Page 21 of All or Nothing
“I think I’m actually going to stay here. With Xollen,” I gestured at the gorgeous tree of a male whose arm I was still clinging to. “He’s the one who rescued us all,” I added, wanting to explain myself.
Rita smiled stiffly, her eyes darting from me to Xollen quickly, and I could practically hear her thoughts:he’s way out of her league. What does she think she’s doing with him?I tried to sag away from Xollen, trying to prevent those thoughts from getting any worse, but he held onto me firmly, not letting me squirm away. It gave me some courage.
“So then you’ll be staying on Billieu? Do you plan on becoming a citizen, Miss Aceveda?”
I nodded. “Yes, I’d like to get that process started as soon as possible, actually.”
Rita smiled again, pulling a small tablet from her shoulder bag and gesturing her silent companion forward from where they’d been lingering several feet away. “This is Trista Me’Hessa Be’Yeveh, an ambassador for Billieu. She’ll be able to guide you through the process of acquiring citizenship. I assume you will be sponsoring her, Mr. Me’Tirri Be’Faan?” Xollen nodded, then dipped his head as if he was trying to hide his face from the ambassador who’d finally joined our little huddle. I hadn’t paid her much attention before now, since she was off to the side and all my attention had been on Rita and Xollen, but now that she was in front of me it was taking everything I had not to burst out laughing.
She was like Xollen…but not. She had the same long, lean build, the same horns and pin-straight hair, the same thin tufted tail and swirling eyes, but her face—
It looked like a butt. Where Xollen’s face was roughly human-shaped, if with slightly different proportions of things, this woman’s face had a deep cleft running from her hairline all the way down to her chin, forcing the two halves of her face to curve gently forward towards each other. “Greetings, Joslyn Aceveda,” she greeted me, bowing her head and making the delicate chains she wore on her horns tinkle. “Welcome to Billieu. I look forward to guiding you on your journey to becoming a citizen of this great planet.” She bowed again, looking at Xollen quickly with a look that turned me sour on her and had me itching for a fight. It was like…she was grossed out by him or something. Xollen, who looked like a fucking model, was grossing herout?
I looked around at the other Billieu ambassadors talking to the rest of the girls and their counselors, and I realized that all of the others billieuans I could see had the cleft. I almost gasped with the shock of realizing that if that cleft was standard, then Xollen might be considered deformed by the other members of his species. That they might even see him asugly. Was that why he was trying so hard to hide his face, why he was clinging to me again like he was drowning and needed me to save him?
Man, perspective really was everything.
The ambassador gathered herself quickly, pasting a smile on her strange face. “Did I hear correctly? You are Me’Tirri Be’Faan? Any relation to Se’Tirraan Entertainment?” At Xollen’s hesitant nod her smile grew wider. “How exciting! I adore their Super Soldiers franchise of holos! I cannot even imagine how exciting it must be to be a part of such a prestigious family.” Poor Xollen looked like he was being forced to swallow a hedgehog, his tail and hand clutching at me with something like desperation.
“I-it’s certainly int-teresting,” he allowed, clearing his throat. “So, um, Ambassador Me’Hessa Be’Yeveh, what will you need me to do as Joss’s sponsor for citizenship?”
She blinked, her eyes swirling slowly in shades of bronze. “Oh! Not much, no need to worry! Most of your burden will be in additional paperwork. And of course, if Ms. Aceveda ever finds herself…in trouble, you will have additional responsibilities.”
“Of course. Shall we begin, then?” he asked, sweeping his free hand towards one of the empty tables they’d set up for us to work at when we were brought into this meeting room at the city records office.
Trista nodded, and we made our way over, Rita handing me the tablet she’d pulled out and telling me that it was mine to keep, as a welcome gift; I just had to register it under my name and ID number, once I got it. In the meantime I could still use it, but if I lost it they probably wouldn’t be able to get it back for me. I was touched, glad that I had something that was all mine at last. I’d have to get my own smartwatch thingy—I think Xollen had called it a wristcom?—but it was still a really great feeling.
The next three hours were an exhausting slog of paperwork. Form after form had to be filled out, most of them duplicated across me and Xollen because he was sponsoring me, and even though Rita and Trista were watching us fill out each form, they still insisted on checking each page before I hit submit. By the end of it, me and Xollen were both so bored that his tail had finally loosened up and dropped away behind him, lazily flicking against the mosaic tile floor.
At long last, Trista clapped her hands together and declared our preliminary paperwork done—an ominous statement that threatened more down the road. She and Rita bowed at me, then Rita shook my hand, giving me a tired smile and congratulating me on my pending citizenship. Our group was the last to leave, the other women already being citizens of the Collective and so needing much less paperwork, and I was so tired and worn out that it barely registered when Xollen guided me out of the records office and out into bustling Escheva, picking up his luggage from security on the way out, and over to the nearby train hub.
I was expecting something like the L, but the Escheva trains were nothing like that. They didn’t smell even a little bit like piss or rank shoes and looked more like the high-speed bullet trains I’d seen talked about in places like Japan. The station was a little crowded, shops mingling with service kiosks to clutter up the otherwise clean and open space, but once we’d managed to squeeze past the station traffic to the platform it got a lot easier to make our way through. As soon as we’d entered the station Xollen had taken my hand, squeezing lightly. “Don’t want you to get separated from me,” he’d told me with a blush. “It should be safe for you here, but it’s better not to take chances.” Hey, you weren’t going to seemecomplaining about getting to hold his big warm hand. I hadn’t noticed it before, but he had one less finger than me, and he felt almost feverishly warm compared to my own body temp. But I liked the way holding his hand felt. I liked it alot.
We were able to find two seats open next to each other fairly easily, Xollen giving me the window seat so I could sit and gawk at Escheva as it blasted past us—not that I could see much, with how fast the train was moving. But what little I could make out was really nice, just as green and warm as what I’d seen already. I kept expecting Xollen to drop my hand now that we were on the train, since there wasn’t much of a chance that I’d get separated from him now, but he didn’t, and after a while I shifted our hands, threading my fingers through his. Despite being short a finger it felt so…right. Nicer than holding anyone else’s hand had ever been. I felt him stiffen beside me when I first did it, but after a second he relaxed and shifted a little closer to me, his thumb tracing lightly over my skin in a way that was making me shivery and breathless.
It seemed like we’d just gotten on the train before it was time to get off again.
“From this station, we’ll take a bus down to my apartment,” he explained as we carefully disembarked, our hands still linked. “If it’s alright with you, I’d prefer to leave all the hard work ahead of us for tomorrow.”
“Oh, no, totally,” I agreed, smiling up at him. I couldfeelthe bags under my eyes. “I’m exhausted. I’d love to just take it easy the rest of the day.” He smiled down at me, his thumb still tracing the back of my hand in soft, slow strokes.
“Good. Oh—there’s the bus we need!” he exclaimed, pulling me into a light jog, his luggage hovering close behind us.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Man Cave
XOLLEN
THE WHOLEride over I’d been agonizing over what Joss would think of my home. I’d been proud of the lavish penthouse apartment when I’d started renting it, but now that I’d talked to Joss about her own struggles with money and how little she’d had back on Earth, I worried it would be…too much. It was larger than I needed and full of things that cost more than the Earth equivalent of Joss’s nursing classes, most of which I didn’t truly need. I enjoyed them, and liked having them in my life, but my life would be no harder than it was now if I lost it all.
Which might happen; I’d been fined 10,000 credits for my hand in the five females’ enslavement, and with my savings depleted that meant I’d be forced to sell things instead. I’d never had to do that before, and I was finding that it made me feel sour and sullen. Sure, my parents had paid for most of it, but was it my fault that I had been born into a wealthy family? My life still hadn’t been easy, had even been miserable a lot of the time. My collection of horn jewelry brought me joy. My nice clothes made me feel better about myself, especially on days when my facial deformity bothered me. I couldn’t fix my face—countless doctors had assured me that surgery was too risky—but I could make myself look nice in other ways. Did I really deserve to have all of my creature comforts torn from me? Especially when the reason I’d lost everything was in the service of helping others?
But now was not the time to let myself get carried away with my thoughts. I needed to get Joss settled in and comfortable first.
I greeted the attendant at the front desk of my building with a curt nod, the hidden scanners confirming my identity. I signed Joss into the guest log, then guided her over to the bank of elevators along the far wall. She was quiet, her energy not quite what it had been before. Once we were alone on the elevator I turned to her, studying her face.
Despite how different her species from mine, I felt like I found something new to like about her appearance every time I looked at her. This time it was noticing the way her ears curved and swirled against the side of her head, reminding me of delicateisstacookies. She had several pieces of jewelry embedded in the tender flesh, highlighting the shape in a way that drew attention to certain lines by interrupting them, enhancing the natural shape rather than disrupting it. It was mesmerizing, and I wondered if I might not try doing something similar. Maybe once I was no longer destitute. I liked the double hoops I had going through each ear lobe, but suddenly I was interested in…more.
