The weather was just as bad on the Eastern side of the Ark. Fat droplets of rain pattered against the illuminated plexi-glass ceiling, casting light-filled, crystalline patterns onto the fresh, white tiles and bustling commuters below.

I alighted in a daze. Everything around me faded into the background as I staggered away from the platform and into the thick, wet night air.

What the hell had just happened? I would have thought it were a dream had it not been for the wary glances I'd been getting from fellow passengers on the ride home. In the darkness of each blink, I found myself back on the platform, staring down the barrel of the laser gun with my heart leaping.

Had I gotten in the middle of a gang fight? It would explain the shootout, but no gang members would have bothered shielding me the way that obnoxious guy had. And why bother putting me on the train?

The whole thing had me so confused that I was already halfway down the street by the time I realised where I was. It was a wonder I hadn't bumped into anyone. The walkways were teeming with people, the rain unable to slow the usual commotion in the packed food market on the streets. I wove through stalls and crowds, startling at the popping and flashing of illegal fireworks some kids had set off down one of the alleys. I only realised my clothes were soaked when I was nearly home—somehow the droplets of rain rolling down my back hadn't registered until then.

There were twelve high-rises in the gated estate where Mum lived. Each one like an eighty-storey glass mosaic mirror, always reflecting the sky around them, which this evening was a heavy black.

The yellow security wall that housed the estate's eastern side entrance had seen its fair share of sun and was now an off-cream colour. I scanned my thumb on the reader and let myself in. As I made my way to our building, I spotted a few other residents scurrying to their apartment blocks, trying to avoid getting caught in the rain.

I scanned my thumb again to let myself into the lobby. The temperature-controlled atmosphere felt cold on my wet face, and the air was thin compared to the humidity outside. The moment I walked through the door of our apartment, Mum practically pounced on me.

"Where have you been?!" She gripped my arm before I had a chance to close the door behind me. "I've been trying to get a hold of you all afternoon!"

My heart had skittered at the ambush, but I quickly composed myself. "You've got a tight hold of me at the moment." Her metallic gold nails were digging into my skin thanks to her over enthusiastic grip. I wriggled. Since when did Mum care what time I rolled in?

"Sorry." She released me and took a step back. Her honey brown eyes were wide with stress and her dark hair had come loose of its usual neat updo. "I just wanted everything to be perfect for this evening, I was so worried you weren't going to be home in time."

"For what?" I asked slowly, my eyes drifting to the glass dinner table behind her. It was set neatly for three. There were gold napkins, metallic place settings and at the centre—a huge vase filled with twinkle lights. It was certainly not our usual dinner on the couch and way too extravagant to be one of her friends coming around. "Why the fancy setup?"

She turned and busied herself by unnecessarily refolding a napkin. "Do you think it looks alright?"

"It looks fine. What's it for?"

"Well." She hesitated and placed the napkin down with excessive care and attention. "There's someone who would like to meet you."

I had guessed as much. We had been through this only a month ago when she wanted me to meet Felix—a guy she had been seeing for two weeks. Their relationship had lasted maybe four months total, then suddenly he disappeared and she was spending most of her nights drinking wine on the couch in her bathrobe.

I didn't have as much of a problem with the quantity of men Mum dated, as I did the quality. Adding to the issue was the fact that she was a real all or nothing kind of person when it came to love. She seemed to fall fast and hard. I didn't ever judge her for it, but it was frustrating seeing her get hurt repeatedly and learning absolutely nothing from it. Though I had wondered if maybe there was some part of her that enjoyed the drama of a breakup. It definitely gave her something to talk about at work.

"I see." I shook off my pack and headed past her toward the kitchen. "Who's the guy then?"

She followed me, leaning on the faux concrete counter as I filled a glass of water at the dispenser. "I bumped into him at one of the department galas and we hit it off." She looked up and away in a seemingly rehearsed attempt at looking whimsical.

I raised my eyebrows. "What were you doing at one of those?"

"I styled Xanthe Zenith, it was a very complicated dress, she wanted me on hand in case there were any... slipups."

"You styled Xanthe Zenith?" I nearly dropped my glass. "When was this?"

"Three weeks ago, I told you about it." She sounded a little hurt. "I even sent you the link to the pictures from the social feeds."

"Oh that gala," I said, feigning a revelation. In all honesty I never paid much attention to the stuff she sent me unless it was a direct order to come home.

She saw through my act and rolled her eyes. "Go get yourself sorted out. You look like a mess." She placed a hand under my chin and inspected my face closely. "Except for those eyelashes, I did a fine job on those extensions."

I took my glass of water and soggy backpack to my room, trudging wet footprints across the living room as I went. The lights automatically illuminated as I opened the door and I dumped my pack on the floor, retrieving my tablet and vape from inside.

I changed out of my uniform and threw on a pair of jeans and a nice top. It sounded like mum was clanging about in the kitchen getting dinner ready—what she was doing to make so much noise, I had no idea. She could only have been reheating something from one of the vendors down the road.

I pushed my window open and stepped up onto the sill. My room in Mum's apartment had a between-building view out to the Eastern city centre. A window awning from the apartment below made a perfect-foot rest as I sat on the sill of my own. Lights in the distant skyscrapers were twinkling like neatly arranged stars against the dark sky. It was beautiful.

With a puff of my vape, I wondered what this guy Mum was seeing was like, and how long he'd last. At least while she was with him, she wouldn't be on my back so much. Whenever she was single, our 'quality time' increased. Which wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't involve so much girly crap—like eyelash extensions.

A noise echoed up between the buildings, carrying over the patter of rain from the street below. It sounded like shoes slapping the ground after jumping from a decent height. I stood up and peered over the edge. I was fifteen storeys up and couldn't see anything on the dark ground below. Must have been some of the local kids in the courtyard. I took one last, deep inhale on my vape and headed back in through the window. A deep male voice was audible from the kitchen along with Mum's shrill, nervous laughter. He must have arrived.

"Astrid, darling come over here." Mum gestured at me from the kitchen when I emerged from my room. She was standing with a tall man. "I would like you to meet Emrys." She fluttered her hand in his direction.

He extended a hand out to me and smiled. "I have heard a lot about you Astrid."

The words can't say the same were on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back as I reciprocated his gesture. He was middle aged and presented well. His light brown hair was slicked back neatly, and he was well dressed in a button up shirt and black chinos that made his legs disappear into the identical coloured kitchen cabinets he stood against. His face was not what I would have expected Mum to go for. He wasn't exactly handsome, not that he was ugly either. All his features were narrow in a way that made him look drawn, and his eyes were a flat grey colour. It was a strange shade, cold—even though he was smiling at me, there was no warmth.

I let go of his hand and wondered what it was about people with strange coloured eyes today. First the guy at the station, then this, but I pushed the electric blue from my mind. I needed to find out if this Emrys was going to be a complete waste of Mum's time.

"Did you need a hand with dinner?" His ashen eyes shifted from me to Mum.

"It's practically done," she said, spooning some rice out of the cooker. "Nothing fancy, just a stir-fry I picked up down the road."

"Well it smells delicious." He smiled at her and produced a bottle of wine from a small zippered cooler he had looped over his shoulder. "Where are your glasses kept?"

I saved Mum the hassle and grabbed three from the adjacent cupboard. He raised an eyebrow as I placed them on the bench.

Mum spotted his expression. "Astrid turns eighteen this week," she explained. "We let her drink a little wine at home." She gave me a phony stern eye. Sometimes I think she was a little embarrassed about how lax her parenting could be.

"Right then." Emrys began pouring. I wasn't sure if I could sense some kind of tension on his behalf after Mum had said we.

Mum started taking the plates of steaming food over to the table. I grabbed my glass and sat across from Emrys.

"So," He started, his cold eyes set on me while Mum filled our plates with food. "I hear you're in your final year at the academy?"

"For principal levels, yeah." I nodded, pushing rice around my plate with my fork. "I'll be moving onto advanced academy next year."

He took a sip from his glass and nodded. "What are you wanting to study for second levels?"

I shrugged. It was a question I was hearing more often these days—and not one I liked answering. "I'm not completely decided yet."

He carefully placed a forkful of vegetables in his mouth, his eyes digging into me as he chewed. "What are you interested in?" he asked, after he'd swallowed his bite.

I pressed my lips together and passed a brief glance over Mum. She was beaming as though this interrogation of a dinner conversation was going wonderfully. "Uh, environmental history," I answered, looking back at my untouched food.

Emrys let out a sharp cough and swallowed another bit of food. "Oh, how topical."

I opened my mouth to respond, but Mum's nervous laughter cut me off. "She still has plenty of time to make up her mind."

"Of course," I said with a strained grin and a large gulp of wine.

Mum, misunderstanding my sarcasm, gave me a smile so big it even managed to crease the immovable Botox corners of her eyes.

"So, what do you do then?" I asked Emrys.

He swallowed another bite and tilted his head. "I used to be a Forcer, but have just switched to a private security company. I'm doing personal protection at the moment."

A Forcer—with those cold eyes, I could picture it. "Who are you protecting now?"

"Ah" —he almost laughed— "I can't disclose that. Part of the job, sorry."

"Fair enough." I nodded. "So that's how you met at the Gala then? You were protecting and she was styling?"

"Though not necessarily the same person," Mum clarified. I noticed for the first time since he had arrived, that she had somehow managed to fix her hair and apply fresh makeup while I had been vaping.

Emrys looked at me with a funny smile that put my teeth on edge. "Clever, I can't let my guard down around you."

Mum laughed and got up to refill the water jug. All the while Emrys had me fixed in a concentrated stare.

"Do you see much of your dad?" he asked. He sounded as though he was trying to be nonchalant, but there was too much interest in his voice.

I looked at Mum in the kitchen, she was too far away to have heard. I made a noise in the affirmatory, but didn't actually answer.

He was still watching me keenly, but didn't push the question any further. He turned and smiled at Mum as she sat back down. "How long have you been in this place Freya?"

"Oh, gee." Her eyes flew upward, searching. She looked as though she was trying to work it out mathematically. "I think it would be coming up on two years now."

I thought about it too. She was right, it would be two years. My parents had separated when I was ten. Mum and I had lived in a few different apartments since then.

He seemed to think about this deeply for a second. Then he smiled and said "Maybe after dinner I could have a tour?"

"Sure." Mum was just finishing her dinner as it was. In fact, they had both nearly finished and I had barely touched mine.

I only began eating when they had finished and left the table to tour the apartment. It would be over quickly, there wasn't much to see. For some reason I couldn't really stomach my food. There was just something about Emrys' presence that made me uneasy. Maybe I was just getting a bit protective of Mum.

I cleared the table and loaded the plates into the steriliser. Mum and Emrys came back into the room as I finished commanding the wash cycle.

"It's a lovely apartment. Very tidy." Emrys admired, still glancing around the room.

"Yeah we're quite happy here." Mum nodded, oblivious to his swivelling head. "It's close to work and not too far from Astrid's Academy."

"You go to the one here then?" He directed his question at me.

"No, the Western Territory."

Mum jumped in to explain. "She started at the western one when Alistair and I were still together, and I didn't really want her to have to change when we moved about. It's always been reasonably close."

He nodded, looking uninterested. "Right."

Mum came to join me in the kitchen and pulled some bowls from the drawer. "Want some dessert?" she asked with a wide smile.

My attempt at returning the gesture felt as though it came up looking more like a grimace. "I actually have a bit of homework I should really make a start on, if that's okay?" I felt bad not sticking around, but I really didn't want to.

Disappointment flickered across her face briefly, but it was quickly replaced with a small grin that I could tell was forced. "Of course, no worries honey." She gave me a kiss on the cheek.

I felt terrible, but left anyway. "Nice to meet you," I lied to Emrys as I passed him on the way to my room.

He straightened and gave me a shark-like smile. "You too Astrid, see you again sometime soon." He sounded quite certain of that—and why wouldn't he? Mum seemed smitten with him already.