Underland(31)

Was this the same Zephyr Ferb had mentioned? From the 1509 championships? If it was—she did the math—he was five hundred years old. After a few minutes she learned it was indeed the same Zephyr, a Paladin now. How many years had it taken him to earn his freedom?

She was so preoccupied with the TV that Kira didn’t feel the gentle tug on her sleeve as the ghost tried to undress her. “Hey! I don’t think so.”

The ghost tried to pull on her shirt a few more times but she swatted the ethereal hand away. Or what she thought was her hand. Kira grabbed ahold of her shirt and refused to let go, for fear it could disappear at any moment. She glanced up to see that the two other ghosts were dressing Chaz and Zeke. Kira turned around abruptly. What? Did no one believe in privacy?

The girl seemed determined to get Kira dressed, but when another tug came at her pants, she screamed and pushed at the ghost. A small noise escaped the being. “All right, but I’m not undressing. If you want me to wear the stupid clothes then they need to go over what I’m wearing now. Do you understand?”

The ghost solidified enough that she could see the girl smile widely and gesture towards a side door. It opened, and the werewolf from her compound and a black snake-like being entered the room wearing uniforms. Kira took the stack of clothes from the specter and exited the door the two runners had just come from. There wasn’t any signage, signifying whether it was boy-girl specific, so she just pressed on through. It was a stark and utilitarian shower and changing room. Kira’s cheeks burned red at the thought of how close to being humiliated she was.

Regaining her composure, she looked for a shower closest to the door, so—if she had to—she could make a quick escape. Stripping quickly and pulling the knife out of her boot, Kira entered the shower stall and closed the tattered curtain. Fiddling with the knobs produced a wonderful stream of hot water, much to Kira’s delight. She did the best she could to clean herself with a knife in her hand and keep her wounded shoulder turned away from the water. She needed to let it be as much as possible. Warrick’s magical drops of healing would’ve been great right about then.

Over the spray of the shower, she heard the locker room door open. Footsteps entered.

Kira gripped the knife close to her body, ready to spring at the curtain if it so much as moved.

Nothing. The footsteps moved to a different stall and water turned on about ten feet away. She sighed in relief and worked the soap into her hair even faster, still keeping a wary ear on the other shower occupant. Kira was grateful for the shower. If all runners had instant access to hot water like this, then if she survived, she may very well think about running again just to have a shower.

Living on the streets was hard, and she’d almost forgotten how good it felt to be clean. When she was done, she looked around for something to dry herself off with and found nothing. She was about to pull aside the curtain and look when something burst through.





Chapter 13

Kira screamed as the shower curtain tried to smother her face. She gripped the knife in her hand and swung at the plastic sheet, stabbing, jabbing, and swinging. Her screaming brought others. The door burst open as Zeke and Chaz stormed into the room looking for an attacker. Kira struggled with the shower curtain she’d attacked and ripped down from the bar. It wasn’t easy to get the clingy shower curtain off her but keep it between her body and the guys.

A girl specter floated feet away in a frenzied motion. Her translucent hands kept waving and pointing at the offending towel she had tried to pass through the curtain to Kira. The towel that Kira had thought was attacking her was now lying in a puddle on the floor.

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment—for so many reasons. She did her best to grip the shower curtain to cover up all important areas of her body.

Chaz started laughing. His throaty laugh had a weird hiccup to it, as if the werecheetah wasn’t used to laughing. Zeke raised one eyebrow at her in disbelief. Even the occupant of the last stall timidly peeked out to see what the ruckus was—Amazon woman. When she saw Kira’s towel on the floor, she shook her head and ducked back into her stall. After mocking and laughing at her till they were satisfied, both the male runners left the bathroom.

Kira grabbed her makeshift curtain-towel and the sopping wet one from the floor and dashed down the corridor into another dressing area. Quickly, she pulled on the provided uniform and fingered the white material. It wasn’t pretty, didn’t do that much to enhance her figure, and reminded her of burlap.

The seasoned, talented runners had darker expensive uniforms befitting their stations—the darker the uniform, the better the runner. The newbies wore usually white, Ferb had said. A blank canvas for the blood. It also screamed, Hey! I’m right here. Kill me.

She supposed it helped the spectators—they could focus on the red and black uniforms and place bets. And it must be nice and easy to watch the new runners get picked off like flies. The order of rank went white, gray, red, black.

Kira tied the laces of her boots and sat silently on the bench, contemplating her last moments. Soon, they would be marked and numbered. Statisticians would collect their data and snap a quick photo of the last minute entries. Then the cart would pick them up and deliver them to the course where they would meet with their sponsors for last minute encouragement. There would be the harvest of gifts, if any’d been given, and they would line up for the race, in the order of color.