Metal Deep 4: Soul on Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

victims. Did she really like me, or was she just a tease? I wasn’t sure.
     
    I refused to acknowledge her until she put some clothes on. Still, when she returned from her room barefoot, rocking a black cutoff button-down and plaid miniskirt, it was better, but not great. I found myself fighting to watch her as I peeked over the top of my forgotten paper from earlier when I thought she wasn’t looking. I had dropped a rope to my waning conscience. That poor, broken bastard whispered, “Keep your eyes on the paper this time you idiot.” Not wanting another pool incident, I gritted my teeth and did so.
     
    “Did you know,” I hoped talking would keep me distracted from running a curious eye from one end of her to the other as she laid on the couch and apathetically held one of the information packets in front of her face, “that the mines of Frotwick are built on an active volcano, and there’s a special machine used to keep the volcano from erupting?”
     
    “Mmm-Hmm,” Sway said, “My parent’s company made the thing.”
     
    “Your parents? Is that where you get your techno-savviness?”
     
    “More or less.” She sighed, her voice lowered as if she were lost deep in a memory. Not a sad one, but one that did not make her smile, “Learning the sciences was how Kata and I coped.”
     
    “Coped with what?”
     
    I put the paper to the side and searched to make eye contact. She still absently studied her own trip brochure, answering me as though my face was printed on the sheet in her hand, “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Kata and I are a little different.”
     
    “Yeah, she’s nice. You’re not.” I said without thinking.
     
    Sway finally looked over to me. She offered an un-argumentative smile. Probably because she of all people knew it was true. She rolled up from her lying position and turned to sit so she could work on a half-downed glass of rum on the table in front of her. “There is that, but I’m talking about the ice. ”
     
    “Well, I figured all you Elves had some kind of elemental shtick you rocked. It wasn’t hard to tell which end of the thermometer each of you land.”
     
    She shook her head. “I suppose in other parts of the world there are those Elves who might. They are few and far between. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of us still able to trace our Elvish roots are born Fire-Wielders. Kata is a genetic anomaly that happens once every couple of generations. She’s an outcast from our people. If our parents hadn’t been so high up on the Fire Elf food chain, she would have been abandoned, or killed, when it was discovered that she was an Iceling. Because our parents are big-shots in the Amalgam technological world, she was allowed to remain, in solitude.
     
    “It was hard for her. She was constantly picked on and made fun of. She was never allowed to be a part of anything outside basic studies. People treated her like a plague carrier. Despite her aptitude that helps make things like you possible, she was constantly ridiculed.”
     
    My head dropped, heavy with sickening realization, “And I acted just like her tormentors back in the training studio the other night.” My hand covered my mouth as I thought about what a jerk I had been, “I didn’t know.”
     
    Sway thought it was funny, “Oh, don’t worry. She’s tough. She’ll likely be over it by the time we get back, but you hit a little too close to home. I think she was just surprised. She sees you as someone safe to be around. I guess she’s getting attached to the idea of having you with us… especially after Maeve ditched out. She’s got this crazy idea that we’re kind of becoming like a big family, and you just gave her a small reason to doubt that.
     
    “If I were you, I would pick out a damn good apology gift. She’s a sucker for presents. You probably won’t have to worry about reprisal, but then again, you may want to check your underwear drawer for rhino-crabs… And those aren’t found