“Is that how your kind teaches you to please us?” A male voice rumbles from the dark as my hands falter on the black satin sheet. I’m in a room I’ve never seen before, and the large bed that stretches before me is rumpled. Light displays throb in the distance, but they’re distorted. There’s a presence at my back and a tension that vibrates the air around me. It distracts me from the details of the room. Am I making this bed or rising from it? Are there doors? Do I recognize anything? Hairs rise at the back of my neck as he closes in, moving the air by my head. Something brushes the strands away from my shoulder, but I can’t move my body. Not to turn, not to drop the fabric clenched in my fingers. How do I defend against this? Do I need defending?
I hate that I always freeze. I don’t know why my panic stalls me or how to keep it from happening. No matter how capable I am, my body never unlearns what it’s already been taught. \*_I’m always defenseless.\*_
Why can’t I leave? It’s as unclear as the blurry room, as strange a thought as whatever place I find myself in. Fingers glide up my spine, then curl around my throat. They’re so solid and forceful that I feel the telltale sting where bruises will be. Familiar and alien at once. I’ve felt a grip that sharp but never so warm. The skin pinches too tightly under burning fingers. Far too warm to be human. Is he one of them—the Thur?
I’m unable to make a sound as the fingers form a ring of pain but fall short of choking. My voice is as frozen as my body. They both betray me, proving I’m only as good as what I’ve always been when my cheek hits the satin pillow. I want to lock up, but heat and pressure crowd my back, bowing it until I’m presented without a fight. Loose. Pliable. Easy. I hate it. Hate it. I should do something, say something… Fight…
I don’t. I never do.
That’s how I wake—hands clenched around tangled bedding, half-delirious and clinging to the confusion that follows me from yet another nightmare. My mouth gapes, gulping against words that won’t come. It feels like suffocating as the first tear slides down my cheek. I moan, pretending the sound doesn’t sound half so pathetic when I fold myself deeper into the bed.
I hate waking up like this. Not the fear. That’s normal. As is the loathing. But it’s the damp press between my shifting legs that drives my groan deeper into the fabric and brings the shame to the surface. I’m beginning to worry about my mind and what it means for these dark dreams to coax such a reaction. That for every second of fear and powerlessness, there’s thrill and exhilaration rooted just as deep. I can hardly look myself in the eye.
I don’t want to see the desire.
Maybe I’m slowly losing my mind. The state of my life says the thought holds merit, but the soreness in my neck says something else is going on. I know the male from the dream is one of the Thur. They’re all I dream about these days, except for Ry. Are my dreams natural, though, or have I fallen victim to their influence? Just as quickly as the thought rises, it dissipates. Because the Settled Thur, matured enough to possess true, consistent power, are hardly ever seen and absolutely \*_never\*_ known. There’s no way I’ve managed to cross paths with one, let alone intrigue one enough to influence me.
The snort I let into my pillow is as sad as I feel when there’s nothing else to blame but a broken brain.
This is what it is to be a conquered species, I realize, with all of our waking and dreaming consumed by our invaders, even a century after the fact. They’re our \*_saviors\*_ if you hear the Institute tell it, harkening back to a time when we were rudimentary, woefully unprepared for a Thur blade or the tech that came with it. That is the crux of why we receive such training at the Institute. Gratitude. And necessity. We can never forget the nature of our place in their world.
_\*Breeeeep Beeep.\*_
Throwing my head face down into the pillow again and again seems like the only appropriate reaction to the dreaded work alarm. I miss being grateful to work at the Mid and have my own sakrin instead of relying on my stepbrother to care for me. I miss the optimism of imagining a wealthy Thur rescuing me from my circumstances—from being freshly sixteen and convinced I could change my life.
I turn my head to the opposite ear, using my hearing loss to soften the sound.
Now, at twenty-three, I have only the naked truth: there is no physical appeal great enough for the Thur to leash a middling as more than a pet, and some sakrin is not worth the cost of gaining it.
_\*Breeeeep. Beeep. Ding ding-aling-ding._\*
Now, two alarms are blaring loud enough to be annoying through my damaged ear. You’d think one would cancel out the other, but nope, because Thur tech is either spiteful or petty, just like they are. All technological advancements have been hand-crafted with their magic down to the melted metal alloys or gemstones used to craft them. Conductors and connectors, moving parts, and processors. It all comes from them, simply modified to work within our electrical grids. They’ve manufactured some of the most beautiful creations I’ve ever seen.
And some of the most deadly.
Layer upon layer of dismissal and disdain for us seems to sit within their mechanisms. Instead of getting up, I turn deeper into the sheets, thinking for a minute how many layers of Thur indifference make up my life. My parents were lost during the transition period after the war, when middlings under Thur rule were convinced they could defeat them from within.
Now look at us.
I never even knew them.
_\*Deviera, get up before you’re late again,_\* I snap at myself, knowing what awaits me if I’m tardy.
It’s a little hard to be optimistic about anything when my temples are throbbing and fumbling fingers have knocked my phone onto the floor, trying to silence it. Neon-dusted blurs come in and out of focus, sharpening little by little as I rub the sleep loose. Something stabs behind my right eye. I might still be hungover. That, or I’m finally about to have the aneurism I joke about.
I throw half my torso over the side of the bed and turn off the alarms. Red and orange take turns flashing across the walls, grating at my headache, and blue flickers over the floor, washing my apartment in some of my least favorite colors. But it’s free lighting—one of the few perks of living above a liquor store. They didn’t pay for a premium digital display, so it loops one of the three preselected images. A woman at a bar drinking, a group of men at a party, or a Thur business meeting.
Based on the blue across my floor, I’m assuming it’s the second image.
I take full advantage of the second perk of living above the liquor store and draw a sip straight from a bedside bottle of glees, a heady combination of Earth liquor and fermented Fallow the Thur brought with them. I’m all out of rapi-doses, so the quickest way to kill a hangover is to stay drunk.
That might be a stretch, but it feels true when the second gulp goes down smoother than the first, and the pounding behind my eye softens. I’m not delusional. I know I drink too much and that I don’t eat enough. I know what it means to live every day like I’ll never get older. The other girls at Mid all have dreams and plans… things they want to do once they’ve saved enough or gotten too old, whichever comes first. I \*_know\*_ that it’s not a good sign that I don’t visualize the future as the others do. Just like I know, eventually, this shit is going to catch up with me.
If Ry hadn’t paid for my enrollment at the Institute, who knows what I would be in a few short years?
The pulse behind my eye tugs at me. “Shit,” I gasp, hopping over the cold tile floors toward the bathroom. We’re headed into the frost, and I’m not wearing nearly enough to chase that bitter chill, though another swig from the bottle helps. I leave it on the floor outside the bathroom, telling myself I’ll scrounge up a rapi-dose from one of the lockers at work.
Hot water slams against the back tiles, steaming the entire room in moments. The third perk of being the only person who lives above the liquor store… my water is \*_always\*_ hot. There’s plenty of tech that sustains infinite heat, but middlings certainly can’t afford it.
I shrug off the ratty t-shirt and lose the final battle to look back at the mirror. The medicine cabinet is hanging off one hinge, but the thing still manages a reflection. The minute I take in the thin, once-lovely features and waxy, pallid skin, I remember why I don’t let myself do this—why I stopped dreaming of the future or inviting anyone back home with me.
And then my vision turns blurry.
I turn the light off, allowing the darkness to flood around me as I enter the shower. The water sears my stomach, but I don’t flinch. If anything, it’s soothing.
I close my eyes, leaning against the wall while the heat fills me. These moments are when I feel most at peace. When the hot water finally stops feeling soothing, I exit, glancing at the clock. I’m probably pushing the limit of Jack’s patience, but I can’t seem to move any faster tonight.
To the others, it’s a miracle he even lets me live here. Every other employee sleeps above the Mid in dorm-style apartments, and I’m sure there’s never any hot water there. It’s not like I have something against the others. Some are nice enough, others, though, think that because Jack and I grew up together as adoptive siblings, I get special treatment.
“Devi doesn’t get it,” they laugh. “She gets the best VIP room because she’s family.”
“She’s lucky she doesn’t see that side of him. Heard she’s been the golden child since his mother took her in.”
I try not to think about any of it now, swiping my hand across the recharge dock by my closet, feeling the last of my sakrin drain away. Immediately, my blurry eye clears, a nearly inaudible beep telling me it’s been fully recharged. I don’t have enough sakrin for dinner at work, but at least I can see.
Time to earn it back.