Fortunately, this time Pareios did not seem to realize what had just happened. He had beaten her, got her absolutely cold. But he seemed to blame her changed mood on the fact that she had decided to let it happen that way.
"In war and in ... love," he completed the saying he had quoted and stared defiantly into her eyes.
That tingling again.
Aurelia tried to hide the not unpleasant surprise and the growing aversion. Both feelings wrestled inside her. Outwardly she tried to glare at Pareios angrily and look behind the cool facade. What was that in his look that had changed? Did he understand the fact that she had let him outline her as an attempt to flirt?
She couldn't grasp it before he jumped up with lightning speed and dashed away through the trees. "Tricked!" He called back, giggling like a little boy.
Dazed and a little confused, Aurelia sat petrified, still where he had pushed her to the ground. But finally got up indignantly and started a chase that stretched back to the bunker and really exhausted her. She demanded everything from her muscles and only reached the rock shortly after Pareios.
"Won!" He huffed happily and leaned against the rugged stone to catch his breath. His expression betrayed that it could hardly believe it had defeated her.
Aurelia sank into the grass, exhausted, and breathing just as hard. "You are in good shape, I have to give you that."
"You wouldn't have believed me," he uttered and sat down heavily next to her. Aurelia stared into the small patch of sky that could be seen between two deciduous trees. Felt his gaze on him.
"I assumed you were ... well, let's say ... otherwise busy."
What the hell was she doing? In which direction was this conversation taking? That wasn't her way at all. Of course she flirted every now and then when she wanted to. But never before had there been such a chaos of emotions behind her words. Otherwise it was more like another game that she used against the cold inside and the emptiness associated with it. There had never been such an intention before.
He laughed softly and his deep voice sounded pleasantly rough. “We have known each other for so long and you still underestimate me. My interests are diverse. "
"Maybe we don't know each other as well as you think."
There was a short pause.
"Nobody really knows you ... except maybe Viktor." He tried to say it scornfully and amused, but she still caught that tiny hint of ... what it was, maybe disappointment or annoyance, in his voice. She didn't know what to say to that, after all he was right.
The sudden turn the conversation had taken cooled Aurelia's head down again. The aversion to such conversations got the better of her and she swung to her feet.
"Come on. You wanted to be in bed before the sun rises. ”She pointed to the sky, where the first faint rays of the rising sun were showing. Besides, at Pareios you could never know if someone was waiting for you inside, she added with less enthusiasm. She held out her hand and pulled him up with a jerk.
Together they entered the bunker and passed two guards they knew by sight and who greeted them softly. One blocked the view into a room from which bright monitor light penetrated. It was the surveillance room, in which various video recordings could be seen on all screens, which the cameras transmitted from the surroundings.
After a few meters of tunnel, which led them deeper into the ground, the two said goodbye. The silence that had stood between them until then told Aurelia that Pareios was mentally absent. She really hoped it wasn't her behavior that was bothering him. Unthinkable if he would draw the right conclusions.
At a junction he said goodbye to her, but hesitated a millisecond, as if he wanted to say something else. After an appraising look, however, he seemed to decide against it. Something hesitated inside her too.
She shook her head and realized that none of this could be her. Otherwise she enjoyed the solitude, contented herself with her lonely existence, as a result of her guilt, which chained her to her fate. Finally, took a measured step in the direction of her small room, which was quite far back in Unit E of the large, branched bunker. The concrete walls let the noises they make echo eerily multiple times. The corridors were lit by single bare lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling, and sideways she passed a series of doors that led to various other residential units. Some were bigger, for example if families lived there. Others, like hers, were only the size of a chamber. She didn't need more than that, she wasn't there often anyway.
Blowing her head free by running had worked, but Pareio's behavior and its effect on her had upset her again. If only she had gone with Viktor, she was annoyed and prepared for a restless night.
Once in her small room, she didn't bother to turn on the light. She took off her clothes, which were still damp, which she had not noticed at all while running. She laid it over the chair at a narrow desk and threw herself on the cot on the wall opposite in her underwear. It was hard and barely padded, but she liked it that way. The room was furnished in a spartan way and only contained the essentials. There were no things standing around and there were no pictures on the walls. There wasn't anything she wanted to hang or keep.
For a while she lay motionless in the dark, then she resigned and switched on a small lamp above her bed for the night. Since sleep was not to be expected for the time being, she straightened up again with a sigh. She reached to her desk and opened the bottom of three drawers on its left half. Shortly afterwards, she brought up a bag of green bulbs, opened it, and broke off a few crumbs. This she chopped up over a parchment-like piece of paper, which also came from the drawer. Then she added a little tobacco and turned the paper and its contents into a small, thin cigarette. Aurelia licked off the tape and sealed it that way.
Sometimes the insomnia could only be combated with this drug, which made you feel dull and heavy after just a few tokes. She hated alcohol, even if it would have helped in this case as well. In excess, it was poisonous and contaminated the body, not just the liver and brain. It also attacked nerves, changed personality and made addicts. Medicines were definitely out of the question. Like many of her friends, she preferred the mild, weakly dosed herb.
The windowless chamber was filled with heavy, aromatic smoke that made her eyelids heavy. The ventilation would soon have sucked him outside.While she inhaled the last few puffs and so slumbered in front of her, she tiredly tried to ward off these strange new thoughts about Pareios, mainly because, thanks to her messed up manner, they were accompanied by this terribly familiar feeling of fear. Funny that these absolutely different emotions, affection and disgust, were linked in her. How often had she tried to break this absurd connection, even if her attempts were rather weak and not very convinced. They mainly arose out of the need not to attract attention, in which one conformed. But not from the desire for genuine attention.She thought about her relationship with Viktor and secretly compared him to Pareios. Viktor enjoyed her complete confidence. She respected him and appreciated his straightforward and sincere character. He never failed in his judgm
Viktor saw it confused, but misunderstood it and immediately rowed back. "I mean, it's okay, you don't have to. I just thought, maybe… it's close enough! ”She stared at him and understood the words that had ripped them out of their thoughts. He said that the meaning of the stones would soon be woven into their destiny so that it became visible to their intuition. And that it would happen soon and that Aurelia wouldn't have to think so far into the future to see this.She was uncomfortable with these thoughts. “Viktor, you know how it is. Once I'm in and looking for it, it doesn't stop until I find it. And if it's too far away ... then I can't go back. "He continued to look pleadingly at her. “What if we try what we did in Argentina? It worked out pretty well at the time! ”Aurelia gave back an angry and horrified look. He wasn't serious!"Do you mean you would be willing to knock me down for this information?" The sente
It wasn't even a hundredth of a second before she was hit hard by something on the side of the neck. His speed and precision were terrifying, but he managed to pull her out of the thundering waves of impressions with one jerk. She exchanged the shimmer of the images for deep, impenetrable blackness. She quickly passed out. He had hit the spot on her neck where the artery split into a deeper and a more superficial path. The point was very sensitive. When subjected to severe compression, the brain was signaled that the pressure in the carotid arteries was getting too high and that systemic blood pressure needed to be lowered. The result was a sharp slowdown in the heartbeat, most of which led to unconsciousness if the body was upright and you hit hard enough. Viktor wasn't squeamish with her. At least not anymore.She wished the dull numbness of fainting had lasted, but the old nightmares soon haunted her again.Row's bright, warm voice woke her from
After pulling on the black all-purpose boots, they left their room together. Then Row went right, and she herself left, toward the training hall. Next to the dining room, this was the largest room in the underground bunker. Row had been born here and they had used the bunker as their headquarters since Markus became a council member. The underground facility was also a good choice because a larger part of the council also lived in it. Of course it wasn't complete, it would have been too dangerous to be able to erase them all at once. Nevertheless, the bunker had so far remained unmolested by attacks. They were all very careful to keep his location a secret.She strolled through the deserted tunnels. Apparently it was dinner time and most of the residents were in the canteen. After a few minutes, she arrived in front of the large double-walled door that was supposed to enclose the sounds of the exercisers in the room. Only muffled noises came out, telling her that a few
Until then, she wanted to vent a little with the punching bag, she still had way too much energy. For a while she just beat her fists on the firm, coarse leather and tried to keep the cinema out of her mind. It worked out worse and worse now. But it manifested itself in different lines of thought. They were rotating in a brisk exchange in her head and she was slowly wondering as if she was going mad. But you couldn't escape the past, no matter how far your feet took you. Whatever she did, as long as she couldn't undo that one event, she was never free.She punched with all her might, putting her desperation into a hard, straight blow, and lifting the punching bag from its attachment. Breathing heavily, she stood in front of her victim, who was now lying motionless on the ground. Then she heard a rough voice behind her. His voice!"Damn Aurelia, what louse ran down your liver?" She heard the smile in his words. One part of her got a shiver when she registered his presen
Because of her little outburst it became quiet and she noticed that the hall was meanwhile swept as if it were instructive. He raised his hands soothingly. "It's okay, I definitely didn't want to offend you!" He then said, slightly sour. "I…"At that moment the double doors of the large training room opened and Viktor stormed in, followed by Row and Aiden.Pareios turned around, startled. His expression suggested that he wasn't exactly happy about the interruption. He rolled his eyes when he recognized Viktor. What was that?Viktor looked angry, but he came straight up to her without detour. He grabbed her shoulders in concern and pulled her into a caring, fatherly hug. Past his ear she saw Pareios turn his head, now his face was no longer in her field of vision."I'm really sorry!" Viktor muttered into her hair. “If I had known that… I was really worried when you didn't wake up. But your heart was beating regularly, so I
Over the centuries they had spun their web all over the world. They looked for other Elevender to increase their power, created various secret organizations that have been tampering with throughout history. Tried here and there in larger and smaller actions to take over the regiment of all of humanity. But just as from the beginning there had been a small group of adversaries. And they survived to this day.For a long time they had been very few. Even today they were still outnumbered, but since the Hegeduns had tightened their grip on the world in the middle of the 19th century in order to squeeze out the last bit of human labor, the situation of the population had visibly deteriorated and they had more influx to get.Back then, the Hegedunen had covered up their operations with wars that had nearly dragged the world to its ruin.They had cleverly prepared the first of the two largest of these by usurping the money creation system in 1913. They financed t
Aurelia's cheeks flushed slightly, but she replied quickly and briskly. "Do not know. On a sudden whim, I guess… ”She hoped she'd managed to make the last part of the sentence sound promising. Unfortunately, since she rarely did, she was not very skilled at flirting. He raised an eyebrow and grinned cheekily, which, however, showed her that she had succeeded.He leaned conspiratorially across the table closer to her. "Couldn't you have had it earlier?"She laughed and replied succinctly: “Aaach, you know how it is, with moods. They come when they want, that can't be predicted. ”She gave him a mischievous smile, while she thought that moods disappeared just as quickly.“To hear THAT from you right now…. It's kind of absurd! ”He laughed out loud and threw himself back in his chair. Aurelia giggled too, after all, it probably was.He calmed down again and then said, still chuckling slightly: “No, seriously no