Page 107 of Wings of Destruction

“You really could have made this work if you weren’t so full of yourself. If you weren’t focused on the bad things that happened to you instead of making the best of your situation, things could be different,” Faye continues with a lazy blink. She shakes her head. “You’re spoiled. Privileged.”

“Do I look spoiled to you?” I ask through tight lips.

She holds firm against the acid in my tone and inhales sharply. “You never learned to check your privilege. You think you’re too good to be one of us.”

Faye slowly pushes up and sleek black strands of her bob fall over her face. She pushes them back behind her ears.

She’s been my neighbor since I arrived and we’ve never spoken. I’ve caught her staring occasionally, but her face is always inscrutable. She’s neither bothered nor interested. Not irritated or curious.

Faye simply… is.

I don’t want to know anything about her.

But if I’m too spoiled to be one of them, then Faye is much too pretty. I’m past the point of being willing to listen to her.

“I’m tired.”

Before I have a chance to roll over and turn off, Faye chuckles. The sound alone is dry enough for me to pay attention.

“There are worse things out there than being a maid. Life is not always kind to us but there is a balance to our position here. You’re about to find out what those worse things are,” she points out.

“I can survive the mines.”

If I say it enough, I’ll believe it.

Faye snorts, the sound covering more laughter. “Stop being so naive. You’ll never make it to the mines that way. And you won’t be able to help anyone if you’re dead. Tossed into the river of lava surrounding the pits. Disposed.”

Maybe it is naive to ignore the way the image of lava lights up the inside of my head, or when the latent fear all women have of being overpowered and brutalized rises.

“Maybe you don’t get it because you weren’t born into the serving class like I was,” Faye continues. “Nobility?”

I don’t answer, which is enough for Faye to interpret the silence correctly.

“I thought as much. It’s in your bearing. Not when you have your nose out of joint, turned all the way up, but when you walk. If you stopped and paid a little attention, you’d see, I’m trying to help you.”

“No one wants to help me without something in return.”

The defiance leaks out of me, replaced with the creeping horror of realization. I’ve messed up. Badly.

Faye stirs and the sheet crinkles in her hands. She pulls it up to her chin. “If you’d bothered to look around you, you’d have found allies. Did you ever look, Morgan? Did you ever see me?”

No. But I can’t give her the answer she wants now, either. A stopper’s been tamped into place and the ugly arguments of the past stay locked away.

Faye’s warning sounds louder than the rest of her whispered reality check. None of the others stir from their beds, though. Most are probably too exhausted to do anything but give themselves to oblivion for the few hours they have before work begins again.

I flop onto my side facing Faye and forcing myself to look at her. To really look at her. I draw my feet under the sheet and thin scratchy cover, shivering.

“If you were really born into the serving class,” I start, “then why do you speak the way you do?”

She acts like she has a better education than most of her standing. She’s smart. She’s looking at me like I’m the failure I am. If she’s insulted by my observation, it never shows.

“You might not want to hear this but you need to, and none of the others are going to tell you to your face,” Faye adds with a sniff, the slight upturn of her own nose twitching. “You’ve royally messed up in so many ways.”

Heat blisters my insides. “What does it matter? Why do you care?”

Every shiver sends the sharp points of the mattress springs further into my bones. It’s like sleeping on a bed of nails.

“I don’t care,” Faye says with a shrug. “Not really. But I see the world for what it is instead of what it could be. Most people really hate the reminder. They see life in shades of hope and optimism. I see realism.”