Page 67 of This Cruel Fate

“You go to the table, I need to get some air,” Xolia whispered to Adonis.

He stopped and pulled them discreetly out of the way to put a hand on the back of her neck. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

Adonis kissed her brow and gave her left hand a gentle squeeze. Everything had regrown—bone, tendons, skin. Since her disastrous experiment, she had been back to training every morning with Adonis in the gym. She hadn’t managed to create water yet, but she hoped she was getting closer.

With a last caress against his skin, she slunk through the halls until she reached the front entrance and slipped outside, where her arms erupted in goosebumps from the early winter chill. All the photographers and journalists had cleared out, and the red carpet that had been rolled out to induct all the illustrious attendees lay in the cold, all the dirt finally noticeable on the shag. Xolia hung her head in her hands, the solitude of the night was the permission she needed to let her guard down. What the hell am I doing?

Every time she tried to make the right move, something else popped up that made her doubt. What was the point of anything if there was always someone with more? More power. More money. She didn’t understand how Adonis had survived a life like this right after the war.

The air shuddered around her, something like wind, but too controlled and sudden to be natural. Xolia lifted her head to find four figures shrouded in darkness and heavy coats. Large hoods obscured their faces from view, though their breaths were visible as small white clouds.

Xolia tried to track who was controlling the air but couldn’t make out such a subtle movement. She grounded herself with a deep breath, waiting for the right moment to make her move. They couldn’t know she was a variant or they wouldn’t have been so rash in their decision to flaunt their power.

“You’ve gone somewhere you shouldn’t have,” one of the figures ground out.

Xolia snorted. “The front entrance of the museum?”

None of her uninvited companions thought her retort was funny. There were a few scattered scoffs. The wind died down, and the flicker of a lighter broke against the cool cast of the street lamps.

“Who are you, anyway?” Xolia asked, her chill momentarily forgotten as she straightened her stance. Her weakness was not for other people to see.

“Do you know how long variants have begged for funds for housing? How many of us live on the streets?”

She was only too aware of all the problems that continued to plague variants. It’d been her constant companion at the bureau. For every one variant or variant family she helped, there’d been three more added to the waitlist, in dire need of assistance.

“You’re happy to let us die and suffer, but the minute a family of humans decides they don’t have enough housing options already? You flock together to fundraise.”

Another member of the quartet stepped up when the first speaker’s voice cracked. “Humans will reap what they have sown. This is the promise of the Underlings, and you will carry our message.”

Flaming bullets shot toward Xolia, and the airy graze of a wind-made spear brushed against her cheek, drawing blood.

Xolia’s blood sang at the sudden surge of adrenaline. In a dress, she didn’t have the same reach or flexibility, but she didn’t need it. She coaxed her blood free of the veins along her wrists and formed curving blades along both of her forearms.

There was a moment of hesitation from her opponents, and Xolia took advantage. She swiped left, drawing a harsh, jagged cut along the leader’s chest, and kicked the figure that had lit the lighter.

The other two dissipated their weapons. “Xolia?” asked a woman’s voice. The woman lowered her hood, but Xolia didn’t recognize who it was.

“Am I not who you expected to see?” Xolia asked, almost upset at their easy surrender. “What could the Underlings possibly hope to gain from being here?”

“Justice,” the leader said from the ground. He held a hand to his chest, Xolia’s cut was shallow as they’d been too far away for her to do substantial damage, but it had covered a wide portion of his chest.

Xolia sneered at them. “All you’re doing is making sure humans have a reason to hate us. You’re no better than them.”

“You have to understand?—”

Xolia lifted her arm so her bloody blade rested it along the soft skin of the woman’s neck. “You don’t understand. You don’t make decisions for variants, but I can. I know what’s best. I’m working on what’s best.” Xolia hadn’t even been thinking when forming the words, they’d flowed out of her, and the moment she said them, she believed them. She was the Selermine. She was the voice of her god and no one knew better than her. Why did I ever doubt myself? All the money in the world cannot stop me. She pushed harder against the woman’s neck. Nothing can stop me.

The action drew a soft whimper from her, and her other standing companion rushed toward Xolia. With a look, a thought, and a subtle hand gesture, Xolia grabbed hold of his blood stream and pushed him back. He flew into the street. Xolia panted slightly at the exertion from such a large movement.

Behind her, blazing yellow light distracted the assailants. “Xolia!” Adonis yelled. A flaming ball hurled past her and hit the already dazed man, lying still in the street. In another moment Adonis was next to her.

She couldn’t let this woman get away yet. “Are there more of you Underlings?”

The woman nodded.

“Are any of you the leader of the group?”

---