CENSORED 28: NICK

“Skittles has a secret admirer,” Frank buzzes from his standard place beside Fiona.

Frank’s the only one I know of obsessed with flowers, but if he’s bravely picking at her petals, it didn’t come from him. Even he’s not that bee brained, is he? Surely not.

The guards have all become regulars at our table in the Oculus. The only one seemingly displeased by the arrangement is Luke. From the far end of the table, he can’t stare miserably at the back of Ainsley’s head, so he just stares miserably into his plate instead. What a sad sack.

Maybe Luke gave her the flower as a peace offering. I mean, it makes sense. If he’d given her an olive branch, she’d have turned around and beat him with it. A flower is definitely safer. The problem is flowers are sweet. Those two are not sweet. Not even a little bit. Salt? Yes. Sugar? No freaking way.

“Not a secret.” Ainsley plucks the rainbow rose from her hair and twirls it around. “I should find a vase to make it last longer.”

“Give it here,” Frank bumbles. “I can fix it for you.”

“Big blitzing no,” Ainsley slamfires, keeping a tight hold on her new treasure. “You’ll ruin it.”

Hey there, Pot. This is Kettle checking in. Ainsley’s probably the least likely to maintain the structural integrity of something so delicate. I’m not about to put my blaster within firing range by voicing that though.

“He won’t,” Fiona clonks, placing a hand over Frank’s on the table as if that proves her point. “You can trust him.”

She clearly does. I wonder how that’s working out for her. Fiona’s innocent, and Frank has a history in direct conflict with that innocence. She’s stopped her individual counselling sessions. Most of the charges have slowed them but not stopped seeing us completely. Even Grady still scratches at the door once in a while. The rejection is a bit of a jet jerk, but they’ll reach out if they need to. It’s even more rewarding when they do, like it’s a choice to drop their drawbridge rather than an invasion.

Ainsley finally relents and hands the rose to Frank. He runs his fingers over it, his light earth spark dancing like glitter over the surface as he wields it. The rose looks exactly the same when the shimmer subsides, but it’s petrified in place, frozen in that glorious moment for Ainsley to enjoy permanently.

She takes it back and examines it carefully before drawing it to her nose. She inhales deeply, a sigh of satisfaction leaving her. “It still smells the same. Thank you, Frank. Truly,” she quickfires.

“My pleasure, Skittles.” Frank beams his delight. “Who gave it to you?”

“Dustin,” she accurizes.

Frank gasps. “Dusty Jank?”

She narrows her scopes. “Dustin.”

“Who’s that?” Fiona clatters.

Elaina’s lips downdraft. I reach over to pat her hand encouragingly. “Dustin has some issues,” I sputter.

“Yeah,” Grady growls. “The first rose he made turned to doggone dust as soon as he stopped touching me.”

“He said he’s shattered.” Ainsley has a softness in her tone that’s unusual for her. Huh. Guess she does have a little sugar in her after all.

“He’s not shattered,” Elaina pings. “He’s just…”

The charges are passing the rainbow rose around to see it more closely. Sunny purposely pricks her finger on one of the thorns and sticks it in her mouth to suck the blood off it.

“A little cracked,” I course-confirm.

“He said he couldn’t fully conjure,” Grady yips.

Frank guffaws. “Kinda like you, right GT?”

Grady yelps a nervous lump down his throat over the memory of his curtailed rutting with Sunny. He glances at her, but she’s oblivious to his attention, dutifully poking at the hole in her finger to pry more blood out of it.

“Dustin opted out of his Schism Ceremony...” I whitetrail. “Then proceeded with his Polarity Ceremony and chose the wielder designation. Now he’s an Earth Wielder who can’t control the light or dark successfully. There’s an imbalance there. Everything the light creates is destroyed by the dark.”

“But I still have mine.” Ainsley takes the rose back when everyone’s done looking it over, sticking it through her ponytail. “Maybe he’s getting better?”

I look at Elaina, and there’s hope in her eyes I don’t have it in me to jettison. But I know better. There’s no fixing the choice Dustin made, and he isn’t the only one suffering as a result of flight protocols not being followed. Ainsley hates the idea of how much is controlled by S.W.O.R.D., but she doesn’t have visibility into the reasons why those controls are necessary. She might finally realize not all of us are just blowholes trying to steal her choices away if we show her what could happen.

“Let’s take off on a field trip!” I boom.

“I don’t know if they’re ready,” Elaina plinks.

Ainsley’s curiosity grows tenfold over the discomfort. Not that she likes Elaina being uncomfortable, but she can tell right away we’re about to pop a ginormous pimple, and she’s eager to see it squeezed.

“Swash right off. There’s no trawling way they’ll get access,” Luke spumes from the end of the table. “It’s a security risk.”

He’s wrong. Elaina and I seem to have a yes pass stamped on our blasters for anything we want from the Order. They’re rewarding us for our work with the charges and directly pinning the spark ignition results on our efforts.

“They’ll let us in,” Elaina chimes with no salt in her tone, only confidence. My girl is all sugar, through and through. Delicious, delicious sugar.

Luke grunts his displeasure. “Just make sure they stay clear of her.”

Even though he doesn’t look at her, or say her name specifically, I know he means Ainsley. She knows who he means too. She responds by standing up and flinging her forkdart at his headboard. It doesn’t stick, just bonks off his hard head and clatters to the floor. His eye ripples, but he doesn’t retaliate. Hopefully these charges learn their lesson more quickly than Luke seems to be learning his.