Page 82 of Colossal

Kaia may not need to worry about getting physically hooked on him anymore, but there were still the other parts. That she knew it was hard for him not to snap and take what he wanted. That it excited her even though it shouldn't. That he resisted. She was playing with fire, and part of her wanted to get burned.

But maybe now itcouldjust be a game. Without the addiction, her commitment to get to her brother couldn’t be compromised. She’d retain full control over her head. She could play this game, and she could sure as fuck win it.

Her tablet chimed under her mattress, and her musings ground to a halt. There was only one person it could be. Orion would’ve heard it, and he’d know it was a comms transmission. But he didn’t ask, allowing Kaia to clamber for a distraction.

“Are you disappointed?” she blurted out.

Orion didn’t answer for a long time. His breathing had slowed by then, and now it was long and even.

“I don’t give much of a fuck. Your pussy’s all the same to me, princess, addicted or not.”

* * *

When she woke the next morning, Orion was already gone and she’d overslept. Kaia checked the message that had come in from Loran the night before while raking her hair into a haphazard bun on top of her scalp.

RECIPIENT ID: CCLSL-25109

FROM ID: A35R109-09

DATA: DEAR KAIA, DO YOU HAVE ANY UPDATE ON THE DATE OF YOUR WEDDING? LOOKING FORWARD TO MY INVITATION.

She pondered a reply while pulling on a loose dress from the collection of clothes Alina had brought by.

She’d fucked up. She was meant to be getting on Orion’s good side. Instead, she gave away her cards and expressed her relief at being safe from the addictive part of him. And that after attacking him in his bed with a knife. Though he seemed suspiciously blasé about that part, if not a little excited. Impulse control was never Kaia’s strong suit, but she needed to get her shit together. She had to move faster.

Kaia grabbed a bagel for breakfast. She was long used to having her stomach be perpetually full of solid food. The nutrigel cravings had stopped a few weeks prior. A dry tongue was no longer the norm, and having something salty after a workout—like fries—brought a deep satisfaction she’d never attributed to food before.

She wondered if Heaven would have simulated taste sensors somehow. She’d often speculated on what the actualexperienceof it might be like. What was Ahton seeing and feeling? Was it a perpetual paradise? Or was it a flat, colorless imitation of life that may as well not exist? Kaia hoped they could both taste fries when she got there.

Her bagel was only half-finished when she slid into an empty seat in the back row of the lecture room.

“We’re taking what on Old Earth they’d have called a field trip,” Sutton announced.

“A field of what? Metal?” Kaia mumbled through a bite.

“An outing. To the Common Residential Deck.”

“And here I was, hoping we’d take somefield tripsout to space sometime. You know, in an actual cockpit.”

“Oh, chill out, princess,” that bitch Isabelle, whom Kaia had seen chatting up Orion the day before, piped up. “Looked like you need a few more practice rounds to use a radar anyway.”

“What did you just fucking call me?” Kaia rounded on her.

“Can only your precious alien call you that?” Isabelle rolled her eyes.

Kaia was halfway out of her seat when realization hit her like a hunk of space junk. Isabelle was frowning, one foot tapping an agitated beat on the floor. When she looked over at Kaia and registered the amusement on her face, her cheeks reddened. Whatever Isabelle tried with Orion yesterday, he must have rejected her.

The satisfaction Kaia felt at the thought should probably have concerned her, but all she could do was ease back into her seat and throw the bitch a knowing smile.

* * *

The Common Residential Deck was, apparently, where the “normal people” lived. Kaia hadn’t been down there yet. The place they stepped into had no hallways. It was one giant open space, packed with bodies. People milled about, some dressed the same way she would’ve been on Riker 109—old clothes, unwashed hair.

“How much water allowance do these people get?” she asked Sutton, raising her voice as they straggled through the crowd.

“Depends on present rations. The current allotment is fifty mils for drinking, fifty for bathing,” he said.

Kaia felt disgusted with herself. She’d come from less than this and jumped a rung straight to H2O luxury.

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