The Suit War

Four

"Get where?" I asked as I start to follow. He stopped dead in his tracks, causing me to accidentally bump into him. "What?"

"Not. A. Word," he said, glaring at me.

"Okay, okay," I said before pretending to zip my mouth shut.

After nearly half an hour of walking through different parts of town and through some wooded areas, passing signs that said, "Now Entering District 8" and "Now Entering District 9," Winder and I arrived in front of a house. Did I say house? I meant mansion! This place was huge! At first glance, I thought I was at the Royal House of Diamonds. "Where are we?" I asked him quietly, speaking up for the first time since we'd left District 7.

"My house," he answered nonchalantly. "C'mon, we can talk inside."

As soon as I stepped inside the mansion, I did a 360-turn inside the grand foyer. Aside from the incredible interior design work, the first thing I noticed was the cool air conditioning, something I was not used to experiencing in the desert-like climate of Sector 4. "My parents aren't home right now," he said as I took it all in.

"You live with your parents?" I asked him, looking back down from the gold chandelier hanging right above my head. "Like, your real parents?"

"Uh yeah, don't you?" Winder said, as if my question was absolutely absurd.

"No ... my real parents got rid of me when I was two years old," I confessed.

"Oh ..." he responded quietly, as if he just remembered that most aces didn't have it as lucky as he did. "My bad."

"It's fine." I walked over to the hallway table, which had a bunch of framed pictures standing on it. As I stepped closer, I realized that most of them were pictures of Winder when he was little. The only current picture of him I saw was the one of him posing next to who I assumed to be his mother and father in a portrait posted on the wall above the table. He looked just like his mom. I picked up a picture of a preschooler-looking Winder wearing elbow pads, kneepads, and a helmet as he sat on a tricycle and grinned widely for the camera. "Wow," I said as I studied the picture.

"Yeah," he said, taking the picture from me. "Let's not look at those."

"Aw, but they're so cute." I wish I had pictures like that.

"They're so embarrassing." Winder then walked down a long hallway, motioning for me to follow. "No one wants to see a bunch of pictures of 'Little Winder Growing Up.'"

"You're lucky to have biological parents that care so much about you." I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't jealous. As we walked, I couldn't help but be in awe at my fairytale-palace-like surroundings. Never in a million, billion years did I think that I'd ever step foot in a place as extravagant as this.

"Yeah," Winder agreed half-heartedly. "I guess it's kinda rare for an ace to have parents who accept him."

"Kinda rare? Try super rare."

"Yeah well, those same parents are also super-overprotective and have to know what I'm doing twenty-four-seven." I was actually in shock that he had anything to complain about-I'd love to see him try to walk a day in my shoes.

I soon found myself in a massive living room area-it looked to be as big as Lark and Ilyx's entire cottage! "This place is huge," I told him, hoping that changing the subject would keep me from going off on him about how he should be grateful for what he's got.

He shrugged. "That's what happens when your mom and dad are a nine and eight of Diamonds."

"Must be nice to have parents that are so well off." I sat down on the sofa chair. "I don't even think my real parents could afford any of this."