One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole

Author:Alyssa Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Empress

With no warning, I’m fronting. My teeth chatter from the cold and Ken’s surging adrenaline rush.

Now, why am I in it?

I hop from foot to foot, trying to warm up, and also to shake away the weird in-betweeny feeling left over from this surprise switch. It’s kinda like when you have to sneeze, and the sneeze gets stuck in your nose, except I am the sneeze and I am the nose.

I’m mostly an insider, hanging out in our castle. I don’t complain as much as I could, but yeah, of course I’ve wished I could front more often—rushing to finish commissions that are late because I was stuck inside for weeks and missing discussions in my chat groups sucks.

But I want comfy-cozy fronting.

Curled-up-with-an-iPad-and-a-five-hundred-episode-shonen-anime-series fronting.

Not meeting-a-group-of-strangers-in-a-wildly-confusing-situation fronting.

I’m standing outside in the frigid cold and several A4 people who look like they’re about to ask me to go fetch their bags are filing toward me.

I step behind Celeste, crouching to peek out from beside her shoulder. She turns her head to look back at me, brows bunched cartoonishly. “What are you doing?”

“Just collecting myself, bestie,” I say, then wince at the blatantly not-Ken statement.

“Do you need to do it all up on me?” She tries to elbow check me, but I cling harder.

“Give me a minute. Please.”

She pauses, and instead of launching me through the air like Miss Trunchbull, turns and folds her arms like Kavanaugh Island is an exclusive club and she’s the bouncer.

“Ken?” I can feel her, somewhere behind me. She’s just dissociating in the void I guess; self-dragging in the abyss. I don’t know why she switched out, but I guess it’s good that she did because last time she encountered this man we’d ended up in cuffs.

I’ve ctrl-alt-deleted any memories of our time in the slammer, if I had any to begin with, but I don’t think I’ll be so lucky the next time around.

“Solomon? Okay, you were right. I shouldn’t have judged how others handle things. A little help here?”

He doesn’t respond, but I also don’t feel like he’s ignoring me. He’s just not here, possibly from the exhaustion of having been at or close to the front so much.

It’s been a couple minutes and I’m already starting to get tired.

(“I’m here.”) Mesmer, voice shaking like she’s strapped to a washing machine during the spin cycle.

Our hands start to tremble and I sigh in frustration.

“Mesmer, if you don’t meditate, levitate, or otherwise escort yourself back into the inner world and away from me . . .”

(“I can’t!”)

Our hands grip and twist Celeste’s coat like we’re trying to pop a sheet of Bubble Wrap.

“Chill! She will smash us if we rip this!”

I try to let go but can only manage to loosen Mesmer’s iron grip. She’s stronger than she looks.

“What’s wrong?” Celeste glances back, brows raised. “I’m trying to be understanding, but I can’t help you if I don’t have a damn clue what’s going on.”

My breath is almost a pant, fast and shallow thanks to Mesmer hijacking our autonomic nervous system.

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