Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“Something I’ve already missed by a week or so if you’re sure it’s been that long,” she whispers back. Quiet, Selina wiggles a bit on the spot where she hasn’t moved on the bed, bouncing her knee on her other as she stares off at nothing. “But it is an estimation?”
“An accurate one within reason meaning maybe mere days.”
She just nods.
I feel like I’m tip-toeing on sharp rocks.
“Are you not going to tell me what you need to track that we’ve missed?” I ask.
Her eyes flutter shut as she lets out a laugh I’m not entirely sure how to decipher. It’s as relieved and joyful as it is unsure. Like she can’t believe something.
What is it?
“Selina—”
I take a step towards her, worried now.
“I really didn’t think Vabila meant it would happen this soon.”
At the mention of my sister, I pause in my steps.
“Has she said something to you again? Does she know what’s going on with you?”
Selina simply stares at me despite my rapid fire questions. None of them get answered, but the tiredness in her eyes slowly bleeds away as a soft smile grows on her face.
“What is there to be happy about?” I ask. “Why in all the stars are you smiling? You’re unwell, and neither of us know why.”
“I don’t think I’m sick, sick,” Selina replies.
Oh, I strongly disagree.
The vomit may be gone, but the smell lingers.
“That’s it,” I tell her, “I’ll find my sister and ask her myself.”
“Bo!” Selina shouts in disbelief at my back.
She even has the nerve to laugh as I exit the sleeping bunk through the sliding panel doors. Maybe my mate thinks I’m joking. I continue my trek through the upper hall, making a beeline to the end where my sister’s bunk awaits.
“She could be with someone,” I hear my mate call to me from the doorway of our room. “Or busy doing something alone, for that matter.”
“Ha,” I bark back. “Won’t be the first time.”
Selina’s mouth snaps shut with an audible pop. As if I won’t seek out my sister as she sleeps—perhaps with a partner, if she’s found one to keep her company for a while—but the truth is I am not beneath such things. I’ve spent a good portion of my life interrupting my siblings’ most important moments, in fact. Why would I hold back during the private, less interesting ones?
Never.
“Vabila, open up!”
Every sleeping bunk has a control panel inside for the guest to lock their door or otherwise.
I bang on the panel again, sure that if I don’t wake my sister up, then someone downstairs in High Deck will certainly hear the noise and come up to check on us. Someone will soon be opening the door, either way.
“Bo, come on,” Selina says, laughing. “I’ll tell you, just let her sl—”
“Vabila!”
Every syllable of her name comes with another pound of my fist. I don’t get out another word or hit the panels again before they slide open, and there stands my sister, glowering at me from beneath the sleeping cloak she likes to wear. It’s the cup of wine, a pale pink I recognize because it’s Vabila’s favorite, that tells me she wasn’t sleeping.
“What?” my sister hisses.
I grin.
Or maybe, she isn’t alone after all.
“Not going to invite me in?” I ask, only half serious.
Vabila arches a brow. “Don’t think so. What is the issue, Bo?”
“I’ve tried to tell him to leave you be,” Selina says from the other end of the hall. “He could get the answer he wants if he comes back to the bunk and does so quietly. Just putting that out there.”
I don’t even glance her way when I tell my sister, “Selina is unwell. Has been for a bit now. As the last storm started. She says you know why.”
“I said no such thing!”
Well, same thing to me.
I shrug at my mate as Vabila leans out the doorway to peer down the hall at Selina.
“Unwell, such as—”
“Vomiting,” I interject.
Vabila nods, but not at me. A single hand of hers reaches for her chest and I glance away as she asks an unspoken question to my mate.
“A little,” Selina says.
“Ah, well, it’ll pass. The first bit is the hardest.”
Vabila smiles, waves two fingers and gets the same response back, and then slides back beyond her door where she stares up at me. I look back to Selina for an explanation to the strange exchange that I don’t quite understand. What I notice instead, is my mate’s hand resting atop her flat midsection in a way she never has.
“Well, there it is,” Vabila says, smirking when I glance back at her. “Fate’s come for you.”
Reaching towards me with one pointed finger, I expect my sister to touch the mark on my forehead and show me something like she’s done time and time again. Instead, she pushes against the mark and shoves my head back an inch or two.