Page 20 of January Bell

CHAPTER

SEVEN

LILY

“I don’t like this at all.” It’s warmer inside, but not much. “At least we’re full,” I add, because I am grateful for that. “Truth serum.” The words finally catch up to me now that I’m not shivering.

That does explain why we’ve been so talkative.

Who knew truth serum was even a thing?

Not me!

Zan stares around the strange room that we’ll share for the night. There’s a small mattress on the ground, if it can be called that. It almost looks like a felted beanbag made of some strange material I’ve never seen before. Not that I’ve seen many of the things on this space station reality TV hellhole masquerading as a planet before, so no surprise there.

The entire interior of the structure appears to be wrapped in some sort of metal, the shining iridescence suggesting that it’s nothing I would have a name for.

“Great. Typical. Wonderful.”

“You seem irritated with the house itself,” Zan observes, arching an eyebrow at me.

“I’m starting to think that everything irritates me,” I tell him once again, the truth pouring out even though I don’t want it to. I sigh, crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this exposed in my life. First the heat making me want to do things with an alien I have no business doing anything with, and then the truth serum. Ken was bragging about giving us a dose, apparently, and the barbeque sauce I couldn’t get enough of. Now I no longer have physical inhibitions, nor do I have any type of filter to stop me from saying whatever I want.” I clamp my mouth shut and look around.

“That’s for bathing,” Zan tells me as I eye a contraption that barely reveals itself, hidden in a panel in the wall.

When I walk by, the white panel goes translucent, showing the tubing behind it.

“That’s cool,” I say, impressed in spite of myself.

“They’re fairly common on our planet,” Zan tells me. “In fact, this whole dome is set up like one of our forward post tents.”

“Forward post tents?” I repeat, trying to make sense of what he’s saying.

“Oh, I forget you Earth humans haven’t colonized any planets nor had to protect any of your terraformed colonies.”

“Oh, I’m sure we would colonize every single planet if we had the ability to,” I tell him archly.

He grunts, an amused quirk to his eyebrow. “I don’t know if that was the truth serum working⁠—”

“Nope. Just blunt. I have no doubt that the Federation government would absolutely try to colonize every single planet that it could.” I cross my arms again, tapping my fingers against my biceps. “To be clear, I don’t think that colonizing is the greatest thing.”

“The planets we colonize are uninhabited. The forward posts, based—” he gestures to the dome that we’re standing inside “—are designed to protect us from the elements.”

“Ah,” I say, understanding dawning. “We don’t necessarily have to share the bed.”

“No, we do not have to share the bed if you do not want to,” he says. But a hint of humor and mischief glints in his eye. “If we are to compete on the level that Ken expects us to, which apparently includes having our lives on the line, then we can only hope to get as much sleep as possible so that we are prepared for the day ahead and whatever Ken has planned for us.”

“I can’t decide if I hate you for being so logical or I’m relieved that we don’t have to play the ‘no, I’ll sleep on the floor’ game.”

Zan’s look of mischief turns to one of utter confusion. “Humans play a game called sleep on the floor?” he asks slowly, enunciating each word carefully.

“No, we do not. It’s just, you know, the whole one bed thing. It’s like this recurring theme event thing; I don’t know the words for it.” I throw up my hands, completely annoyed with everything. “If you watch enough TV and read enough books, you know that if there’s only one bed in the room, then the couple that are not together as a couple—two people, or an alien and a human⁠—”

Realizing I’m babbling, I slam my mouth shut, taking a deep breath and collecting my thoughts before I continue. “Fuck this fucking truth serum. The two people that are not a couple, when one bed is presented, they fight over if they are going to share the bed or who will sleep on the floor, out of this idea of chivalry.”

“I’m supposed to fight you over sleeping on the floor?” he asks, clearly confused, which is frankly adorable, and I am not pleased at all that I find his confusion adorable.

I scrub a hand down my face, annoyed at him, at myself, at the truth serum, at Ken, and very, very, very much annoyed at my friends who insisted we sign up for this goddamned reality TV show in the first place.