20: AINSLEY

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I barge into my dorm room, and an all too familiar scent accosts my nostrils. I drop down to the wall outlet, shoving my nose right into the socket air freshener. When I stand up again, the oceanic reprieve vanishes, so I groan my misery loudly. Luke crests a brow when I near his bed, but I stomp on by without saying a single word to haul the window open.

“What’s wrong?” His voice is strained.

“Do you really want to know?” I fire back. “Because your concerned tone sounds an awful lot like someone has a fistful of your propellers and is wrenching the snot out of them.”

His eye ripples.

“Everywhere stinks of eruptions, especially this room,” I dryfire.

He smirks. Giggles sound from under the tent.

“Not a freaking word out of you three for another half hour,” I threaten in my best Atlas tone. “You’re in a communication embargo for failure to shield.”

I refused my private session with Nick and Elaina as it was apparent I walked into something. Or the end of something. Or the beginning of a new something. I’m surrounded by a bunch of bonobos in heat.

Slumping into my bed, I start and finish my homework all at once, drafting three glorious words on the page. Big. Blitzing. No. It’s concise, clearly explains how I feel, and is definitely a prize winner.

Like my Sparklet knows I deserve a reward, it starts ringing. Archie’s perfect face fills up the screen. The expanded video capacity could fill the whole room, and that still wouldn’t cover the empty space in my heart where it’s missing him.

“So, did you make anyone cry today?” he asks playfully.

“I made a big fella cry from his nose,” I answer proudly. “Does that count?”

“You get double points if it came out both nostrils,” he decides.

“It did,” I brag, “and his mouth.”

“Sweet hat-trick!” he cheers. “What was the best thing about your day?”

“Talking to you,” I quickfire.

“I know. I’m amazing.” Humble, he is not.

“I did learn some good fighting blocks at the Stadium,” I accurize.

“Oh, you need those,” he notes. “You have a strong lead, but your blocks are garbage.”

“Where’s everybody else?”

“Dad’s working a puzzle.”

“Like a table puzzle?” I shake my head. “He’s serious about retiring I guess.”

“A three-thousand-piece monstrosity.” He makes a gagging face. “It’s ridiculous.”

“How many pieces did you take?”

“Only five,” he claims. “One for each of his adoring and perfectly innocent children. I took a corner piece for you.”

“He’ll have a meltdown!” I volley giggles. “You know he likes to do the borders first.”

“Yes, but as you’re currently mostly untouchable, I figured that’s a sacrifice you’d readily accept.”

“What about Adley, Asher, or Atlas?” I’m missing them all. The Sparklet helps, but it isn’t the same as being wrapped in their arms.

“I haven’t seen Atlas all day,” he informs me. “I’ll give you three guesses where he is.”

“At the Registry,” I slamfire.

“See, you wasted two guesses,” he tuts. “He sleeps with that stupid golden pass.”

“Probably wipes his butt with it too.”

“Yes, golden poop paper,” he muses. “Asher and Adley are sleeping.”

“This early?”

He sighs. “Carl’s back...or not back? Adley kept us all up last night crying and moaning ‘would he’ or ‘won’t he’.”

His air quotes make me chuckle in spite of myself. “Maybe Carl can trade places with me.”

“Fat chance of that,” he shuts me down. “He doesn’t even have a spark of personality.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Hey, can you do me a favour?”

“Anything for my favourite sister,” he declares.

“Your only sister.” I spiral my scopes. “Can you get everyone to take a picture to send me? I want to update your contact images on my Sparklet.”

“Yes,” he agrees, too freaking eagerly.

“Not. Your. Butt!” I roar. “I want faces, please. Preferably smiles with all the teeth.”

“I’ll do my best,” he insists, “but I’ll probably have to hold the golden poop paper hostage before Atlas complies with that.”

“Whatever you send will be amazing.”

“I shall rise to this challenge, Sister Dearest!”

Dad jumps in front of the screen. “There’s my girl!”

“Hi Dad,” I gush. “You’re still coming Friday, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he assures me.

There’s some commotion from outside the open window, drawing my attention. Luke gets up and closes it. Did he do that for me? Well, I do have the attention span of a squirrel. Yeah, no. That wasn’t for me. More likely, it had to do with his own attention derelict. He’s about as patient as a saltwater crocodile.

“What’s that face about?” Dad asks.

“Nothing,” I lie.

“Do you want me to wake your brothers up?”

“No, it’s alright. I don’t want to bother them.”

“Please, Ainsley!” Archie begs dramatically. “We’re starving to death!”

I brrrt a laugh, knowing only Asher cooks for us. “It’s okay. We’ll talk soon.”

“Every day,” Dad promises.

“Love you guys.”

“We love you too,” they shout in unison.

“Oh, and Dad?” I say before they end the call. “Archie stole five pieces from your puzzle.”

The camera blackens when the Sparklet hits the floor. I hear them scuffling and can’t stop laughing as I imagine them wrestling over those pieces.

“Is our time out done yet?” Aspen outgasses, peering around the curtain.

“Are you gunna pyroclast the showers again without shielding?”

“No,” they swear in triplicate.

Maverick spies my Sparklet which has reverted to my prized composition. “You don’t have to do those assignments.”

“Really?”

“Nope,” Keira pops. “Not a one. Docents don’t grade Sparklers.”

“How am I supposed to progress if they don’t mark anything? Are there assessments at least?”

“Nope,” she pops again. “No tests until you advance to secondary between the Healing, Fighting, or Scholar Sects.”

This sucks balls. I can’t get expelled, fail out, or push through schooling quicker to leave this crap shoot in my dust. Am I all out of exit options? “How do I get out of this cage then?”

“Only one option out,” Luke seiches. “Death. Still interested?”

Screw that bojank option. I don’t like it at all. I narrow my scopes at the miserable scut, aiming to show him how interested I’m not. As I’m about to fire a barrage of salty sauce in his direction, my Sparklet pings with a message notification. It’s from Archie, who’s obviously eager to begin his challenge.

The picture has me laughing so hard I forget to be pissed. Guess he did good looking out. Backstopping blitzer can’t follow directions for crap though. Well, I suppose he did follow directions. Technically. He kept his butt out of it. In the snapshot, he’s smiling brightly, exposing nearly all his teeth, while Asher’s having a snorgasm in the background, his bare butt proudly on display.

“Can you crop that for me?” I hand the device to Keira who zooms the image right in on the butt.

“The pit?” she crackles.

“No, not Asher’s butt.” I spiral my scopes. “Archie’s smile with all the teeth.”

“Don’t you have seventeen brothers?” Aspen shockwaves. “How do you know whose guster it is?”

“I have four brothers,” I correct him, pointing to the image Keira’s gazing longingly at and has yet to crop. “Do you see the scar there on his right cheek?”

“Yes,” Maverick rumbles. “Where did he get that? Oh my dark, did you do that to your poor brother?”

“Big blitzing no!” I report. “He got caught on a barbed wire fence running from our neighbour’s pasture when he was about thirteen. I was ten.”

“Why was he running from the pasture?” Aspen vents.

“Because of the bull.”

Keira fires up a brow. “Where were you?”

“In the pasture.”

“He left you in the pasture?” Maverick slags.

I shrug. “Someone had to prod the bull.”

They erupt with laughter. I just stare at the scar on my brother’s butt, missing that wussy more than ever. Keira eventually crops the picture for me, after sending an original to herself, and helps me add it to Archie’s profile.

“Want a team sleep again?” she cinders.

“I’d love the crap right out of that.”

“You’re not worried about marring your rogue reputation?” Luke sprays.

“Why would I give a flying donkey fart what any jerkwad here thinks of me?” I return fire. “The only one here doing any posturing is you, and I give zero cares what you think of me, so kindly go scudding off again like the miserable scut you are instead of bothering to talk to me at all. Best you stick with what you’re good at.”

Unsurprisingly, he scuds out of the room.

I slide into bed, and they pyroclast me. This is a relaxing as heck routine I could come to enjoy.

“Where does your joy live?” Keira ashes.

“With my family...” I hangfire.

I don’t hesitate this time, readily accepting the reprieve my release offers me. Sleep finds me fast, but it doesn’t stick. I wake in the dark unsure how long I’ve been out but absolutely sure what’s startled me awake. My water spark is swelling inside me, filling me so full it’s bound to leak out my pores. I have to do something before my shackle roars its defiance and wakes everyone in the room.

I look over to Luke’s bed. He has his arms crossed above his head, lying as close to the wall as possible, the furthest he can get from me. The steady rise and fall of his bare chest assures me he’s sleeping soundly. If I purposely wake him up, he’ll be pissed he has to deal with my emergency. Despite knowing I need him, the stubbornness in me doesn’t want him to know I do. Luke’s going to end up with my water spark regardless. I reckon there’s only one move to make here. I’ll sneak into his bed to relieve myself. If he catches me, he’ll keelhaul me. If he doesn’t, he’ll be none the wiser. Good odds for any game.

I can’t reach him from the floor, so I crawl in beside him, extending a hand forward as carefully as possible and just grazing his chest with my fingertips to test the waters. My water spark rushes to the connection point where it meets an open channel. The free flow is so dang different from the retractions I felt from him previously. There’s no pull. No tearing. No pain. It’s glorious.

As I hit the dregs of my well, a draining sensation washes through me that cascades warmth everywhere it touches. I inhale deeply, an ocean scent drowning out everything else. How in the heck could this miserable scut smell like salty sea air?

White Horse is a wickedly unrideable wave, but this version, Salty Seabed Luke, is strikingly beautiful and absolutely inviting. His calm is contagious, seeping through my soul and filtering out every bit of rage. I sit there conflicted for a moment. Two moments. Five moments. Too many moments. The draining effect gets me dead bang. It puts me straight to sleep.

Game.

Freaking.

Over.