I Am Not Junco Omnibus: Books Four - Six Read Online Free PDF Page B

of time while my body was being mutilated by Inanna. He even paid for someone to fix that nasty head scar and her war-ravaged ear. I barely recognize her with the long blonde hair and her revealing tropical paradise wardrobe.
    My hair is not the same either, but it's not exactly blonde. Yet, anyway. Blond hair is something all Archers get eventually but it takes a while. Gideon's is more brown than blond but I've been told I was morphed up a lot more than just one level while it was my turn to be held prisoner in Inanna's torture tank for Stag kids, so I guess that's why my hair is much lighter than his. It looks sun-streaked with parts that are very dark still. It's a total fucking mess and it hangs way down my back when not up in a pony. It catches on stuff and waves in my face and I find my fucking hair stuck to everything. I should just shave it off so I'd have a good six months before I ever had to think about it again.
    All Archers have blue eyes as well. Gideon's eyes were always blue, but mine were hazel, so they aren't quite blue yet. They have freaky blue splotches running through them now, though. Color that looks like it's desperately trying to push away the green and brown that used to dominate in there. I have no idea how people can stand to look at me to be honest. Everything about me is a clusterfuck of hazel.
    "Ashur knows nothing about my teen years, Selia. Not even Gideon knows what I was doing, so you guys can keep your pity talks to yourselves, I'm not a child, I might not have had screens and rock concerts, but I had work. And I defy you to tell me how that's not applicable to real life."
    Selia comes out of the bathroom, her eyes darked up, her lips glowing and pink, and her naturally golden hair flowing down her back in large bouncy ringlets.
    She's beautiful.
    And I'm jealous of how easily she fits into her own skin, at how she can make small talk with strangers—even the guards in the elevator and downstairs in the lobby. And most of all, at how she always seems to be smiling.
    Selia is more than beautiful, she’s glowing. She’s ravishing. And she’s Ashur’s girlfriend. Long-term girlfriend. Committed girlfriend, like if they were not involved in all this end-of-the-world shit they’d be picking out china patterns and writing each other love promises.
    I haven’t see Ashur since I’ve been back, but I’ve heard how Selia talks to him on the comm. Makes me want to puke.
    And makes me a little jealous, too.
    Not that she’s with Ashur, he and I have never quite recovered from the whole Deliverance/Kush thing back on Amelia. I’m jealous because I know Ashur tells Selia how he feels about her. I know because she’s always ending her calls with that stupid love promise.
    Tier never did that with me when we had our little post-Deliverance holiday. He was affectionate and tender, but he never said sweet things to me.
    But I’m no Selia, so I guess I understand.
    And it should come as no surprise that Ashur fell in love with her while I was away being morphed. Selia looks happy.
    I have a permanent frown, I'm afraid to talk to anyone except Gid and Sel, and I feel like my brain has been forced inside a body I've never met before. Even when I came out of the tank with wings back on Amelia I never felt this detached from myself. My replaced fingers and missing scars just make it worse. When a nightdog eats two of your fingers and a psycho slices a SEAR knife down your jawline, you're supposed to have to live with the consequences of those things forever.
    And when you cut yourself in half to save the man you love, there should be evidence of that.
    But my scars have all been erased. Every bite from the mutants in the Stag, every prairie lion claw mark, every battle wound I've ever had inflicted on me is gone. Even the one I inflicted on myself.
    Just gone.
    On the outside anyway.
    The inside is another thing entirely. Memories of a brother I will never see again haunt me every fraction of a