Anomaly: A Fated Gemini Novella by Nicolina Martin

Author:Nicolina Martin [Martin, Nicolina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-11-30T18:30:00+00:00

5

Ailee

An image of my family comes before me, gathered around a table, of warmth, music, laughs, and love. I stop abruptly.

Reece has a reaction time so short it’s unheard of and stops at the same moment.

“What are we doing?”

I put my hands on my hips, look him over, then around us. A tingly pitter patter of joy dances in my chest, sparkly as the light chains decorating the town. From meeting him, from being intimate, from showing someone my rooftop: the happiest place in my existence. Showing him, in particular.

He’s so otherworldly—literally, by all means—but in every other sense of the word, too. I can’t get enough. The feeling that I’m safe when we’re together, despite that first impression of danger, his voice, his scent, his touch… It does me in.

Soon he’ll leave, and he should, but I want to give him a little piece of me, of my reality. This place is a shitty little backwater planet, officially named H-666—for good reasons nicknamed Hell by the locals—but it can be good, too, and for some crazy reason I want him to see it, and feel it, before we part forever.

We still have time, and I want to take him home. It’s not much, but it’s my everything. I don’t know where he comes from, but the darkness in him tells me it wasn’t from a loving place.

“Ailee, why are we stopping?”

“I need to show you something.”

“Show me more than your rooftop?”

“Much, much more.”

He looks from my face to my chest, then scans the rest of my body, devouring me with his gaze. I feel naked under his scrutiny, but instead of being uncomfortable, warmth floods me. It’s unexpectedly good to be bared before someone. I never felt it before him. I didn’t think it would mean so damn much to give my everything to someone, even though it can’t last.

“Then show me.”

I take his hand, lace my fingers with his. “Come, you.”

The town has yet to wake, but little lights shine in a window here and there. The windows are small and round, the glass thick to withstand the winter storms. The place smells of dirt, of mud, and with a sharper faint scent of exhaust.

I look in wonder behind us, at the depressions our feet make in the thin white cover on the ground, then up along the façades, where it creates little halos around every light, creating magic out of the tired old decorations. The snow softens the sound of our steps and the whole world seems quieter.

I can’t wait for my family to see this.

We pass through the narrow alleys until I stop before a door that looks like every other we’ve passed, but it’s home. A long row of numbers indicates our unit.

Reece isn’t stupid, by any means. “Your place?”

“Yes.”

“You’re inviting me in?”

He sounds like I just told him I could breathe in a vacuum. I do get it. Strangers are rare in this place. He already knows it. But my family is different.

“Come.”

“Won’t they

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