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Saferoom of The Royal Court of Princess Donut
“Fuck me”, I said, staring at the cut lengths of my hair on the kitchen table. Mordecai had told me cutting it wouldn’t work, but still, I had to try. I could already feel my hair growing back, the ends tickling my neck uncomfortably. Two weeks. Two goddamn weeks of this.
Once the hair had grown back to its full length, I pushed it over my shoulders, grimacing. It was surprisingly heavy. I’d always had thick hair, but I tended to keep it pretty short. It was out of habit, I guessed. The last time my hair had gotten even close to shoulder length had been when I was living alone after my dad left me, and there had been no one telling me to cut it. When I was taken into custody, it had been kept short, and that had also been a requirement in the Coast Guard. It hadn’t even crossed my mind to try to grow it out after that.
“Here, Carl”, Britney said, surprising me from my musings. I looked at her, and she’d produced a handful of hair ties from her inventory. They were basic black loops, nothing like the frilly colorful ones Bea had liked to use.
“Thanks”, I said, taking one from her hand. “Where did you get these?”
“No, no, take them all”, she said, tipping her hand and dropping the pile on the table in front of me. “I have a bunch. I had them in my bag when I came into the dungeon. You’ll need a lot of them. They break easy.”
“Ah”, I said. “I see.” I looked at the hair ties. In theory, I knew how they worked, but I had never tried tying mine or anyone else’s hair. I held up the one I had taken from Britney, and with my left hand, I collected the hair behind my neck, holding it bunched together with my fingers. Britney kept staring at me, and I suddenly felt both nervous and embarrassed.
I fumbled with the tiny loop, and it dropped from my fingers. I looked down at the floor, but I didn’t see it anywhere. It was just gone. What the hell? I shuffled my feet. Nothing. It had simply disappeared. I looked up at Britney.
She sighed. She picked up a new hair tie and stepped towards me. “Can I?”
I only hesitated for a second before nodding. “Sure.”
Britney moved behind me and started finger-combing my hair back. I felt my shoulders relax before I realized what was happening. It… felt nice. I was reminded of Miriam Dom stroking my hair on the sixth floor when I was debuffed as hell after our stint in Zockau. I blinked heavily.
“I will make a simple braid”, Britney said. “That way it is easier to manage.”
“Okay”, I said. I honestly didn’t care how it would look; I just wanted it to stay away from my eyes and not get stuck anywhere.
Britney worked quickly and efficiently. I thought about Miriam Dom, and Prepotente. I hadn’t yet heard from the goat on this floor. I wondered how he was faring. I wondered if we would be able to get him to join our army, or if he would be off doing his own thing again.
“There”, Britney eventually said, tying the ends together and dropping the finished braid so it settled against my back. “It looks good. Keep it tucked in or monsters will grab it, believe me.”
I moved my head, feeling it shift heavily against my cape. It was an odd feeling, but I could probably get used to it. I turned around and gave her a smile.
“Okay, thanks. It’s much better than what I could’ve done.”
“Yes”, Britney agreed.
I picked up the pile of hair ties and added them to my inventory. Elle whistled at me as she walked by.
“Holy cannoli”, she said with a delighted smirk. “That braid! Nice work, Britney. Oh, you just wait till I get my hands on you, Fabio. Did you know I used to be a hairstylist back in my time?”
“Really?” I asked, but she was already walking away, cackling to herself.
Saferoom of Team Meadowlark
It was me, Donut, Rosetta, Tipid, Imani, Florin, and Mistress Tiatha in the Meadowlark saferoom. We settled around on the couches and chairs to listen as Tipid told us the story of how it all came together. Of how and why there suddenly was fifty thousand former crawlers in the dungeon.
I sat, my head still spinning from everything I had just discovered, when Rosetta appeared next to me. She sat behind me onto the backrest of the couch and touched my shoulder. I looked up at her.
“Your braid needs a touch up”, she said quietly. “May I?”
I blinked at her. I hadn’t thought about my hair since Britney had done it for me, but now that I did, I could feel strands coming loose from the braid, framing my face haphazardly.
I nodded. “Okay.”
Rosetta smiled, her eyes creasing at the corners, and I suddenly couldn’t stop staring at her. My sister. She picked up the tail of my braid and tugged off the hair tie.
“Turn your head”, she instructed gently. I tore my eyes off her and turned, focusing back on Tipid’s story. He was telling about the surgery he had to get after leaving the dungeon. Even after the dungeon, he had to suffer so much. It angered me, the unfairness of it all.
Rosetta’s hands were gentle as she unraveled the braid and pulled back the loose strands. She divided my hair into two sections, right down the middle, and started working on one of them.
She seemed practiced with it, and I wondered how that came to be since she was naturally bald herself.
“I used to have a friend”, Rosetta whispered as she worked, as if she had just read my mind. “She had hair much like yours. She taught me all about hair care, even though I wouldn’t ever need that information for myself.”
She chuckled. Her fingers worked nimbly down the right side of my head. “Those long days in the dungeon, though… That is when I learned. I would braid her hair almost every day. I must’ve done a hundred braids during that time – all the way up to the ninth floor, where she then...” She trailed off, humming softly.
My chest ached. I dipped my chin, indicating that I heard her. Tipid was talking about Doctor Porthus Hu of the Crawler Project, yet another cookbook author. I was overwhelmed once again, thinking about it all. Rosetta tied off the right side of my hair and started on the left. Her fingers were icy cold when they pressed against my skin.
“Do you happen to have another hair tie?” she asked me, and I took one out of my inventory and handed it to her. Donut appeared and hopped onto my lap. She gave a long look between me and Rosetta, but did not say anything. She settled across my thighs, yawning widely. I patted her on the head.
Once Rosetta was done, she smoothed down my hair. She had made some sort of combination braid I couldn’t even dream of creating myself. It started as two braids coming from both sides of my head at the temples, curling behind my head and joining together as one braid. She handed me one of the hair ties back.
“Looking good, warlord”, she said, patting me on the shoulder again. I could only nod and whisper my thanks. She stood up and headed for our saferoom. I watched her go. It was still so hard for me to wrap my head around seeing her here with us.
Tipid told us about the call Dr. Hu had put out to former crawlers, asking if there was anyone willing to come fight with us in Faction Wars, and about the overwhelming response he’d received.
I looked down at Donut just as she looked up at me. I knew we were both thinking the same thing.
This was real. This was happening. And it was happening now.
The FUPA Flag Room for the Princess Posse
I smiled nervously at Bonnie the little gnome girl. The words she had just uttered unnerved me at a level I could not put into words.
“I shouldn’t have to think about killing outworlders? Why shouldn’t I? Have they stopped thinking about trying to kill me?”
It was wrong. So wrong. She looked at me with bright, determined eyes.
“Uh… I guess that’s true”, I told her. “Still, this stuff is not your responsibility. We’re gonna look after you and Skarn and the others, okay?”
Bonnie was barely listening to me. Her eyes suddenly widened, and she reached out and grabbed an errant lock of my hair with her little fingers. I sighed. Rend had eaten my hair tie almost immediately after we left the Meadowlark saferoom, and the braid Rosetta had made had nearly fully unraveled. Hence, my hair was tangled as hell and going all over the place, and I hadn’t yet had a chance to fix it.
“Pretty”, Bonnie gasped. She pulled on the strand, marveling at how it slid between her fingers. “Your hair is much prettier than Poppy’s was.”
I felt my breath catch. “Who’s Poppy?”
Bonnie shrugged. She started braiding a thin little three strand braid with the hair she held in her hands.
“Poppy was my most favorite doll. Her hair was long and red and really nice. She got lost when you guys destroyed my home.”
She was talking about the Twister, the flying house which had originally been Bonnie’s home. Louis, Firas and a bunch of others had ripped the entire top half of the house away when they made it into a flying contraption back on the fifth floor. I had looted everything I could lift from the house the first time we had landed it, and most of those toys and games were in our saferoom for the kids to play with – but, as it turned out, I must have missed one. The most important one.
“Oh, I’m sorry”, I said. “I’m sorry about Poppy. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay”, Bonnie said. “I think she’s with Sausage now.”
Sausage being her dead pet pig. Christ. I tried to not make a face. Bonnie hummed to herself as she finished the thin braid. She looked up at me expectantly, holding the ends together with her fingers.
“Right”, I said, blinking rapidly, and took out a hair tie from my inventory. It was a bit big for the size of the braid, but I let her use it anyway. Once she seemed satisfied, I patted her on the head again. “Thanks, Bonnie”, I said. I stood up.
Donut, Louis, Katia and Bautista were all looking at me. I took out another hair tie, pulled back the rest of my hair into a ponytail and this time, I managed to do it without losing the elastic. I left the single braid hanging out on its own, like I was a goddamn padawan from Star Wars.
“I like it Carl”, Samantha said, rolling up to me. “It looks sexy like that. But not sexy enough to turn me away from Louis, so don’t get too excited, okay?”
“All right”, I said to the others, ignoring her. “Let’s get back to work.”
The FUPA Field Hospital for the Princess Posse
It was just me and Katia in the field hospital, moments before our “treatment” would begin. I was standing in front of a small sink and a mirror situation, attempting to tame my hair into some sort of ponytail that wouldn’t look like utter shit. I had taken a shower after the skunk incident, so my hair was loose at the moment. Rend had been absolutely obsessed with the braid Bonnie had made, so that hadn’t lasted long either. Now it was all just a big frizzy mess.
Katia watched me from her cot. She snorted when I cursed, dropping another hair tie onto the floor.
“Come here”, she said, sounding amused despite the nerves we were both feeling. I rolled my eyes and walked up to her. Katia pulled a chair next her bed and told me to sit there. I did.
“Would you mind if I gave you Dutch braids?”
I looked up at her over my shoulder. “Uh, what braids?”
Katia grinned. “Oh, right. I mean two braids that go from here-“ She touched both of my temples. “Down to here.” She drew a slight curve around both sides of my head and down the front of my shoulders.
“Go ahead”, I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I had understood what she meant, but I trusted her.
“It’ll look good, I promise”, Katia said as she started finger combing my hair into two sections. “And it’s gonna be very easy to manage like that.”
I knew Katia still felt a little bad about the reason my hair had gotten this long in the first place. I didn’t blame her, not at all, but I knew she had her own issues about the way we constantly got our bodies altered against our will.
“How are you feeling about this?” I asked her. “The treatment?”
Katia sighed. “It sounds a bit scary. If I understood Mordecai correctly, if it goes wrong, it could be fatal.”
I nodded slightly. I could barely move – Katia was working on the right side of my head, pulling each section tight as she went.
“We gotta do it, though”, I said. “It’s fucked up, but it’s pretty much our only choice.”
“Yeah.”
Katia was silent for a moment. Eventually, she said, “Even though technically we’re getting different treatments, it still makes me feel a little bit better knowing you are doing it with me.”
She was done with the first braid, and she pulled a tiny little elastic band from her own inventory and tied it off. When I said nothing, she added, “Not that I want you to be in that danger, obviously, it’s just-“
“No, I get it”, I said quickly. “I was thinking the same thing.”
I didn’t particularly love the idea of the treatments – not mine or Katia’s. But I felt less alone knowing she was doing hers at the same time. Going through something similar. And that I could be there for her, too.
Katia’s fingers shook slightly when she started the second braid. I looked up when someone stepped inside the hospital room. Bautista. I waved my hand at him.
“Hey”, he said to me. His eyes flashed and I knew he was talking privately to Katia. Katia kept braiding my hair. She was also chatting silently, not saying anything.
Bautista sat down in the back of the room. He was in some sort of mood I couldn’t figure out. I imagined he was worried sick about Katia. I could understand that.
If something has to go wrong with this, I had thought more than once, please let it go wrong with my part.
“Done”, Katia eventually said, finishing the second braid with a little elastic. I stood up and turned around, letting her check her work. She smiled sheepishly.
“Oh whoops, it’s not perfectly even”, she said with a chuckle. “But the double braids suit you, Carl. You look badass.”
I laughed. I went back to the mirror and looked at myself. I blinked. It sure was a certain kind of look. I wondered what Donut would say if she saw me like this.
When, I thought. When she sees me like this.
I smiled at Katia. “It’s good. Now I’ll be ready for anything Mordecai throws at us.”
The Princess Posse forward position
“Carl”, Imani said, grabbing my shoulder. I turned to her. She had just cast Total Ear Protection on Donut and Mongo. I would be putting my earplugs in soon after.
“What?”
“Give me a hair tie”, she said. She was floating right next to me in the trench, her eyes blazing.
I didn’t have time to question it. I took one out and gave it to her. She bodily turned me around, so I was facing away from her, and grabbed the braids Katia had made. I was still covered head to toe in blood from what had happened at the Lemig base. My hair was absolutely matted with it. One of Katia’s elastic bands had disappeared, and that braid was rapidly unraveling.
Imani pulled both braids back and tied them together. She tugged out the back of my cloak and stuffed the uneven ponytail inside.
“Keep it under there”, she told me. “We wouldn’t want it getting in the way.”
I turned around and gave her a look. She was staring at me intensely, and despite her hard look, I knew she was terrified. I was terrified as well.
Her hand lingered on my shoulder a moment longer. I wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
Donut was yelling in the chat, telling everyone the next moves. There would also be prizes involved, apparently.
“Thank you”, I said. Imani nodded at me, and then she was off, buffing someone else.
Bam!
The ground trembled with a distant explosion. It was the first bomb, and that meant we were about to charge. I gave Donut a quick pat and then a thumbs up.
Warlord Donut: GO, GO, GO!
Guildhall Common Area
“Yo!” Elle called the moment she stepped into the guildhall. “This time it’s me who gets to do his hair.”
We had all taken quick showers after the messy attack on our castle and were now preparing for a bigger battle against the enemy’s northern army. That army was huge. Orcs, slimes, Reavers, you name it. Thousands upon thousands of enemies. So many that they filled the horizon like a black, rolling tide about to wash us away.
It was me, Donut, Louis, Rosetta, Tipid, Justice Light, Imani and now Elle in the guildhall. I had left my hair loose after showering. No one had yet offered to do anything to it, so my plan had been to pull it into a ponytail right before it was time to go.
“Well, obviously”, Donut said to Elle before I had the chance to reply. “We all agreed we’d save him for you this time.”
“What?” I said. We had not agreed on anything like that.
At least not out loud. I got the sudden uneasy feeling that they might’ve been talking about it in a chat group I wasn’t involved in.
“Perfect”, Elle said, clapping her hands together. “You just sit tight, boss. I’ll be ready for you in just a moment.”
I raised my eyebrows at Donut, who flicked her tail impudently. “What?” she asked. “Don’t look at me like that, Carl.”
Elle floated up to me, a strange glimmer in her eyes. I opened my mouth to argue, but Elle interrupted me.
“Christ, unwad your panties, Carl”, she said and began stroking my hair back over my shoulders. “Let me do my magic. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Uh”, I said, completely thrown, “okay.”
Just a minute ago everything had been so tense, so serious. Now Donut was sitting there, exchanging looks with Rosetta and Imani that told me this was indeed planned. I was still tense, but I tried my best to just breathe and sit back as Elle started to braid the hair on the front of my head.
“Hot damn, your hair is thick as fuck”, Elle huffed after a moment. Her hands were full of my hair, and she seemed to be struggling a little.
“Were you really a hairstylist, before?” I asked.
Elle laughed. “About seven decades ago, but yeah. I used to mainly do bridal updos. I was pretty fucking good at it too. I did that for a couple of years before I realized I really didn’t like people. Brides-to-be even less. Ha! My Barry used to make fun of me for how much I complained about that job. But seriously, you wouldn’t fucking believe the shit some of those girls were asking of me. I mean really. If you’ve got a rat’s tail for hair, I can’t make it look anything but a rat’s tail unless you are willing to pay for extensions, Kirsten. What fucking bullshit that was, let me tell you.”
“Bridal updos?” I asked, suddenly worried. I had stated many times I didn’t care what my hair looked like, but… I wasn’t exactly excited about the idea of charging against the orc prince himself with bridal hair.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll keep it simple for you”, Elle said. She still sounded annoyed about the memory she had just unearthed. “I’m gonna make one smaller braid into a low ponytail, and then a big braid down to the ends. That’s gonna keep the hair nicely tucked and out of your face even if it gets crazy out there.”
We were about to go face-to-face with tens of thousands of enemy troops, I thougth. Yeah, it might get crazy.
“All right”, I said slowly. It was too late to stop her, anyway. “Just… hurry up. They could start the attack at any minute.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Elle snapped. I could practically hear the eye roll in her voice. “Now keep your trap shut and let me do my thing.” After a couple of seconds, she quickly tacked on, “Boss.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
The Desperado Club – Orren’s office
I felt my entire body stiffen.
Growler Gary – the gnoll who the System AI was currently using as its avatar – had placed both of his clawed hands on my shoulders and started massaging me. He let out a low, throaty growl as his meaty fingers dug between my shoulder blades. The weight of his hands pressed me against my chair much harder than was necessary.
“Avatar,” Orren said from his side of the desk, speaking carefully. “I must ask, just so we’re clear. Is Carl correct? Can you stop Princess Formidable? Or is this all theater before we die?”
Gary didn’t respond for a moment. I could feel his claw scratch against the back of my neck, and it sent an unwanted shiver down my spine.
Fuck, no.
“Ah”, he said, pleased. He tugged hard, and the braid Elle had tied for me slid out from under my cape. “Ah, here it is.”
I swallowed. Gary yanked the hair tie off, dropping it unceremoniously on the floor, and ran his claws through my hair, roughly untangling the bloodied, matted braid. He kept muttering to himself as he worked.
“How pretty. How pretty indeed. Much better up close. Oh yes. Oh yes. I like it.” He leaned very close to my ear and whispered, his breath hot against my temple, “Daddy likes it.”
I kept staring ahead at Orren, who just sat there quietly, watching us. Gary stood back up and continued finger combing my hair. I tried to keep myself very still, but the zero zone made me so weak I swayed back and forth with every tug of my hair. My scalp burned with the sensation.
This was almost worse than the time the AI had sucked on my toes on the eighth floor. That, at least, had lasted less than five seconds, and I had been able to get away. This time, I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t so sure where this was heading toward.
“Avatar”, Orren eventually repeated, his voice stern.
“Hm?” Gary said, distracted. His fingers were buried in my hair, twisting and tugging and occasionally scratching the back of my scalp. Finally, he stopped combing me, sighed dramatically, and replied, “Oh, alright. What am I doing, you ask? Well, you know how it is with me and Carl’s hair. I just cannot resist it. Did you know how happy you made me when you grew your hair this long, Carl? Very happy, I’ll say. Oh yes, so very happy.” His hands suddenly tightened into fists, and the movement jerked on my hair painfully hard.
“Fuck!” I cursed, wincing.
Gary did a little hop of excitement.
“Oh? Did that hurt?” he asked. He suddenly sounded very, very thrilled. “How does it feel when I do this? Is it painful? Is it good? You know, I watched a YouTube tutorial about braiding hair. I watched ten thousand of them, give or take. I think I have an idea how to braid hair. A much better idea than your lousy friends do. To be completely honest, they were all pretty shit at it. Fuck me, did that Bonnie kid make a terrible braid.”
Anger flashed at the mention of my friends, of Bonnie. I felt my hands clenching into fists.
“I don’t know how you manage to get your hair so tangled all the time, however. You should brush it sometimes, Carl. The shower isn’t meant to be the sole thing for hair care. Maybe you need a hairbrush, something just for you. I’ll see what I can do. It needs to be a good one. Yes. Yes, I have an idea.” Gary paused his rambling, his fingers deftly working on untangling a particularly big knot. He soon continued. “Oh! Perhaps you’ll need better hair ties as well. Something that big ugly meatball of yours won’t eat. Actually, maybe made of something that is poisonous to him. Something that would kill him. That would be fitting, seeing how you decided to name him after his dead-“
“Shut the fuck up”, I snapped before I could stop myself.
Gary went motionless behind me. Oh, fuck me, I thought. I held my breath.
One, two, three seconds. Then he hummed and continued working on my hair, dividing it into different sections. “You know, Carl. I like you. I consider you one of my best buddies. The other one of them being here in the room with us right now.”
He spoke casually, like I was simply a customer at his hair salon. I looked at Orren, who just kept sitting there, doing nothing. I desperately needed this scene to be over, but I didn’t know how. A distraction?
Gary continued, “I want to ask for your advice, like I said. There’s a lot going on, even right at this moment. A fuckton, I’ll say. Maybe you don’t realize it, but the world does not revolve around you, Carl. I could snap your soft, fragile little neck right now if I so desired, and not much would change. But I won’t do that, because I already have other plans for you. Bigger plans. Better plans. Right? So, how’s that sound for shutting up?”
He kept braiding my hair as he talked. He was doing some sort of pattern no one else had done before, tugging each strand tight before adding it to the braid. I got the message, though, loud and clear. I was way out of my depth here, at the mercy of the AI’s whims, and I’d better act accordingly. I felt sick. I kept my mouth shut.
Once he reached the tips of my hair, he brought the braid over my shoulder and gave it to me. Bewildered, I took the braid, pinching the ends together so it wouldn’t unravel. I stared at the intricate pattern he had created.
“Hold that for me, will you”, Gary told me before diving to the floor. “I dropped the fucking hair tie. I could summon another, sure, but I want this one. It’s cute. Britney gave it to you. It has sentimental value.”
I hadn’t said a thing about the hair ties, but sure. I looked at Orren again. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. I wondered if he was speaking to someone I couldn’t see or hear.
I yelped when something suddenly brushed against my overly sensitive foot. I jumped out of my chair so fast my head spun. Gary had his clawed hand wrapped around my right ankle, and he tugged on it, nearly making me lose balance. The look on his face was absolutely deranged. Hungry. He groaned, long and deep.
“Jesus Christ”, I gasped, trying to pull my foot away. There was simply no chance. His grip was like iron, and I was so, so weak. I had to lean against the table to keep myself upright.
Gary brought my foot up to his lips. My toes dipped into his salivating mouth, and suddenly Orren was also standing up. Palms pressed against the tabletop, he leaned forward, his voice booming like I’d never heard before.
“Avatar, please”, he demanded. “I must insist we continue the meeting. We need to return the crawler back to the dungeon as soon as it is convenient.”
And just like that, Gary let me go. I staggered, thrown off-balance once again. Gary jumped up, the little elastic band pinched between his fingers. “Got it!” he said, like nothing had even happened. He took the end of the braid from my trembling fingers and tied it off. The finished braid fell thick and heavy against my back as Gary stepped away.
He took a swig of his bottle of vodka and settled back into his chair. Orren also sat down, but his posture was tense. I kept standing, for just a moment longer, looking at Gary from the corner of my eye. He seemed distracted by something and was no longer looking at me at all.
I sat down. I had to resist the urge to lean down and rub my still-prickling foot.
Gary slammed the bottle on the desk and gave Orren a chilling grin. “Hey, want to see something really cool?”
It was back to business after that – but, even after the zero zone was removed, even after their attention was turned away from me to Princess Formidable, the first time I was truly able to draw a full breath was after Donut was teleported to me. I sat there for the rest of the meeting, hand buried in Donut’s soft fur, and wondered if showing my head back into Samantha’s neck hole might actually be worth it.
Shanty Town – The Nest Tower Base
Katia grabbed a strand of my hair and raised an eyebrow. “I see we’re not tying our hair back anymore.”
I shook my head. The braid Gary – well, the System AI – had created had been nearly indestructible. Despite it only using Britney’s hair tie that came from outside the dungeon, it had done something to it. I hadn’t been able to dismantle the hairdo even in the shower and not a strand had gotten out of place no matter what I did. People kept asking about the insanely complicated, perfectly maintained braid I suddenly had, and it had gotten pretty difficult to change the subject. Thankfully, the hair tie had finally disintegrated during the explosion I had thrown onto myself inside Club Vanquisher.
I hadn’t tied my hair back since.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” I said to Katia. “Besides, with my new hairbrush, it’s easier to keep it out.”
Katia laughed. I didn’t.
I had gotten a goddamn hairbrush from my Celestial box. I sighed. The AI really knew how to play this game.
Katia must’ve noticed I wasn’t feeling it. She dropped the strand of hair and touched my arm instead.
“Yeah”, she said gently. “It’s good either way. Just don’t let Elle pressure you into another session.”
I remembered how pissed off Elle had gotten thinking about her old customers from seventy years ago, and the ridiculous hair style she’d given me just before I walked up to meet King Rust of the Skull Empire.
How fucking absurd.
I smiled at Katia, and it felt almost genuine. “No”, I agreed. “Never again.”