Temple_GD_

5.28

What is this bitch up to? I quickly glanced over my shoulder to check Imani. She was looking right at me. Creepy weirdo…

Our band of twenty hostages trooped up the stairs to the second floor of the convention center’s east wing. I was the nineteenth in line while the suspicious as fuck Imani was behind me. She tried to talk to me about something a couple of moments ago, but a terrorist asshole told her to shut it.

Not sure if I should even listen to anything ...

5.27

Could this be the opportunity I was waiting for? I looked at Mom as I stood up with the rest of the hostages.

She met my gaze and said something that could be, 'I love you, sweetie.'

Uncertain of her actual message, I mouthed something gibberish that ended with an apparent ‘Mom’ word. That seemed to work because she nodded at me before following the Greaves’ corporate suits down the stage as one of the Tea Party men beckoned for them with a wave of his gun....

Erind/Deen - 5.10.5

"Ouch!" Deen exclaimed, pulling her finger away from my mouth.

I continued to munch on the fry as I spoke, "Don't be such a drama queen. I know that didn't hurt you." I leaned left, pushing Deen to her side. Then I reached across my body with my right hand to get another piece of fry. She didn't pull the plate away.

"No, I was just surprised you bit me," she said with a pout.

"And I'm sure your Guardian Angel told you I was going to do that." I waved a long fry at her. "I be...

5.26 - Imani Nanda (Tove)

Imani Nanda (Tove)

This isn't good. Not good at all.

Imani Nanda, or Tove, as was her chosen codename, gritted her teeth as she lowered her hands from her lap. Hiding them by her sides, she slowly clenched her fists. She could feel her aug-arm exerting force that could pulverize bone as her frustration was translated into brain signals that commanded it what to do.

There was a distinct creak as her artificial hand continued to forcefully ...

5.25

"Oh my god!" I gasped, my hand covering my mouth. The first thing that came to my mind was, What the fuck? But I religiously stuck to the face I had on despite the bullshit happening. Not that anyone could've heard me cuss over the noise of gunfire, screams, stampeding feet, and crashing stuff.

"Wha-what's going on?" Deen said, her voice cracked with uncertainty. Didn't her Guardian Angel forewarn her about this? Her disconcerted face told me 'no'. She leaned towards me, perhap...

Erind/Deen - 5.10.4

"Erm..." I gingerly brought the straw up to my lips. Then I moved it away with a finger, poised to drink instead from the tip of the glass. I looked up to check Deen’s reaction.

She scrunched her nose at me. "I don't have any disease transmissible by saliva if that's what you're worried about."

“Wha-? I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“So you don’t have any issues sharing a straw?”

"Do we even really need straws in our lives," I said with amusement before si...

5.24

"I think I like the Natural History Museum more," I grumbled as I folded my arms across my chest, annoyed at the number of people in this place.

It was Friday and, as I promised Mom, I went with her to the Greaves Technology Fair at their convention center which was supposedly as large as seven football fields; that was what the brochure mentioned. I got them at the entrance because I wanted a map to find the food section—my favorite waiting spot during every Tech Fair while Mom did w...

Erind/Deen - 5.10.3

That was her saliva, wasn't it? I thought as I looked down at the straw. Straw, strawberry, what a funny coincidence.

I quickly glanced at Deen and looked away before she noticed me; she was hesitantly picking at the gravy-coated fries with her fork.

Whatever I sucked out of the straw sure didn't taste like a strawberry milkshake...or anything at all. Just bland slimy nothingness that felt like saliva, but also somehow tasted odd because it wasn't my own. To make...

5.23

“Erind dear, I’m so happy to finally see with my own eyes that you’re safe,” Mom loudly said as she marched towards us. Her voice and her peculiar appearance—although not as weird as other people here in Vegas—made heads turn.

"How's the flight, Mom?" I said as I hugged her. She had to bend down to return the gesture because she wore high heels even though she was almost as tall as Deen without them. She explained that she did it to have a more authoritative air and sublimin...

5.22

"Is that her?" Deen energetically pointed at a black-haired, middle-aged woman pulling a large pink suitcase. "Is she your mom?"

We arrived at the airport after a grueling two-hour drive through the bullshit that was Las Vegas traffic.

It would've been fine if it was just regular heavy traffic—plenty of those in La Esperanza and all other huge cities—but it was a whole another experience here. Driving through downtown was an assault on the senses, with advertisements and brigh...

Erind/Deen - 5.10.2

"Cut that out," I snapped at Deen as soon as the waitress left.

"Cut what out?" she innocently replied, absentmindedly blinking as if she wasn't caressing my thigh with her foot.

I grabbed her foot and gave it a firm warning squeeze, a clear message I meant business and was ready to break her bones, before pushing it away. I also released her other foot held between my ankles. "Why were you doing that? The waitress could've seen us and thought we're weird."

"Seen what?" Deen...

5.21

"Sorry for the wait, Erind," Imani told me as she returned, putting away her phone in her purse. "I just had to take a call from work. Busy, busy, busy," she added, tilting her head back and forth.

"I can understand." I gave her a sympathetic grin.

We didn't walk that far. Three busy blocks from Divergent Boulangerie, we entered an alley to find a small café hidden at the end of it. Just a hole-in-the-wall store that turned out to be pretty chic.

Before I saw our d...

5.20

"So, you won't be getting the security deposit of your leased condo back?" Mom sternly asked on the phone.

"Um, I haven't asked them yet, Mom," I replied. The truth of it was I hadn't even thought of stuff like my lease contract, the security deposit, unpaid utility bills, all those things connected to my destroyed condo unit.

It had been hectic lately with all the fighting and killing that those things just slipped my mind. I'd think most people would agree that an Adumbrae Titan...

Erind/Deen - 5.10.1

"I never expected there's a diner so far out here in the desert," Deen said as she gingerly sat down.

I noticed she checked if the seat and table were dirty even if she tried to be subtle about it. Disguising it as smoothening the bottom of her shorts, she lightly brushed the spot she sat on. She probably thought I was going to tease her for being a neat freak or something—and she'd be right. It was obvious this was her first time in a diner even if she was acting nonchalantly the bes...

5.19

Where's the nearest fire station? I tilted my head to the right, gazing at the blaze in the distance reflected in the side mirror.

Eventually, a passerby would report the random fire in the desert. We hadn't seen any other cars on the road so far. If we were lucky, no one would bother calling the police or the fire department before everything burned down. If someone would call the authorities, I hoped that a firetruck would take a long time to get here in the middle of the des...

5.18

I think I got the hang of snapping necks...or not? Was there any video on the internet about this? Was I using the correct technique? I suspected that I was sort of brute-forcing it rather than doing it correctly as I had seen in movies.

But then again, I didn't know if it was to do possible in real life or if it was one of those things that only happened in movies. Kinda like cars always exploding when they crashed, or guns only need to be reloaded when a scene called for dram...

Erind/Deen - 5.7.2

"Excuse me?" I said, raising a brow at Deen.

"You're excused," she replied with a giggle. The car lurched forward as the cop waved for our line to move. "Seriously though, isn't it my turn now?"

"Uh, your turn? That's news to me. Why are we taking turns here?" I had already won. There was no way I'd give her a chance to overturn it. It was one thing to indirectly assert dominance over Deen by controlling her body’s reactions. It was a whole 'nother thing to let her touch me. Not...

5.17 - Enrico Haynes/ Yves Garland

Enrico Haynes

"Was that Miles' voice?" Enrico Haynes whispered to his best friend and fraternity brother, Charles Monde. He immediately switched off his light and elbowed Charles to signal him to do the same.

"Why are—?"

"Shhh! Keep it down," Enrico hissed as he crouched to hide behind the slope of the hill. He pointed his gun further up the hill, fruitlessly trying to spot if someone was coming down in the near-total darkness.

"Okay, man. Chill." Ch...

5.16

A girl who turned out to be an Adumbrae? Isn't that super fucking cool?

I was so excited to try out this new face that I had goosebumps all over while waiting for the asshole crew to enter this abandoned store. My enthusiasm for the drama that’d ensue deflated a bit when the bastards basically trash-talked me saying I was a twig and couldn't get a guy.

True, I was extremely petite and short, but elementary was the last time someone called me a twig or some similar insul...

Erind/Deen - 5.7.1

(Author's Notes: This is set just before 5.8 (during Erind and Deen's drive out of La Esperanza).)

These people don't want to sleep? I stared at the mass of cars surrounding us, the entire procession crawled at a snail's pace along the main road exiting La Esperanza. I wasn't sure how long it'd take to reach the checkpoint. Maybe we should just stay here in La Esperanza until the BID finds us or something. This is really boring...

"This is going to tak...

5.15 - Amber Deen Leska

“This is for Erind,” Amber Deen Leska whispered through clenched teeth. I’m not going to fail her this time. I don’t fail.

Despite herself, she pressed her ear to the store’s door, hoping to get a clue of what was happening. She wasn’t exactly telling the truth when she told Erind that she had full confidence in her. Male voices were talking and laughing on the other side, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

After they had alighted her car sever...

5.14 Charles Grayson

Charles Grayson, usually called by his surname because he had a senior fraternity brother also named ‘Charles', abruptly stopped laughing as Lee's screams reverberated in the air. He and his brothers all looked at each other. What was that about the hand?

He was shining the light of his phone right on Twig Girl and Lee at the end of the store—Tahir and Miles also did—but he still couldn't make out what was going on. His foggy brain was struggling to form coherent thoughts. Still, ...

Erind/Deen - 5.6.4

"Wow," I said as I pressed my fingers on Deen's stomach. "You have really well-defined abs." I wasn't just telling her that as a friendly compliment; she really did. I could feel her firm muscles through the towel as I wiped her sweat—well, she really wasn't sweating much, or at all. I knew she was asking me to help her wipe to tease me. And I wasn't going back down from this. I could see on her face she was expecting me to do so, and it just strengthened my resolve to overcome my hatred of...

5.13 - Yves Garland

Yves Garland

Yves Garland opened and closed his clammy hands to stop them from getting numb. They tingled, the blood rushing away from his fingertips due to the stress and anxiety. The cool desert air drying his sweat made him more uncomfortable, and a bit nauseous too. It was weird he was sweating when he wasn't doing anything.

He was only sitting at the back of Grayson's pickup truck, hugging his knees to make himself as small as possible so Miles dancing like a...