She needed a believable something that would give her hours of privacy. And then she had it. Cramps, she was having cramps. Her hands went around her stomach and she made her face look pained.
"Laurel... Uhm, I think I am going to die." She looked at her friend, stifling a soft giggle, but making sure to keep the pain lines etched into her forehead.
"Oh, for crying out loud, Ams! You’re not going to bloody die from your period. If my implanted memory serves me right, no woman in the history of the human race has ever died from it. Or maybe you will, and we'll all erect a statue to you for finally managing to be the first at something...."
She bought it. "Ams" was a show of affection and a break of the protocol. The girls weren't allowed to use nicknames. Nobody here had one, except for her, and that was an old gift from Laurel, one she only used when Amelia was sick or in pain. Or when she was sad after thinking about what might have happened to her family that her implant wasn't telling her.
She put the remnants of her food on her tray and snuck a breakfast bar under the belt-line of her pants, leaned over to Laurel, and kissed her cheek.
"I am going to curl up in the old library with some awful book. Have a fantastic day of roaming the halls without me, friend." She got up, still acting in pain, and walked rather slowly to the door. She knew her roommates would take care of making her bed, and they'd fold her clothes and wipe down her work space.
She started up the stairs to the loft at a run, taking them two at a time, as was now her habit, but then stopped on step 746, heart pounding. She hadn’t done any thinking yet. What the hell was she running up there for, if she hadn't come up with a way of dealing with this Riley problem? Yet something was compelling her to go up there. She needed to talk to him, or rather to get him to tell her what he wasn't telling her. She could threaten his life, of course, but so far nothing but the maid band even made him show fear. Who would be afraid of a piece of metal but not afraid to die?
She went the rest of the way up to the loft, slowly, trying to remember what she knew about the bands, but nothing clicked. As far as she knew, only compounds had maids and as such maid bands. They weren't something he'd ever run into in his world, but he acted as if he knew what it was, and it scared him.
She was almost at the top and paused again. A part of her wished for this morning to not have happened at all. "You’re a coward, Ams," Laurel's voice in her head chided her. That she was, at least compared to her friend. She made it this far now, and logic dictated she keep going. Few more steps to the door and she was in. She let her eyes adjust to the dark before walking to the den where she had left him. He was lying face down on the naked metal of the bed, his bound hands outstretched in front of him, eyes closed. He looked very much asleep and extremely uncomfortable.
She leaned over and touched her finger to the ID pad of the band. It slid open, and she threw it on the small shelf behind the bed, just out of reach. Now she remembered that she put her gun into the alcove on the way to the kitchen and never replaced it. She was unarmed, and he was no longer bound. She stepped back, ready to run if need be, and suddenly feeling very much afraid. She waited, but the boy didn't move.
She flicked the small light on then, and looked closer at the prone form, thinking that he may have died while she was gone. Worried that his injuries were worse than the bruises she saw. She should have helped him fix them if she weren't such a bloody coward... His back moved, rhythmically, she could see it now, and then she saw a multitude of dark burgundy streaks showing through the tan cotton of his tee-shirt.
These couldn't be from the fall; nobody bruised like that. She stared at the thin, dark lines that cut diagonal patterns across his back. How was he still alive after that fall with his back like this? Who would do that to a child? And he looked very much like a child now. She had to see how bad it was; had to know if she could somehow help him. Doing anything at all was better than looking at his back and thinking, imagining…. The blood drying like this would make it impossible to take the shirt off without breaking his skin. She ran to the sink, soaked a clean washcloth in warm water, and put it gently to his back, letting the water soak into the shirt. He didn't move. She couldn't even see him breathing. She had to soak the rag four more times until she got all the caked-on blood to dissolve. Her hands shook. She couldn't tell if it was from fear of what she’d see, or from hurting him, or from fear of him waking up and lunging for her.
Slowly, she lifted the bottom of his now heavy shirt over his back, even this dim light catching every one of the slashes, twenty-six in all. She let the shirt fall back down again. She couldn't do this. Nobody taught her how to do this; how to look at so many slices made, as if by a knife into someone's flesh. She stifled a sob.
"It's okay, Amelia... I'm okay."
She jumped back at his words. He wasn't asleep after all.
He sat up looking at her face, then stood.
She took another step back from him. He didn't seem to mind or to notice. He went past her to the sink, pulled off his soaked shirt, and started washing all the blood out of it. She watched, horror-stricken, as some of the scars opened up and fresh red blood streamed down his back. She had to get him to the med floor. He needed a doctor. She wasn't trained for any of this, not yet. She could maybe give someone a shot in an emergency, or splint a broken bone, but not this.
She felt tears run down her face in hot streams, too much water to hide from him. She walked back into the den, found the maid band, and locked it inside the panel of the wall. She didn't want him to see it again. She stood there with her back to him, trying to get her tears to stop and her breathing to return to her normal inaudible soft inhales and exhales, but it wasn't working.
She was suddenly dead tired, and sadder than she ever remembered being. And she was angry. For the first time in her life, she was angry. Then she surprised herself by knowing with absolute certainty that she was no longer afraid of this strange boy. He seemed far too broken to ever hurt anyone but himself.
6
Rosemary
Riley, March 28, 2236, Female Replenishers Compound
Riley didn't know what to make of the girl. She was still crying into the wall, facing away from him, not wanting him to see it. He knew what it felt like to not want to cry in front of people. He walked over to the dusty window on the other side of the loft, put his hands behind his back, and looked out onto the lawn.
The part of the wall he jumped over seemed too high for him to have made out as well as he did. Lucky, that. He was always lucky in that way though. It's the other things he had no luck in. The guard tower had a thin stream of smoke spilling out through the roof. Drake must have been making some tea with that grass he added to it that you could smell on his breath. Drake wouldn't turn him in even if he saw him fall, but he might come looking for him, and that could be dangerous. He had to be more careful. He took a few steps back so that he couldn't be seen from the tower or the lawn.
He felt the girl's soft steps behind him. She was going to have to figure out what to do, but he needed for it to not take much longer. Something was breaking inside of him, softening when he was around her. It made him feel vulnerable, and he couldn't afford that now. Maybe ever. He couldn't even lie to her. That stupid bit of owning up to what happened to her family. Beyond stupid, and he didn't even know if it were true, just that it could have been. She could have taken him to Hassinger then. Maybe she should have. He needed a bloody lesson in keeping his mouth shut. And her soaking his back with warm water nearly broke him. It hurt so much, he couldn't breathe, and not in the way his scars hurt. He had to end this.
This would be easier not looking at her tear-streaked face, so he stayed as he was, hands still clasped behind his back. "I can't tell you what you want to know, Amelia. Knowing won't do you any good, and it might put someone else in danger, and I can't let that happen. You are going to have to do whatever you need to do with me without knowing anything else. I’m sorry."
He waited thr
ough minutes of silence, and then finally turned around, and there she was as if frozen in place, staring at him with those impossibly big eyes. Her face had splotches of red and pink from all the crying, and the freckles were back. What could she possibly want from me? Let me be or don't, little girl. I can't hurt you. The staring disagreed with him. His back ached. He could feel the scars burning, grateful that he wasn't dizzy yet from blood loss.
She walked toward him, handing him something she held in her small hand - a bar, a bloody breakfast bar. He wanted to laugh at the craziness of it. This scared, jumpy little girl didn't trust him not to hurt her without the slave band but brought him breakfast. He took it from her trembling hand and walked back to the den. He heard her trailing behind him, could feel her breathing a few meters back.
He wished he had another shirt to put on, one that wasn't soaked and drying on the sink, so she didn't have to look at his scars, but he couldn't help that now. She'd already seen them, and she didn't strike him as an idiot, so she'd know by now they weren't from the fall. He sat down on the edge of the bed, leaving her to straddle the chair. She was going to pry. He would as well if it had been him, not knowing. He had to let her then. She would give up, and either shoot him, turn him in, or let him be. For the first time, he noticed she didn't have the gun on her. She must have forgotten it somewhere. That didn't bode well. He didn't want her to be too frightened, couldn't afford for her to scream.
He got up and walked to the closest armor alcove, took down a stun gun, and walked back to where she sat, unmoving, mortified. "Here, take this and point it at me," he said softly. He flicked the safety off while handing it to her, handle first, and sat down on the bed, not two meters away from her. She didn't strike him as someone who'd ever fired one of these, but at this distance, even a toddler would hit the target. She should feel in control again. He needed her to feel in control.
"Riley," the girl said, barely above a whisper. Her gun hand dangled uselessly over the back of the chair.
He was paying attention to that hand for some reason. She called him by name. He didn't like hearing his name from her lips.
She looked up at him, swallowed. "Some of your wounds need stitches. There is an old medkit on the floor below. It's unoccupied now. It should have the basics, a needle, and thread at least. I can try to stitch them up, but I don't have any way of getting you pain meds or HealX without going to the Med floor, and there is always someone there ..." She trailed off, looking down at her feet now, anywhere but his face. "I don't know if you can take it, the pain, or if I can do it right, but they look too deep to heal on their own." She peeked up at him again, her eyes still wet looking, but she wasn’t crying, and he was thankful for that.
There was sadness or maybe pity in the way she was looking at him. He didn't know if their implants included feelings; if that was even possible. Did she feel pain at the loss of her dog, Blanche, she said its name was? Did she miss his smell, the impossibly soft fur on the top of his head, or was it just a name to her? Yet this, her looking at him with so much sadness, no, probably pity, this felt real, and it made him ache deep down in a way he hadn't ached in a very long time. He had no right to hurt this girl. He didn't ask for her to find him this morning, but she didn't ask for it either.
Still, he could tell she was hurting now. He could try to just send her away, beg for her to pretend this never happened, and let him be. Something in those sad eyes of hers told him that wouldn't work. He got that too. He didn't think he'd walk away in her place either. But this, hurting her, had to stop. And yet, she could be useful, and she seemed to want to help him. Maybe that, helping him, would be enough for her to go back to her almost-wife life, thinking about the boy she'd make babies with, the nobility of her purpose, or whatever it was they made them believe to make them so happy and docile about the whole thing.
Think, stupid. Wounds, stitches. No more agonizing pain after this. Could he do it without screaming was really what she was asking. He'd be risking her life as much as his if he did scream. He knew that much, even if she didn't. He couldn't ask her to do that; couldn't ask her to risk that. So he had to be certain he didn't scream, had to find a way not to. He didn't remember screaming with Hassinger. He was pretty sure he didn't, but he was too embarrassed to ask Drake. This can't be as bad though. He couldn't imagine anything ever hurting as much as that did. So this, this he could do. He had to. He nodded to her, finally, dismissing her on her errand, and leaned back, exhausted from the strain of keeping it together and the strain of trying to ignore the agonizing pain from the slices in his back.
He drifted to sleep, hoping he was too tired to dream, to relive that last walk home. He wasn't. He could almost smell the impending melting of the snow, the stale greenery still trapped beneath the bark and under the coal dust-colored, iced over banks that would soon be dripping away in tiny gray streaks and then turn to slush underfoot. Few blocks to the little shack of a house, to Samson... the little grave he never knew about. He jerked awake with a start, Samson's collar on the floor of the mudroom blurring into non-being from his memory.
The girl was at the sink filling up a bowl with steaming water. The gun was off and on the shelf behind him, within easy reach of him, but not her. Just as well. She couldn't shoot him. He thought as much when he first saw her staring at him, scared, pointing the gun at him and terrified of it going off. Some people just weren't wired to kill, even if they thought of you as the enemy.
She walked over to him, carrying the opened med kit in one hand and the water in the other. She had him straddle the chair and grab the back so he didn't fall. He had no intention of falling, but he complied. An impossibly warm, wet towel gently soaked his back. If not for the open wounds, he would have enjoyed it. Even with that, it felt entirely too familiar, too soft and warm, too comforting. He hadn't had anyone wash him since long before they lost Ella. He could barely remember the touch of his mother's hands on his back... This suddenly felt too intimate. Too personal somehow. He couldn't do this. Not the stitching, but this gentle, warm washing away, this touch.
He bolted upright, facing her, looking at this gentle girl, her eyes liquid silver, ready to spill tears again at any moment, and the ache got worse. "I'm sorry, Amelia... I'm sorry, but I can't." And inexplicably, he had to turn away from her, hide his face. He would have run if there was anywhere for him to run to, but all he could do was walk away from her.
He made his way to the back of the den, into the semi-darkness, sat down on the floor, and put his head into his hands. He was being a weakling, a whimpering little boy, a coward. He needed for his mind to just go blank for once. He needed to not think at all, if only for a little while. He sat there, willing himself into the lull of not quite sleep, that in-between place where his dreams couldn't chase him. Time, he was wasting time. He bit his bottom lip, hard. He felt the trickle of liquid tickle its way down his chin, tasted the tinny salt of it. Stupid, idiot, moron child... He needed to calm the hell down and let the girl stitch his wounds. He could bear it, he had to.
He slid up the wall and walked back toward the loft, looking for her. "Amelia." This came out more croaky than he would have liked. And then he saw her, sobbing into her knees, crouched under the shelf with the gun on it, her tiny shoulders rising and falling fast.
He knelt in front of her, not accustomed to comforting anyone, not quite knowing how to. He tentatively patted her hair. Samson always liked when he did that. Samson, the dog. He was taking cues from his dog. He was thinking too much. Overthinking. He just needed to hold her, tell her that it wasn't her fault, that she didn't do this to him; that it was something else, something she couldn't fix any more than he could. It wasn't something anyone could fix, but no words came out. She looked so small and so helpless. Without a word, he reached over and folded her small form into his arms, nestling her head on his chest, and rocked her, stroking her hair, breathing into it, waiting for the sobs to stop.
He calculated they still had a few hours left before
dinner. That was the good news. But this girl was too fragile. He didn't think she could stitch him up now, not after he bolted like that. Not without him telling her something, only there wasn't anything he could tell her to make this any easier for her. He was angry at himself for reacting so stupidly, for letting it get to him like that.
The girl was breathing softly now, head still on his chest, the wetness cooling. The sobbing was over, at last. He disengaged, stood up, and walked over to the sink, turning the water on to hot until he could see the steam wafting from the faucet. He refilled the bowl and cleaned the blood off the washcloth she was using and brought it to the chair.
The two enormous eyes were watching him.
"I am sorry. I really need you to do this, if you think you are up to it. I won't bolt." His voice was back to normal at least, nothing shaky there, nothing of the little boy. He slumped into the chair and dug his hands into the cold metal bars.
He could hear small streams of water dripping into the bowl as she wrung out the towel. He needed to not scare her, needed to let her do this, and so he did. After too long of holding his breath, of holding his insides from breaking apart, the washing was done. He heard her empty and refill the bowl again, heard her fumble through the kit for the needle and thread, and not for the first time hoped she could do this.
The first time she put the needle in was all wrong. He could tell she wasn't going deep enough.
He would have to help guide her. "You need to go through all the layers, Amelia, otherwise there is no point." He hoped his voice didn't sound pained. He had to breathe. He needed to think about something other than these untrained tiny hands poking holes in his back. But he couldn't turn this off.
Alliance: The Complete Series (A Dystopian YA Box Set Books 1-5): Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller Page 5