Chapter Twenty-Six
FAL HEARD someone knocking on his door on the Saturday morning, groaned and put a pillow over his head until the noise stopped. The next thing he knew, it was nearly midday.
He rarely slept this late and for a moment was too groggy to find a cause, then he remembered the concert and large quantities of alcohol. Lila certainly knew how to party. He had no idea what time he’d got back here – or how, for that matter – but it must have been three or four in the morning.
He reached out to look in a drawer for a herbal headache tablet – the movement making his stomach lurch and nausea rise – but found nothing. Barve would have something. Fal considered wandering about to look for him in his boxers but despite the university policy that the boys stayed on this floor and the female students remained on the ground floor, no one stuck to that and he didn’t want to be caught half-naked by one of the girls. They’d probably take photos.
He risked the short walk down the corridor to the bathroom, the floor freezing against his bare feet, and braved a cool shower, shuddering under the onslaught of water. He emerged quickly and grabbed his towel, briskly drying himself to warm up and, at least, feeling more awake, then returned to his room to dress. There was a note on the chair that he had a vague memory must have been pinned to his door last night from Barve saying that Elliot needed Fal to phone him urgently first thing this morning. His heart lifted at the sign that Elliot was willing to talk to him again, his mood immediately better than it had been all week. He would get a couple of headache pills from Barve and then call Elliot.
He pulled on a pair of jeans, nearly tripping as he got one foot caught in them, sprayed some deodorant under his arms and added a T-shirt and thick jumper. Finally warm, he left his room again and walked towards the kitchen just as the door of Elliot’s room opened. He paused, startled and unsure of himself. Elliot must have driven back here early, like them.
He took a step forwards, needing to try and sort things out. Elliot was more level-headed than Fal was and would understand why they had hidden knowledge of the Izients from him when he realised what was at stake.
A middle-aged woman walked out of Elliot’s room, which was odd. He took in the fact that she had a familiar look – as if he might have seen her on a TV screen – along with the same brown hair and long face as Elliot and he suddenly had a good idea what Elliot had wanted to tell him.
“The furniture is appalling,” she was saying, “but...” She caught sight of Fal and tailed off, eyes widening. “Elliot, there’s a Nean here! You didn’t say you had to share the corridor with Neans. This is beyond belief – it’s like expecting you to live near a family of maggots.”
Wow. Fal slowly processed just how insulting that comment was. The press hadn’t exaggerated what she was like.
Elliot ran out of his room and stared at Fal with an expression of pure horror. “Farlden, I’m so sorry.”
“You know this slave?” his mother said.
“We’re not actually slaves anymore,” Fal told her. “I would’ve thought an MP would be slightly more up-to-date on British laws.”
“Don’t talk to my mother like that,” an older boy said, looking him up and down in a disgusted way. This must be the brother Elliot didn’t get along with and the middle-aged man in the doorway behind him must be his father. The whole lot of them were here then and Fal’s brain was working at maybe a quarter of its usual speed. Perfect.
“Why don’t you go downstairs and I’ll meet you there,” Elliot said firmly to his family, who ignored him.
“I’ve never met a Nean who wasn’t a slave,” the brother drawled. He had managed to miss the gene that made the rest of his family attractive, his features non-descript and his brown hair greasy. Designer clothes did nothing to make him any more appealing. “I didn’t know they were able to walk and talk without instructions.”
“And yet I’m attending university and you aren’t. How thick does that make you?” Fal snarled.
“Dad, please would you help me get them out of here,” Elliot begged the older man while Fal watched the brother splutter with indignation.
“Perhaps that’s a good idea.”
The man put a hand on his wife’s arm and she shook free of it. “I’m not going to be herded about by anyone, particularly in front of this sub-human.”
“That’s enough!” Elliot yelled at her and then approached Fal, standing close and saying in an undertone, “I can’t even find the words for how sorry I am, but please go before they say anything more. I’ll talk to you once they’re gone.”
Fal nodded, Elliot’s heartsick expression too painful to prolong this any longer. “Okay.”
He turned away and went back to his room, the last words he heard being Elliot telling his family that Fal was his friend.