First World (22 page)

“
Help her,” Brace, on my other side, roared at Josian. “Do something.”

Lallielle’s
face was white as death beside him.

Power crackled around Brace. I thought I could see lightning arcing in the space. His velvety eyes, normally a deep rich brown, were black. This must be the hallucination before death. Brace leaned in, pulling my hand from the knife handle. I gasped once before my screams echoed through the warehouse.

The days that followed were both annoying and restful.

Lallielle and Josian were yet to let me far from their sight. Apparently that little incident was too close for comfort, even for a Walker. I have little recollection of my trip back and thankfully I was completely out for the knife removal.

With some help from
Josian’s energy, my recovery was progressing. The puckered pink scar on my chest ached on and off, but I was alive.

I awoke from my afternoon nap to find Lucy perched on the side of my bed.

“You know, Abbs, I could live in your wardrobe.” She lay back, sighing wistfully.
“And the blue stone is back again.”

Rubbing my eyes, I sat up, working through the stiff pain that shot through my chest. Lucy was
dressed in an ankle-length, floaty white dress. It was perfect for the balmy weather of First World. She’d already been making up for all our years without a massive walk-in wardrobe and had taken to wearing at least two different sets of clothes a day. The dress, generally thigh-high, looked gorgeous on her blond beauty.

Glancing to my left I could see the
laluna
nestled in the pillow next to mine. The blue pulsed, and I could feel the warmth it created. No matter how many times Josian took it away, it just kept reappearing. The little Walker world had claimed me.

Shifting it to my side table,
I looked around the room. “Where has everyone disappeared to?”

I hadn’t seen anyone all day.
Odd for my overprotective parents.

Lucy laughed. “I have no idea. Sam took off with your parents earlier, something about having to meet an old acquaintance.” She shrugged.

“How are things going with Samuel?” I asked her.

Since my revival from the dead, I hadn’t spent any
quality time with my brother. He appeared to be avoiding me and, not wanting the emotional drama, I hadn’t bothered to care. I’d had enough of my own emotional breakdowns.

At least the last few nights I hadn’t being d
ragged awake by my own screams. I continued to dream of my own grisly death, sometimes I was stabbed again and others it was a broken neck, and Olden was always the murderer. Thankfully, the image of the dead guard, my knife in his throat, was fading. Though, my last confrontation with Chrissie never seemed to disappear. Lucy thought all of the girls from the compound had scattered from the warehouse. By the time they got me into a doorway to First World, none had been around.

Lucy again distracted me from my dark thoughts, her lovely smile spreading across her face. It’d been absent too long. I missed
my usual snarky friend, but she was getting her groove back.

“Honestly, he’s wonderful
... awesome ... and too sexy for his own good. I would never have made it through my kidnapping without him.”

The scars crisscrossing Lucy’s back had not faded at all; she wouldn’t talk about it much, but I knew she’d been tortured for information, on more than one occasion.

Then she surprised me.

“You know whenever Olden took me
away, Sam would fight through his bars to stop her. And then when I came back into the room, worse for wear, he talked to me for hours. His voice, his stories, they allowed me to escape for a time.”

I hated it when h
er blue eyes held that empty horror.

“I’m pretty sure his stories and lovely
husky accent got us all through the day.”

One of the few things
Lucy had confided was the reason for Samuel’s unique husky tones. His vocal cords were damaged during his year of imprisonment and torture.

“I still can’t believe I dreamed of those cells and then ended up there, Abbs. Sometimes I
’m afraid to fall asleep, afraid I’ll dream a new catastrophe.”

I laid a hand on her arm for comfort, but I couldn’t contain my own worry. I’d had my own weird dreams that night, and really wasn’t keen for them to come to life.
I knew it was to punish us that Olden deliberately targeted Lucy for the worst of the treatment. A familiar white flash of anger threaded through me. Olden was dead, and a person could only be killed once, but sometimes I wished that wasn’t the case.

“Luce, there is no doubt a true bond exists between you and Samuel.”

The type of unbreakable bond forged in battle.

She
smiled, the sheen of happy memories in her eyes. I pushed down my brief flashes of jealousy.

I hadn’t seen
Quarn or Brace since arriving back on First World. Quarn had gone back to his home. He wanted some time with Hallow’s things – which Lallielle had stored for him – and to mourn properly. And I’d given up questioning Brace’s absence. There had been no word from him since we’d returned. Sometimes the ache in my chest was from more than a big-ass knife wound.

I had a sudden thought. “So did I tell you that Brace has seen me naked?”

We both needed some light-hearted relief.

My blunt statement had its desired effect. Lucy whipped her head around so
fast that she fell off the bed.

Climbing
back up, her face was one of disbelief. “You and Brace ... had sex?” She was in shock.

I laughed, one hand holding my chest to
ease the pain.

“Of course not.
What type of girl do you think I am?”

Lucy shrugged. “One that takes advantage of all the hotness that is Brace.”

I shook my head and before she could create any other elaborate scenarios, I explained what had happened that day. As expected, she got a good laugh out of the entire scenario.

Lucy
changed the subject as she rolled back onto the bed. “You know Lalli’s finished my room. She let me pick the wall color.”

I rolled my eyes. “Bet she regretted that decision.”

Her laughter sprang forth. “It’s amazing. Turquoise with chocolate brown accessories. Just how I always pictured my first room.”

Tired again, I rested against my pillows, ignoring the familiar need to escape.

Leaning down, I sniffed a few times. I really needed a shower; when the smell starts to bother your own nose, you know it’s time.

“
Lalli said, when you are up to it, I can go clothes shopping.”

I nodded, closing my eyes.
“Sounds great, Luce. You know how much I love to shop.”

Despite my sarcasm, I was happy she was there and loving everything. It went a long way to soften the memories of her time with Olden.

She’d gushed to me for hours about how gorgeous the house was, and her room and Samuel. She was happy.

My door opened.
Lallielle and Josian crowded into the room.

I smiled at my parents. My relationship with
Josian was wonderful. He was huge and intimidating and passionate, but I already loved him. Maybe it was genetic, but I didn’t care.

After the stabbing, he’d been crazy protective, barely allowing anyone except
Lallielle near me, which might have had something to do with Brace’s abrupt departure. Even Lallielle and I were ... better. I was growing up, accepting her tough decisions. And she was giving me the space to come to terms with it.

“Hi, where have you been today?” I looked between the two of them as they dropped into armchairs on the other side of my bed.

Lallielle leaned forward, excitement across her nobly gorgeous face, green eyes alight.

“We had to speak with the town chair about possibly throwing an event for your birthday.”

I shook my head as I sat up again. “No ... seriously. No way. I don’t want to be the centre of attention.” I looked toward Josian in desperation. “I’d rather be stabbed again.”

Lallielle
shook her head. “Don’t even joke about that, Aribella.”

Josian
chuckled. “Sorry, baby girl.” He’d taken to calling me that constantly. “I’ve been outvoted by your mother.”

Rolling my eyes, I groaned. “There’s no way for me to get out of this, is there?”

Lallielle shook her head. “No, Aribella. You need to be revealed to First World. And ... it’ll be fun.”

I stared at the ceiling. “I heard that hesitation. What are you not telling me?”

She smiled brightly. “Nothing, I just want to show you off.”

I gritted my teeth. Lucy was practically bouncing next to me she was so excited.

“Next week, we are getting new dresses.” Lallielle clapped her hands together as she stood. “I’ll start prepping the ballroom immediately.”

She walked off, muttering about how much she had to do.

I turned panicked eyes on Josian. “Reel her in, Dad, or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Leaning over, he kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll see what I can do. Don’t lose it yet.”

With a wink, he took off. I groaned. This event was all I’d hear about from Lucy and Lallielle until my birthday.

Later that week, after managing to shower and change, I was downstairs in a plush living room, sprawled back on couches so soft that I sank into their depths. Lucy was on the floor, stuffing her face with popcorn.

“Your newfound love of junk food is astounding.”

She couldn’t answer; her mouth was too full. Any attempts to speak simply spluttered bits of kernel from her mouth.

We were watching a movie. Apparently First World has never had an entertainment industry, so everything we had was pirated from some network connection to Earth. Don’t ask me
how it worked. Samuel was the Flecho here, dominating all things technological and manmade. They were the same movies we used to have back home. This was one of my old favorites; I smiled as an animated ogre argued with a donkey. Now this world made perfect sense to me.

Samuel appeared in the doorway. I averted my eyes as he swept Lucy up off the floor for a kiss. For some reason, the pair couldn’t go more than ten minutes without touching.
Lucy was the calm to all the broken that was Samuel. She didn’t seem to mind, but I worried that he may be damaged beyond repair.

Lucy was breathless and flushed. She smiled into his face.

“What’s up, my sexy Sam? Everything okay?” She seemed to like teasing him more when I was around.

His hard features
gentled. The only time I ever saw his mask fall was around Lucy. “Yes, I just wanted to see you.”

He looked over his shoulder
toward me. I stared resolutely at the screen.

“Mom wants you,
Aribella. Something to do with color sashes.”

I groaned. It
never ended. What centre piece? Help with the seating charts for people I had no idea about. And there was no point avoiding it. She was tenacious.

The pain was minimal now, so without much distress I strode out of the room, relieved to be
escaping their distinctive murmurs and soft laughter. I was halfway down the hall when I realized I’d left my necklace on the couch. I’d taken it off earlier that day to show Lucy both the
moonstale
and my marks. Clutching at the neckline of my shirt, I suddenly felt naked.

Turning, I made my way back to the room.
But at the sound of conversation, I paused outside the slightly open doorway. Lucy and Samuel were in the midst of a discussion, their tones sombre.

“I’m just worried about her, Sammy.” Lucy’s soft voice drifted out to me. “She’s not sleeping well, despite what she thinks. And I hate that no one knows her future.”

Awesome. She was discussing me with my idiot brother. I couldn’t wait to hear his words, considering my serious doubts about his intelligence.

“From what I have seen of
Aribella, she’s a strong person. I have no doubt that anything thrown her way she will deal with.”

Hmmm, maybe he was smarter than he looked.
I was shocked to hear an almost positive observation from Samuel.

“When I was locked in the cage, all I could think about was getting to Abbs.
And then watching that bitch Olden stab her, thinking she was lost to me again, forever this time. It changed me fundamentally. I can’t live in a world that Abby isn’t in.”

I was hearting Lucy so much right now.

“I understand. Abby, in a manner, is your soul mate.”

“Hell
, yeah! She’s my BFF, soul mate, coolest chick I know.”

Samuel laughed.

I took a staggered step back; I hadn’t heard happiness from him before. For a moment I had a brief glimpse of the light-hearted friend Brace had lost.

“
But before you make any crazy plans, I need you to remember I can’t live in a world you are not in, Luce. The darkness I existed in – until they opened that door and led you to the cell next to mine – it was an all consuming darkness. I was a changed person, I was destroyed, no longer Samuel. But now, you are my light.”

There was silence for a few minutes. I was not even going to imagine what they were doing.