When I get up to go back to my place, I stumble, but Drama catches me. I shiver just because of his arms around me, but he doesn’t stop there. He leans in to nuzzle my neck. I stiffen, freaking the Merc out, and he releases me.

Everyone around us started to get inappropriate for human standards. Lethal is talking to a redhead, caressing her thigh under the table. Min and Dime are making out. Zera leaves, grabbing Browser’s ass. He laughs, while nuzzling Kino. It looks like something in between a litter of puppies and a PG25 holo-show.

Ashamed and unsettled, I walk away, trying not to catch up with Zera and the rest of her threesome. Drama falls in stride with me, but doesn’t say a word.

By the time we’re at my door, I turn to say goodbye. His hand reaches for my cheek, his gesture full of compassion and empathy. I so darn like this guy, and he knows it. He closes his eyes, savoring my feelings.

I say, “We’re drunk. This is not—”

He brushes his thumb over my cheekbone and steps closer to me, my nose barely away from his chest, and I forget what I was gonna say. I don’t know if it’s the Libre, or the most intense thirty hours of my life, but I am craving closeness with another human… or rather, another Cursoi. Fine, maybe Drama in particular.

Since there is no one here to judge me, I lean my face into his chest, taking in his sea scent. I peer up and notice that Drama’s eyes are closed, his lips lightly parted, soaking up my emotions. He’s the most sensual thing I have ever seen.

Emo yells, “Wanna hit the humans, guys?”

Her voice startles me, and I try to jerk away from Drama’s hug, but his strong arms won’t let me. I just see him shaking his head. He senses my anxiety and his embrace loosens, allowing me to step back.

Emo is already catching up to someone else. “Fine, next time!”

“Can I come in?” Drama asks.

I look warily at my door. “Drama, you won’t merge here. So you might want to follow Emo, wherever she ends up.”

“I’d rather take my chances.” He smirks.

“Well, I will not.”

I close the door in his face, lean my back against it, and cry.

I thought Cursoi had it easy, but they don’t.

Lying in my bed, staring at the flickering shadows the candles project on the ceiling, I don’t feel as entitled to resent them as I did before. They might live in the most incredible place, they have food and shelter, but having ninety broken bones in a day does not make it worth it. Having to obey orders does not make it worth it either.

How many people did Lethal have to kill to turn out the way he is? Alienated by his own kind, a prisoner of the demons festering in his head.

Even thinking of Lethal won’t get my mind off Drama, his parted lips, his expression when I closed the door in his face. I sigh, less than holy thoughts surfing my veins on a tide of Libre. My hand travels to my navel, imagining that Drama could feel what I’m feeling. Lower. Lower. Mmm.

I guess I am Cursoi, after all, but I doubt that merging with myself is going to do me any good.

The following morning is gorgeous. The park glistens with dew and resonates with the trill of a bird. I reach the rest of the Apprentices by the salitree, waiting for Ghost to show up and start universal geo and politics.

Lethal is shouting, “Bonking Saturnites! They think they can come here looking for jobs when our own people are starving?”

“Our own people?” I blurt. “What the Merc do you know about starving humans?”

He shrugs. “I fucked half the capital, Dumb, didn’t I? I’m sympathetic to terrestrial problems.”

Did my comment make it to his ears? Did Browser pry it out of my brain?

“Woo-hoo!” someone yells at his jab. Cursoi gather around us, smiling. Dime rubs his hands, anticipating the fight.

“You son of a nymph!” I yell. “You know nothing of hunger and cold!”

“You’re right, Dumb, but since you do, why are you defending the bonking Saturnites?”

“Because when the temperature on your planet is one-hundred-and-sixty-eight below freezing and you have no place to stay, you bonking go wherever you can!”

“That’s right!” someone yells.

Drama pulls my sleeve. “Nala, forget him.”

Lethal replies. “Well, they’re not welcome here. We have our own issues.”

“Exactly!” someone says, and someone else replies,

“Oh, shut the bonk up.”

I ignore them. “Like what, Lethal? What issues do you have beyond a psychotic streak?”

“Ouch!” Zera says, chuckling, and I barely register Drama walking away from me.

Lethal replies, “Oh, yeah, I forget that you were a homeless brat just until yesterday, now you’re just a brat.”

“I wasn’t homeless, but I had to fight to survive!”

“And you think I don’t? That we don’t? How many times do you think I died on the job?”

That sends me over the edge, mind reeling. No one ever worked me up the way angel face can.

I reply, furious, “No, Lethal, I don’t think you know much about struggling to survive when food appears on your table, when you live in a dream castle, when no one can even touch you without you wanting them to, and you can go back in time if you get hurt, or die. There is no rewind option for humans!”

He glares at me. “Because they don’t deserve one! I kinda regret you crossed to our side, because I’d rather crush you once and for all!”

“Frogdung…” Min blurts, and I can tell he does not believe Lethal, but I do.

I yell, “Crush all my organs, Lethal, but that still doesn’t make you right. You don’t get the right to be on Earth just because you were born here!”

“Wake up, Nala! They’re just lazy! I work my ass off and it ain’t pretty!”

“Oh, so if you had been born ugly, starving, and skill-less on Saturn, you’d just stay there to die?”

“It would be the decent thing to do.”

“Argh!” I jump at his neck before Drama can sense what I’m about to do. I know Lethal will turn my insides to mush, but the fury on his face turns to surprise as I give him a pathetic punch on his pretty nose.

Ouch!

Everyone explodes in jeers, oohs, and aaahs.

“What the Merc is going on here?” Ghost blurts.

Lethal touches his bleeding nose, and I shake my hurting hand. I don’t think I broke anything but, miserably enough, I cannot heal it. I suck at being Cursoi.

“How…?” Lethal asks, bewildered.

“Oh, bonk you!” I yell, sitting down to ignore him and nurse my hand.

I sit through geo, not listening to one word, murderous thoughts thundering in my head. It’s people like Lethal who voted for Crash, who gave him the power to target the weakest and make it look like strength rather than cowardice.

Ghost says, “Pair up. I want you to argue about pros and cons of closing import from other planets.”

Boring.

Drama comes to sit in front of me immediately, and he looks pissed.

I say, “What a bonking jerk, right?”

Drama shakes his head. “I’m mad at you, not Lethal.”

“Really?”

“Is your hand broken? Why didn’t you ask Min—”

I look away. “Just bruised. Lethal is so arrogant and ignorant!”

Drama shrugs. “And you aren’t? You called him a psycho.”

Ouch! “But he is one!”

“Maybe he has issues, but that doesn’t make it right to call him names.”

“Drama, did you ever wonder why his inclination was to be able to crush people’s insides?”

“Nala, we are all different with our own skills and opinions. Lethal is a good soldier, one of the best, in fact. I like him as much as you do, but when you jumped at him to punch him in the face, you turned into everything you despise in him. You were the bully.”

“What?” I’m furious, but I think about it. As offensive as Lethal was, he just uttered words. I’m the one who broke his bonking angel nose.

Drama adds, “But I did enjoy it.” That makes me smile a little. “How the Merc did you manage? Did he let you? I didn’t even see it coming.”

I shrug. “I guess I took everyone by surprise, huh? Am I in trouble? Ghost saw us.”

“Brawls are common, even more so when Min is around to clean up the mess, but no one has ever laid a finger on Lethal, before. You are quite incredible, Nala.”

“Yeah, right. If only I could heal my hand.”

“Well, you need to train, and if you merged—”

Ghost yells, “Nala, Drama! Closing imports! Come on, now.”

That afternoon, the last thing I wanna do is endure Lethal crushing my organs. I bet he’s a little too eager. He’s wearing a white tunic, immaculate again after Min fixed his nose. I scowl at Lethal, and Min shakes his head, amused.

Ghost is sitting by the oak tree, waiting for us, head in his hands. “You two better calm the bonk down.” Before Lethal can question his leverage, Ghost’s head snaps up and he says, “I’m considering isolation, Lethal.”

His angel face blanches. “What? She punched me!”

Why would isolation be such a big deal? Oh, he wouldn’t be able to merge. I smirk. Well, welcome to my world, son of a nymph!

Ghost says, “Enough. Let’s try to make some progress today.”

I protest, “Ghost, I read your silly book, but everything you know about Cursoi is empirical. There is no science, no data!”

“Let’s start training.”

“Ghost, listen! Everything you know is because Lymph made some really basic observations two-thousand years ago! If she hadn’t had an inquisitive mind there would be no Cursoi at all!”

Lethal huffs. “Are we training or what?”

I ignore him. “Ghost, I could find out how to enhance skills!”

Ghost rolls his eyes. “Fine! I’ll have to ask Brain for permission, and you’ll report to me every day and not share what you find unless I say so. If I don’t like what I see, you will stop. Understood?”

“Thanks!” I almost hug him, but then realize I’ve never seen Cursoi hug unless they were getting it on, and I hold back.