Alienus

Chapter Seven

I stepped towards the food stalls and away from Rafe, coming to stand next to Freesia. She met my eyes, before they left mine to look behind me. When she looked at me, her eyebrows were raised.

She jerked her chin towards something behind me and asked, "What's going on?"

I turned to look and realised that two C'Riel had brought large trunks and set them on either side of Rafe, and took their places beside the trunks. I turned to pay attention despite the food calling my name.

Without calling for attention, the whole room went silent. Everyone's eyes were on Rafe, who was standing in his usual spread-legged, arm crossed pose. His eyes calm, as he surveyed all of us, stopping at no one.

Some part of me wasn't happy about that, but I pushed it away. Ridiculous.

"This box contains your communication devices, your schedules and your cleaners that are suited specifically for you. They will be distributed to you. Please insert your schedule card into your commutation device so that it can keep you updated. Any changes in your schedule will be directed to your schedule card which will in turn alert your device." He said.

"Step forward and you will be handed your device."

The two C'Riel called out different names and the people started stepping to them and taking a small white box from them.

When my name was called I walked up to a golden haired C'Riel who met my eyes with churning dark blue ones.

My brows furrowed as I looked at his eyes. There wasn't much black in his eyes like in Rafe's.

The C'Riel before me raised his eyebrows and I blinked, taking the small box from his hands. As I stepped away, my eyes slipped to Rafe, who watched me silently, his eyes flicking between the C'Riel I'd shared a stare with and me. I turned away, clutching the box in my hand. I looked around for Kylee and saw that she stood with a C'Riel who was also blonde and tall, looking down at her as she carried a still sleeping Jasmine in her arms. He seemed to be nodding at something that she was saying. I pressed my lips, not wanting to disturb their conversation, so I turned and walked towards the food stall again.

Freesia, thankfully caught up with me. She handed me her box which I held with my left hand as she picked up bowls that were oval and a little deep. She quickly walked around filling in food into them, expertly handling both the bowls. I watched as she filled them with what I think was the C'Riel version of salads. The colour of all the ingredients were different though. I saw a lot of purple, a dark red, a black here and there and blue. Freesia then dropped two spork-like structures into the bowls and stepped to me, handing me mine and taking her box back.

"Shall we?" She asked.

"God, yes. I'm hungry." And I had never had food like this. We usually just took vitamins and supplement pills.

We sat on the floor, with our backs leaning against the wall. We both immediately dug in and it took everything I had not to moan in delight.

"Oh my God." Freesia groaned, not having the reservations I did.

I laughed, shaking my head, as she made embarrassing moaning sounds. I tried to shut her up by placing my hand on her mouth, but she made them louder and I burst into giggles.

"I'll have whatever she's having." A male voice said and I looked up. I met grey eyes, a smirk, messy brown hair and attitude. Lots of attitude.

I shake my head at Freesia and said, "See, now you're attracting strays."

Freesia chokes on her food as she laughs. I looked up to meet grey eyes that were surprisingly also laughing at me.