Thank you?

What did that mean? Even a week later when Oni sat down to the briefing in the rec-room, he could hear nothing.

Dev's flimsy control of the crew held but there was a tension about it, one that Sen made no action to counter. He looked uncomfortable, too.

So as Dev walked back and forth before the wall, pointing at the display chart and everything they needed to know when entering the second phase of the program, Sen, chin resting on his forearm, sat up.

"Why are we focusing on the cull itself? Shouldn't we concentrate on what it takes to get that far? Holding their breaths?"

This pulled Oni back from the abyss—Sen was referring to him.

Dev's shaky posture reminded them of her shaky command. In the wake of the breakfast disaster a week prior, the seven sisters began cooperating. Dev, perhaps, saw that as a victory, Oni—and by extension Sen—knew, it was more than likely to keep Dev from realizing there was a harrowing fight the night prior. One that was terrible on many levels. The tense silence wasn't about Dev. It was about Pleasant and Mercy, both locked in some sort of death grip with one another. Each night Pleasant accepted Sen's excuse of training in order to arrive at her bunks well after the female head cadets started their patrol for the night.

So far, this method held, but something brewed beneath the surface. Something big. Something Dev remained oblivious to. And it didn't need to be that way. Should she scrutinize any logs or complaints about her crew, she'd know. The fact that she hadn't meant more than Oni cared to think about.

"Holding their breaths is a given," Dev said. It was one of the few things she said with confidence. "Their stats say each can last six minutes at least."

Sen argued, "But—"

"But it's not our problem." The grit in Dev's voice spoke of fatigue. "I've had it with all of them. Should one of them be lying about something as basic as that, then that's their issue. We've lost far too much rec-privileges. My focus is getting rid of them as soon as they enter the cull. Immediately after. Desperately so."

She waited for further opposition and when none came, she went back to the chart.

"On the other side of the tank, crews look at stats. It won't be about personality or our bad reputations. We'll be able to recruit, and you lovely ladies can find yourselves a 'proper' head cadet. Understood?"

Their little desks formed a semi-circle which ended at the wall.

Sen stated the obvious. "I don't think they do understand—"

"They can read about it."

"They can't read."

Dev turned to face him, seething. "And what's it to you?"

He fell silent and her eyes shimmered as they bore into him; his defense of them came off as a betrayal.

"They can more than have the temp matrixes in their rooms read it for them. Unless, of course, they're just going to fight over it like they fight over everything!"

Sen opened his mouth but eventually closed it.

Dev's discomfort reflected in her grimace. "I believe in the process. And it says crewmen too proud to ask for help, get none. So until someone says they don't understand what I'm saying, I'll assume they all do."

Tightly rowed fingers slid into the air. "I don't understand." Pleasant waited, weathering the storm of Dev's inhospitable gaze beating down on her. "What? I raised my hand. I don't understand. So explain it."

Instead, Dev turned back to the chart.

"Hey. Doesn't the process say you've got to?"

"Stop," Mercy said in a whisper, still focused on the chart, refusing to look at her sister. "You've menged enough up."

Pleasant's confidence wavered. "We need the information."

"You don't."

The way Pleasant fell silent after that was unreal.

Mercy kept her focus steady on what Dev wanted to show them. "I'll get the information on the other side. Now shut up."

That opposition now thoroughly squashed, Dev continued with her plan.

"Everyone's going to be looking for high numbers in combat. Here's the thing to remember, each head cadet has at least one number. Most don't keep it or are looking to test higher, so they won't care if they give it away. Each of them will take ten boys and ten girls with the understanding that only one of each make it to the end. The bigger the crew, the better the cull."

Oni hesitated but raised his hand. "Is it one person per ten?"

Dev told him, "It could be. If the crew is good enough. Someone like Bray, for example, he'll try to get forty of his into the cull and spread out to other crews. For himself, he'll take the top twenty so he might end up with four—which is pretty amazing. Giving the Volunteer program four top fighters—"

"Yeah. I get it."

His response took Dev aback but she recovered. "I, myself, not that any of you care, am looking to take on a bigger crew. A proper one," she muttered.

Pleasant scoffed.

Dev's jaw clenched. For the first time Oni'd known her, she boasted, "The three bands on my arm guarantee that I will. Two of them I can gift, and one for myself. Then two can get numbers from the program. Meaning I can secure four numbers. Twice as much as anybody else."

At the silence that time, she stood proud.

Little by little, that boldness caught up with her, making way for embarrassment—who was going to entrust a head cadet with twenty plus crewmen when she couldn't manage seven?

"Could—could you gift one of those numbers to anybody?" Mercy sat up, interest adequately piqued.

With all eyes on her for different reasons beyond the lesson, Dev succumbed to the pressure. "No. I have two male numbers and one female. I'll likely keep my mother's number; it was passed down by her mother. But the two male numbers I carry are triple digits."

Her words washed over Oni and when the wave receded, Bray's rat face remained. No wonder he was pushing so hard.

"What happens to girl head cadets who have their father's number?" Mercy asked, surprising everyone. "They can't use it, right? Is it useless?"

Dev considered those words then shrugged. "It's not useless. Plenty of ways to put it to good use. For example, if I kept my father's number instead and relinquished my mothers, I could match with another head cadet with his mother's number and trade. I'd only have to fight to keep it if challenged but it's understood that I could."

"So why don't you do that with your cousin?"

Mercy's question had all heads turning to face her, even Pleasant's.

Dev's posture wilted. "Um...."

"Or don't you want his mother's number?"

Now it was Sen's turn to hide his discomfort by gazing at the desk where he sat.

So it was true. The five hundred and fifth Volunteer sentinel was his mother. If so, there was no way to pawn off his number on someone else. No one wanted a marking that infamous. Sentinel 555 was known even in the Outerlimits. Numbers synonymous to disgrace would surely die out.

"Numbers aren't bad," Pleasant muttered. "They can be wielded well by anyone."

Mercy scoffed, her eyes tightened to slits as her irises slid to the side to regard her. "Of course, you wouldn't care. You have no sense of pride."

Sen stayed focused on his desk even as Pleasant sat up and came to his mother's defense. "I'm saying the numbers themselves aren't bad and it'd be foolish for someone to pass over a high-ranking number for superstition's sake."

"So you'd take on the 555 number!" Mercy asked.

Pleasant's voice shrunk down into a mutter, "A high-ranking number—"

"You are trash." Mercy settled back into her previous posture, elbow on the desk, chin resting on her palm. "Mama was right."

"All I said was that it's dumb to throw a high-ranking number away."

Mercy smirked but didn't look at her. "We all know what number you want."

Pleasant stood. A baton stopped at her face before she could advance.

"It's you."

She followed it to find Dev's wooden gaze.

"It's absolutely you. You throw hands first. Someone says something about you and it's a useless fight wasting our precious little time. And it's always at your expense, dumb-dumb. Sit down, letchet!"

All fight drained out of Pleasant and the humiliation dragged her back into her seat.

That problem was solved but only in the here and now if Mercy's smile was any indication.

Dev had a hard time regaining her orator's voice.

"Apologize."

Sen picked his head up and stared his cousin down.

"One crewman just attacked another, and you don't reprimand them both," Sen said. "How is that justice? Apologize to her and then make that other one apologize."

This attack felt personal. Dev thought so as well.

"Decorum isn't a requirement."

"So that's it then? We just treat each other like dirt?" At her silence, he demanded, "Where do you get off calling a subordinate letchet?"

For once, Dev gave no hesitation. "You call yours washout."

Everything was awkward after that.

Mercy's eyes settled on Sen and she fought back a chuckle when she told Pleasant. "It's a good fit."

Pleasant gripped the desk. She didn't respond otherwise, a fact that had Oni proud; she was listening to Dev's advice.

"As of now," Dev continued, "we don't work well together. We don't even like each other. So to ensure we get culled into any crew of our choosing, we have to up our stats. For all of us. So let's agree to work together for that goal. Because I want to make sure, and I mean this in all sincerity, that I never have to see any of your faces beyond next month."

"Hey, did that include me?" Oni ran to catch up.

Dev looked drained. "Huh?"

"The rant back there. Did that include me?" When they came to a stop, he explained, "Never wanting to see any of us again."

The frown vanished into a small laugh. "Oh."

Oni waited for the customary assurances but she gave no answer. It was a small gesture but spoke volumes on many levels. The cull was only a week away. A culling process that started with holding one's breath for at least four minutes—something he couldn't do.

Getting this far was already amazing. Oni lumbered along behind Dev, not for comfort's sake, and not to enjoy being this close to her. More than once, he looked down at his right hand, the same hand that held hers during that breakfast, the breakfast that made him a laughingstock.

It wouldn't have mattered if she hadn't thought the same.

With all that on the line, Oni found his resolve. There was no way past the cull, so he'd make the best of it. But not with her.

Shoving his hands in his pockets was supposed to make him come off nonchalant. Maybe he pulled it off as he hurried beside her.

"Can you teach me how to shoot today, too?"

Dev's feet slowed. When she came to a full stop, a sigh left her. So it wasn't his imagination—she'd been avoiding him beyond the collective training session for the past week.

Oni's pulse raced at the prospect of a no. It wasn't about the sting, but something else—he needed access to her room at least one last time.

Desperate, he leaned to the right, trying to catch her gaze. "I've been practicing. I'm sure to impress you. I promise."

Brown eyes fixed on the floor, she considered his words then nodded.

Oni tried to rush on before her but a tender hand pressed splayed fingers to his chest.

The touch lit Oni up but not the unreadable expression on Dev's face.

She opened and closed her mouth, debating saying something. Perhaps that meant she'd ask whether or not he could hold his breath. In these last five months, he hadn't practiced even once. Instead, he'd put it off and spent it doing what Lotsu taught him—focus on the shooting and make it so impressive that your crew gives you a lifeline just to advance.

A lifeline wasn't coming, from this crew or any other. It was five months here, squandered.

When he met Dev's gaze, however, the regret was bitter-sweet. Training to breathe was something Oni could never do, but that was because of how Lotsu found him, bound with a plastic bag over his head, slowly suffocating. Being in a helmet was already the most Oni could manage.

This wasn't her fault. But not courting a new crew was Oni's. Sen was never going to offer him a lifeline, so he should have looked to advance his points. Dev was his reason not to.

But if he was that weak around someone—easy to panic and make mistakes—then who else could he blame beyond himself? He certainly didn't blame her. She'd been the better aspect of the entire program.

"I can hold my breath five minutes," Oni blurted.

Dev's eyes slowly widened.

Her lips parted but he assured her, "That's why I came in with no talent. Figured that was a sure-fire thing."

Something in Dev's demeanor changed—her entire body relaxed.

"So all we have to do is get your stats up? That we can do." Confidence reignited, Dev gave his chest a slap and said, "Come on. I've got one private rec credit left. It'll be worth it if you've improved."

Just the one. An hour later, Oni regretted Dev wasting that credit. This was bad. Even with his life on the line, he couldn't stop his hands from trembling.

As they made their way down the hall, neither had anything to say. Oni'd resolved to show her his skill today, but that fell through. In that moment, he made up his mind.

That wasn't all that was different. The seven sisters.

Since Dev's promise of getting them off her crew, they moved like a well-oiled machine. Even at dinner, for the first time, they all ate together.

After the breakfast fiasco, their usual eating habits hadn't changed—more than likely to spite Dev—but they'd been faster. Today was the first time they all ate in tandem.

When it came time for Dev to use her private rec-room credit only to confess to not having any, not one scoff or rolling of eyes. Instead, the girls looked at Sen who agreed to use his plentiful supply.

That day, Oni concluded, was the best one yet. No arguments, no insults, just a bunch of letchets trying to crawl out from under the burden of one another.

More than once, Oni kept up with everyone. Even when they raced the wall, intent on climbing up, he was unafraid. His heart pounded but he kept on. Upon reaching the top of the wall to find he'd beat everyone, even members from another crew, he was stunned.

Dev's enthusiastic applause summoned a blush along Oni's entire body. He scanned the distant world below and focused on that one person, feeling great. And it was the best he ever felt. Looking down into the bright gaze staring up at him with an unending smile, he sighed inward.

Everything was hopeless. He was hopeless because in this instance, he didn't care how things turned out. In all honesty, he could argue that his skill could pique the interest of another head cadet but not with how well Olo performed, one-handed most days.

Still, Oni walked to his room that night, feeling like a king. It was stupid to feel this good about such a small accomplishment, but he couldn't help it. He'd be going home soon...but not empty-handed. Oni made up his mind to steal something important on his way out. He just had to enjoy the short time that was left until then. Because there was no going back after that.