Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 121534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 608(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 608(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
“Hey, everyone. I’m Rey.” I deliberately leave off my last name, then gently push my Aethercall. Not enough to alienate, just enough to distract. “Undecided on my major. But looking forward to discovering the path I’m meant to take. Life’s a journey, you know.”
“Word.” Ziva coughs to my right.
I shoot her a smirk. Yeah, she barely knows me and already can tell I’m full of shit. Well, at least that’s one person in my corner.
I sit back down to the chorus of “Hi, Rey!”
Next we meet Jameson Jacobs. A nice if not overly bookish guy, with floppy bangs and enviably perfect skin, who seems to have the unfortunate luck of being named after a porn star. Not information I would’ve known. Yet he led with that.
Jillian Merritt from Arizona’s a psych major. And on the basketball team.
Hector Salas from California, premed.
Engineering. Finance. English lit. Biochem.
A dozen total strangers offer insights into their goals and personalities.
It hits me like lightning: I’m jealous. And not just a little. So jealous it burns behind my eyes.
What would it be like to bake cupcakes and make study dates? To rush a sorority? To plan for a future, a real one, that didn’t involve blood and death and violence?
I glance up—and freeze.
Aric.
He’s watching me from across the room.
My heart thumps wildly against my chest like it’s begging to be noticed—heard. Adrenaline surges through my system. He’s my target. My enemy. The first and only person to ever really see me.
That’s what made his rejection of me all those years ago cut so much deeper.
Just when I think I’ll have to look away, he does first. Like I’m not worth staring at.
Students continue chattering around me, but I can’t get the gnawing in my stomach to go away. I didn’t expect being smack-dab in the middle of a normal college campus to affect me so much.
The way these humans coexist with no clue of the war that shaped the world.
The way they can hope and dream. And I never will.
I’ve been trapped and isolated with my father for years, but I’ve never felt lonelier than I do in this moment.
Feelings have no place here, I remind myself. So I bury them. I bury them deep.
The round-robin continues until we land on Eira Helian. She arches a brow at me. “We already know each other, Rey,” she tells me.
We do?
“My father works at Odin Enterprises.”
My father’s company, of course, but a fact I would’ve preferred not to be widely known. Ziva leans closer to me. But I easily deflect. “I’m not involved much in my father’s business.”
Lie.
“But it’s really nice to meet you.” I give my Aethercall a stronger push, and the students around me shift their attention away. “Tell us more about yourself, Eira.”
She takes a long, steadying breath. Though not to steady her nerves or prepare her thoughts, I discover—she’s drawing air so she can launch into what might be one of the longest speeches known to humanity. Okay, that’s hyperbole. But you know the type. Addicted to the sound of their own voice. Desperate for constant attention.
“Well, my day started off like complete shit, for one. We were out of bananas…”
Just once, I’d like to be wrong about these kinds of things.
She rolls her eyes. “Naturally, I fired the housekeeper. Not just because of the bananas; I’m not a total monster. She knew it was my move-in day and forgot the grocery list again. She texts her family nonstop! She has one job.”
“The audacity,” I whisper under my breath. I mean, to text family, the horror.
“Right?” she yells. “Thank you!”
Doesn’t understand sarcasm. Got it.
“Anyway.” She takes what I’m assuming is a soothing breath. “The moving crew dropped two of my favorite succulents, shattering them into pieces—I’ve had them at least six months.”
Dear God, give this woman a medal.
“Then I came here… Nobody seems to understand how important this is to me, my parents included, and my room is all wrong, not even close to how big it looked in the brochure, and I’m pretty sure the girl next door hissed at me.”
She leaves so many openings, it’s hard not to respond. I bite my tongue and nod, then, along with everyone else, say, “Hi, Eira.”
Another rough exhale escapes her bright red lips. “Hi, whatever, oh, my food’s almost here.” She starts tapping away on her phone like Bananagate never happened and the world is right again.
“You can’t make this shit up,” I whisper to Ziva.
“Preach.”
By the time Sigurd calls the assembly back to order, my right eye is starting to tick. The students quiet around me as he resumes talking, and I completely tune out. The relative silence after all that socializing is bliss.
Ziva hands me a sleeve of Oreos. “I think I love you,” I say.
“I hear that often.”
I tear into the cookies and barely keep my moan at bay.