed.
Hissing fills my ears, voices. “Gentle!”
I cry out and thrash my legs, trying to turn to my side as someone pulls my arm hard, then begins to roll it. As the pain in my shoulder eases, my vision clears to announce an even worse pain in my head. I wince, hard.
“Her shoulder’s back in,” a man to my right says. “It’ll feel raw for her for a few weeks. Where’s her brother? I thought she said she had a brother?”
“She must’ve lied.”
The hissing gets louder. I force my eyes open to see who’s around me but as I do, nausea coils my gut. When I see Levy, I jerk up and toward him, away from the naga partially leaning over me to my left. “No! No! No!”
He frowns and moves away as I scurry over the bed’s side. “Don’t take me again!”
The naga growls.
Another naga, one with similar coloring and patterning, hisses at the threshold of the room. I recognize him from earlier when the other naga with long hair tried to abduct me…
“I will not take you anywhere,” the original naga rasps.
Levy shuffles back to my side and partially covers me, putting himself between me and the others. “So that’s where she vanished. You took her. What the fuck did you do to her? Can’t you see she’s scared?”
Greg, on the other side of Levy, puts himself between me and the nagas too. “We helped. Now give us back our weapon and leave.”
“It will not be I who leavessss!” the original naga hisses, coiling his tail closer. It’s then I see the gun the naga at the threshold is holding.
I take Levy’s hand when he offers it to me, rising shakily to my feet. Pain erupts in pounding waves behind my eyes and I bow my head in agony, reaching up with my good arm to feel my brow.
I hit my head. I drift my fingers over the swollen skin above my eyes, wincing.
“We helped you because she needed it, but we will not help you hurt her further!” Levy shouts.
“It was not I who hurt her!”
“But you took her god knows where and look at her now! You’re also a fucking alien!”
Pressing my palms to my temples, I grow lightheaded and dizzy.
“She is running out of resourcessss. She cannot be left unattended outside where she can get hurt or stolen away—”
“Like you stole her?” Greg yells.
“She is in my territory! You all are.”
“Are you okay?” Levy asks me, ignoring the others.
I rub the side of my head, peering at the men and nagas gathered in my room, and clench my teeth in pain. “Enough,” I say, my voice rough and low.
“Lukyssss, we had a deal…” the naga holding the gun utters.
“She is my responsibility!”
“Enough!” I yell, clutching my head. “I can’t take the noise. It’s too much. I want all of you out!” I squeeze my eyes closed.
“One of us should stay with you, make sure you’re cared for—” Levy gently places his hand on my back.
Another hiss tears out of the naga as his tail shoots forward. “Do not touch her!”
“Stop!” I shout louder, pitching my voice and dropping my hands to look at the four of them, barely able to take in the two nagas on one side of my bed and Levy and Greg on the other.
“Get out of here! I told you all to go! I don’t know any of you.
” I point to the naga across from me, finally meeting his dark gaze.
“And I definitely don’t trust you.” I tear my eyes from his furious expression and he draws his tail back.
“And I need rest. So go! Please go. Please,” I beg.
I’m scared. Hurt. Tired.
No one moves.
Losing my patience and being egged on by the intense pain in my head that can only be summarized as the worst hangover of my life, my courage only grows with their silence.
“Leave!” I roar. “I can take care of myself!”
The naga by the door shifts and, with a final glance at the original, slips out the door. He waits on the other side as I wave at Greg and Levy to follow after him.
“Are you sure?” Greg asks.
“Yes,” I snap. “I’m not going to get any rest with all of you here. And I want to rest, more than anything.”
“Your shoulder was dislocated. Don’t try lifting anything with it for a couple of weeks if you don’t have a booster in your med kit—I couldn’t find one. And as for your head, you might have a concussion. Sit down if you experience nausea.”
“Thank you,” I groan. “Now, please go.”
He stuffs his hands into his pockets and, with a look at the original naga, walks out.
My gaze returns to the naga’s dark one before dropping to the swollen bulge at the front of his tail. It hasn’t changed since I last saw it. Swallowing, my eyes flick back up to his face. A shiver flutters down my spine as he openly assesses me.
Expecting to see anger in his expression, I’m surprised when it’s worry I read instead. Worry and… loss?
“I will not steal you again,” he whispers. At odds to his shouting earlier, my skin prickles at the quiet tone of his voice.
I don’t nod, I don’t respond. I don’t give him anything.
“Lukyssss,” the naga outside warns.
Lukys?
Lukys. So that’s his name.
His gaze trails over me once more, his expression determined, before he slips across my room and ducks out the door. The naga in the hallway follows after him and they disappear around the corner. Waiting a moment for them to leave, I creep forward.
The back hallway is clear and with my pulse thrumming, I dash to the front of the ship and initialize the ship’s AI out of stasis. “I command you to turn on and close the back hatch.” Lula pops up and glimmers.
There’s a short pause before I hear the hatch close.
I sink into my father’s chair and drop my head into my hands.
Tears stream down my cheeks—damned tear—and for the next few minutes I sit there and let them fall.
But when I lift my head, my gaze lands on Lukys.
My heart erupts into a frenzy and I quickly stand. Doing so makes me dizzy, except before I can leave, he twists and enters the woods. I watch his long tail disappear into the bushes.
Do I have a stalker now too?
Swallowing thickly, I flee to my room and shut myself inside.