Molly – 15 years ago

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“I’d say we’re even as fuck now.” It’s quiet enough I know Connor can’t hear me talking to Phelan, especially when he’s busy knocking his name to the bottom of the intake list…again.

“Oh?”

“Throwing that girl to KrazyPants Kristoph earned you the same eyes.”

“Not even close,” Phelan counters. “You wasted food for us. That’s food for them.”

“I wasn’t referring to the food, Cuntface.”

He rumbles a warning roar, and my eyes dart down to the floor. Fucker. I mean, he wasn’t so far off point. Food’s basically all I think about. Reckon I earned the warning.

“I know you weren’t, but that’s all they are,” he remarks, dismissively.

“They’re people. Life has value,” I lie.

“You might sell that to your brother, but I’m not buying it. Not from you.”

“You don’t know me,” I argue. “My heart bleeds.”

He laughs. “Tell yourself whatever you need to so you can sleep at night.”

I stare blanks. “I have no trouble sleeping.”

“Exactly.”

He’s right. Things are different from my perspective. I know Connor doesn’t share that view. He’s full of hope and all the exuberance of youth. He’s still naïve enough to believe in goodness. Maybe they didn’t recruit him too early after all. Maybe they just recruited the rest of us too fucking late.

“I want to know more about the rules,” I request.

“Then you want to talk to Asteria.” He turns away from me. “Teaching you irrelevant things isn’t part of my job description.”

I scowl at him as he walks away. Asshole.

“I know the rules,” Connor says enthusiastically, bumping my shoulder. “Let’s talk about it over lunch. I’m starving!” Must run in the family. Too bad we’re hungry for different things.

I follow him to the Rec Room, where half a dozen other Sentry members are lounging around having explosive conversations, play fighting not so playfully, and throwing things back and forth at the far end (some of those things are each other).

“The Rowdy Room,” I mutter.

“Right,” he acknowledges. “You’ve never been here.”

“Nope.” For whatever reason, Sheelin’s always restricted access to this room. Jealousy maybe. Afraid I’ll make a friend better than her. It’s not possible. She’s my best bitch for life.

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“We can go,” he offers.

“Nah.” I snuff, catching a strong whiff of their combined scents mixed with sweat. “This is nice.”

Connor flashes his pearly whites at me and points me toward an empty table in the corner. When he arrives a short time later with two trays, I’m still looking around, enjoying the view of violent solidarity.

“I’m surprised the table is open.”

“It’s our table,” he claims.

“The fuck?”

“All the teams are assigned tables.”

“Does the location of the table indicate hierarchy?”

“Nope, they rotate based on where the team lead is on the energy intake list. The closer you are to the top of the list, the closer you are to the fight pit arena.”

I’m intimately familiar with that arena. “To encourage you to distract yourself,” I realize.

“Bullseye.”

We both eat quickly, then Connor slides into the seat next to mine so I can hear him talking over the noisy Sumair shenanigans.

“The rules,” he begins. “We usually learn these from the Archives, but I think your lesson from them was cut short since you were a human at the time.”

“Asteria could’ve taught me this shit in remediation,” I snipe.

“What did she teach you?”

I shrug. “Bullshit propaganda about humanity, profiling of existing Solathairs, and their specializations. Shit like that.”

“That’s how you knew who Kristoph was.”

I nod.

“I’m surprised they haven’t sent you back into the Archives,” he clips. “It’d be quicker than the desk lessons with Asteria.”

“They were trying to teach me a global lesson by punishing me with stationary sessions.”

“Did you learn what you were supposed to?”

“I learned enough to exponentially increase my fuck off factor.”

Connor smirks. “You’re different than I thought you’d be.”

“I’m different than I was before this bullshit.”

He frowns. “I know.”

He feels guilty for dragging me into this nightmare. He wasn’t thinking of anyone but himself, yet he was and is just a teenager, with crazy teenage emotions. Why would I make him suffer eternally for a choice he made when he was a kid? I’m still not confident he needs me, even after all this time. Fuck, he’s never needed me for that matter, not even in the beginning. I’m not valuable in any way to his present state of being. If anything, I’m a thorn jabbing his side. Likely, I’m collateral. An opportunity to shorten his chain. Same control tactics Phelan uses on me.

Honestly, when he gets this way, I tend to deflect. Responding to his guilt appropriately is a struggle for me. What I do and how I react to things is more instinctual than introspective. Concepts like morality and empathy are foreign, which is ironic being that moral compass was in my initial job description. Fucker spends more time babysitting me than I ever babysat him.

“Anyway, the rules.”

“The rules,” I repeat.

“Biggest rule is not to cause a scene,” he notes. “Solathairs aren’t supposed to draw attention to us in any way, including public altercations or displays involving elemental powers.”

“What happens if they do?”

“They eliminate the problem, including cleaning up the residual mess around the problem. Sometimes that means simple removal, and sometimes Asteria has to go do some wiping. It’s better when she goes since Tyler cleans up in an entirely different way.”

“What way?”

Connor slides his finger across his throat, making a juicy slit sound effect. “Makes them into jerky slices and brings them home for baking.”

“Do they get second chances?”

“They get three strikes,” he informs me. “First strike is a warning coming with a full explanation how it’ll be handled if it happens again. Normally, that’s all it takes for them to fall in line.”

“Second strike?”

“If there’s a second strike, there’s usually a third following soon after. The first strike is fairly common. Everyone makes mistakes, but the second one indicates a rogue who will screw up again. Then again, and probably again until the end of time, which for them is endless. Second strike is a firmer warning. Sometimes a time out.”

I lift a brow.

“They have this gun thing that like…sucks them inside. Prevents them from reforming until the tube dissolves or is broken open.”

“What happens on strike three?”