6 months later…
We managed to rebuild ourselves after the incident. I have no idea how, or how long it took, but we did it. We found a new base, managed to gamble enough money for food on Elite Purge and made the weapons that were destroyed back at B16, once again. They probably aren't exact replicas, but they work similarly at least. And thankfully, we recruited a new member, Gabriel Walker who is a sharpshooter and a professional when it comes to gadgets and technology. I'd say that he's our new computer guy. It's also useful having him around. Alongside all of the other things that he knows how to do, he's a good gambler. That's how we manage to win 89% of the bets we make. He's good at probability because it was never Wyatt's or Kyle's, or my strong suit.
I sigh, rolling my neck over my two shoulders in counter-clockwise circles. It's 2 am and I'm laying bed quietly, trying not to wake Nat who sleeps beside me with her perfect golden curls and long eyelashes.
My eyes slowly droop closed every once in a while, only to flutter open once again. I just don't have enough fatigue to be able to fall asleep. Especially not with this much on my mind.
"Hey," Nat whispers from across the room. "It's late."
We had to end up sharing one bedroom since apparently, boys need a lot of 'privacy', but I don't mind. Nat is a good girl and listens to the majority of my orders, and alongside that, she's a clean person, like me, so we get along well.
"Yeah," I say back in a hushed whisper.
"Are you not tired?" she asks.
I shake my head. How can I be? My mind is filled with too many racing thoughts that are so persistent, I just can't shut my brain off.
"What are you thinking about?" Nat then asks, propping herself up onto one elbow.
I sigh, rolling onto my back so that I can look up at the ceiling. There are stars on my side of the room on the ceiling. I put them up a little while back—they just reminded me that even though I can't see the stars up in the night sky from here, they are still there. "I don't know," I reply. "...Everything, I suppose."
Nat giggles.
"I mean, what's there not to think about?"
"That's true, I guess," Nat replies, mimicking me and laying down onto her back. She tucks an arm under her head. "I can't sleep either. My eyes are almost closing, but I just keep on—thinking."
"I feel the same way," I whisper back.
"Do you think the boys are asleep?" Nat asks me.
I shrug. "Don't know."
I will never know if I'm right, but I swear I could feel, or see Nat simper softly in the dark.
"I want to go home," Nat tells me suddenly.
I shoot up into a sitting position and whip my head around to study Nat's expression. "You don't have a home anymore," I reply sternly when her expression burns sincere. "Neither do I."
"I know," Nat says. "But I miss them."
"Our parents never cared about us," I snap suddenly.
Nat gapes quietly in the silent room.
But I continue. "They threw us out onto the streets, to fend for ourselves when we were what? Twelve? They don't deserve us anymore, and they never will."
I hadn't expected to say those things myself, but I don't apologize or tell her that I don't mean any of it, because I do. I do mean it. I'm not sure if that was the situation with Nat since we don't have the same parents, but my parents—they did throw me out onto the streets when I was twelve years young, or, people like to call it that I ran away. I don't know which one myself—all I know is that my parents never really cared for me. They were abusive, strict, and I was just there.
Nonexistent. Invisible.
My parents were cruel. That's all there was to it.
"My parents weren't like that," Nat says, interrupting my thoughts.
"What weren't they like?" I urge for Nat to go on, slumping back down onto my back.
"They didn't throw me out," she explains.
"You ran away."
"Yes," Nat replies. "So it wasn't them… I don't want to remember them as people who showed me cruelty. I don't want to look back at them in anger. They were poor, they couldn't afford me, and they would never be able to—no matter how many hours or shifts they worked. There just wasn't enough to go around. And when their paychecks just suddenly plummeted...I felt helpless. I wanted to help, but I couldn't. No job would accept me because I was too young, so I had no choice but to leave, to take them out of all of the pain that they were in because they had to raise me."
I get that Nat is compassionate, empathetic—sympathetic, but she doesn't understand the reality. She believes that people care about her as much as I do, but no one in this world cares about her more than the crew.
I shake my head. "You've got it all wrong, Nat. They should have at least reminded you now and then that you were on this planet—with them—for a reason. They should have told you that you were worth the pain—that you were important to them. But they didn't. Those aren't real parents. That's not real love. I know that you view these kinds of things differently, and I respect that. But they weren't real." I tremble and my voice cracks—I can hear it myself.
Nat and I are so similar, our parents abandoned us and even though I don't know how her parents were to her before she ran away, I know that they weren't good parents. I know that they shouldn't have given birth to Nat if they couldn't take care of her—if they couldn't afford her.
"I don't know how I should view it then. I just...don't want to think about them with tears in my eyes," Nat explains to me.
I nod. "I understand."
"Do you want to know what happened in my side of the story?" Nat asks me.
I bob my head up and down once again.
"Okay," she says. "My parents were amazing. In my view, they just wanted what was best for me. They were never rich, but never extremely poor either because they worked—hard. They'd both have shifts at restaurants or cafes that would last until midnight or maybe even the next day. They worked so hard, and all I had to do was go to school and learn. That part wasn't supposed to be hard….."
I don't know when Nat finished her story, but I wasn't half listening because I'd shut my eyes and was slowly drifting off with the sound of her sweet voice still ringing in the back of my mind.
~~~
I slowly sit up in bed, one eye closed, the other open. "What time is it?" I immediately ask on instinct to Nat.
I wait for her reply but never hear it.
"Nat?" I say, looking around the room.
She's not there.
"Nat?" I call again—louder.
No response, so she's probably down in the kitchen.
"I guess she woke up early," I murmur to myself, swinging my legs over the side of my mattress and hop my way to the bathroom to wash up.
After my morning shower and brushing my teeth, I make my way downstairs for breakfast groggily.
"Morning, Lynn," Nat greets as she spots me on the staircase.
I ignore her. "Time?" I ask instead, still half asleep. I stifle a yawn and make my way down the rest of the stairs.
"Eight-thirty. You're up late," she comments.
I let out a deep breath. "Well, your storytime about your lovely parents last night was sure as hell interesting," I say while rolling my eyes.
Nat suddenly turns quiet and only then do I realize that the rest of the crew is sitting at the dining table—watching me with awkward stares.
My face burns hot with shame and I bite my tongue and serve myself two slices of pancakes whilst trying to avoid their glances without another word.
~~~
The rest of the morning goes by in a whiff. Nat seems to be quieter than usual and Gabriel doesn't come around to ask us what we're doing like he usually does. I guess what I said in the morning stoked everyone up—to the point where they were too excited to speak.
I shake my head, refocusing my attention back to the battle that I'm watching through my lenses. I had bet on SNC who is the second best out of all international cults and so far, things seem to be looking up to my side.
The match quickly ends with KNC at a loss and SNC as the victor.
Congratulations! You bet correctly on SNC. Betters of KNC will sign their contracts shortly.
A small smile tugs at the corner of my lips and I remove my glasses from my eyes. I put my feet on top of my work table and rest my hands in my lap, shutting my eyes for a second.
"Guys, guys, guys," I hear Eli say abruptly from where he works.
My ears perk up.
"I got an invitation to join SNC!" he exclaims, his mouth wide open.
I take my feet off of my desk and saunter towards him. Eli hands me his glasses, his mouth still wide open, so I press a finger to his chin, pushing it up. "Your jaw was about to fall to the floor," I explain, putting his glasses on.
It's true. He did get an invitation from SNC. But why?
The crew members gasp, hurrying over to Eli to try on his glasses one by one.
"You really did," Wyatt comments, who was the second person to look into them.
"I don't believe this," I say to Eli. "It's a troll."
There is no way SNC, the second best cult in Elite Purge would just invite a nobody like him into the cult for no apparent reason. Unless there was some kind of ulterior motive.
After Gabriel puts them on, he suddenly turns thoughtful. "Eli, how many of SNC's battles have you been to so far? How many times have you gambled? And what is the percentage of bets you've won?" Gabriel asks.
Eli shrugs. "Almost all battles, I think, but I don't know how many times I gambled, because I didn't bet on every single game, so I'm not sure about the percentage either," he replies. "Does that have anything to do with it…?"
Gabriel purses his lips, planting his hands on his hips. "They're probably interested in you," he says finally. "Or…" Gabriel turns dead silent for a couple of heartbeats and the room goes eerily silent. It takes him a couple of seconds to realize that we're all still waiting for the next option so he reverts his attention to us. "Or…" he says, slowly raising a finger to point at me, "they're targeting Lynn."