Inherent Cost

by Alicia Cameron

  Dane launched himself across the room, grabbing at the medical equipment and throwing it left and right, digging through for something.

  Jere just watched, letting him have his moment of grief. Wren glanced at him for guidance, but Jere shook his head.

  “Can you go handle the clinic?” he asked Wren. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed or how many patients had shown up, but he could hear people. Hurt, angry, scared people were filling his clinic, and someone had to be out there. “Lock the door from the outside when you go.”

  Wren nodded, dodging Dane as he slipped out the door. Jere didn’t really want to be trapped in a room with a grieving man, but he saw no other alternative. He watched, helpless, as his best friend’s slave found scalpels and sliced them into his skin haphazardly, as he found medications and took them without regard.

  Jere wondered just what victory they had really achieved. This was slavery. It was miserable and brutal, and he couldn’t demand that Dane contain himself. He was always so tightly controlled; he deserved a chance to lose control instead.

  Dane proceeded to try and destroy everything he could in the exam room, including himself. He didn’t come near Jere, didn’t even look at him, but Jere could feel his pain. There was nothing else to offer him. Slaves weren’t given funerals; Annika would probably view the death of her slave as nothing but an inconvenience. The rest of the Wysocka family would probably be too busy keeping up appearances. Jere watched silently, giving him the only things he had to offer—a slave exam room full of replaceable items and the privilege of breaking down completely.

  He waited until Dane exhausted himself, falling on the floor and sobbing. Jere went to him and placed him in an unconscious state, a hand on his head interrupting the flow of blood and oxygen to the conscious parts of his brain. Once that was completed, he healed the cuts and bruises Dane had inflicted on himself, cleared his body of the toxins he had poured into it, and did his best to avoid noticing how destroyed Dane was, even in the dream state. While it wasn’t as horrifying as Arae’s, it was still unpleasant, shut down, half-created, and the projection of Dane was as unresponsive as the real one.

  He withdrew quickly, the healing only taking a matter of minutes due to how recent the injuries and poisoning had been. When he did, Wren was back and waiting for him with a sedative. He didn’t even have to think about it before slipping the needle into Dane’s arm, injecting him with enough to keep him out for the rest of the night.

  Wren was helpful, as always, cleaning Dane up as well as possible, wiping the blood and tears off of his skin as neatly and proficiently as ever. He and Jere carried Dane out of the clinic and placed him in one of the spare rooms, tucking him tightly into bed and leaving him there, dreading the moment when he woke up.

  Chapter 36

  Waste

  Jere went to find Isis, who was hiding in her room, sitting in the far corner looking terrified.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” she asked, shaking.

  Jere nodded. “I couldn’t help her,” he admitted, feeling useless.

  “I can’t get it out of my head. Seeing her like that. Burned. Jere, she didn’t have an arm. She was missing her fucking left arm!”

  Jere shuddered. It had been too much for him to process. He had just taken in her general state, and then her dream state, but it was true.

  “Why?” Isis asked. “Is this because of the SRA?”

  Jere nodded, still feeling sick. “Yes. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but it did. This was never supposed to happen.”

  “I’m gonna stay in here for a while,” Isis said, not even moving from the spot she was curled into. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

  “It’s all right,” Jere said softly. “Have you hurt yourself?”

  Isis shook her head. “Can’t,” she admitted. “Too scared. I think of blood, and it makes me think of her.”

  “Okay,” Jere nodded. “Tell me if you need anything later.”

  Isis nodded, putting her head on her arms and sitting there. Despite her limited psychic presence, Jere could feel how viscerally upset she was, how terribly this had bothered her. Confusion and regret and guilt swirled around, and Jere could feel his own emotions bleeding back and forth between them, increasing it on both sides. He pulled back on his own connection, letting her have her space, focusing on Wren. Unsurprisingly, Wren was handling this well. He wasn’t pleased about it, but of course, Jere wouldn’t have expected him to be pleased about it. Wren might be a little callous sometimes, but he didn’t actually enjoy it when other people suffered. He was apathetic, and Jere envied him that.

  He walked out of Isis’s room, leaving the door slightly ajar in case she needed anything, and came to stand in the living room, lost. Wren came up and held him tight, providing Jere with the strength and security that he needed to even be able to think.

  “We knew it was going to happen one day,” Wren said quietly. “Annika is a fucking monster.”

  “I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Jere replied. “And Dane....”

  “He’ll be all right,” Wren reminded him. “It’s amazing what people can live through. And the rest of the patients need their doctor if they’re going to continue to live.”

  Jere wanted to just stay in Wren’s arms, but he couldn’t. How had they been celebrating less than an hour ago?

  “Aw, fuck.” Paltrek’s voice cut through Jere’s reverie, and he turned to find his friend standing just inside the doorway; in the chaos, the door had been left wide open, and Paltrek had clearly taken that as an invitation to let himself in.

  He looked at Wren and Jere without a thought or judgment of the position they were in, and shook his head. “She fucking killed the girl, didn’t she?”

  Jere nodded. Normally, he would have made at least some effort to move himself out of Wren’s arms, but not tonight. Everything had been too stressful, too terrible, and Paltrek already knew enough about Jere’s private life anyway. What did it matter if he saw Jere cuddling with his slave, or his partner? Paltrek knew that they were one and the same, and Jere had just tried to revive his sister’s dead slave. The time for secrets was over.

  “I tried, Jeremy. I heard what they were doing, and I got there as fast as I could. I had to fucking drag her out of there. They were on her like... like vultures, you know? Everyone ripping and cutting and burning and—”

  “Please don’t describe it,” Jere interrupted him, forcing himself to sit up. “I saw what she looked like. I’d rather not hear the details.”

  “I tried to stop her, I told her that our father would be furious at her for making a scene, I told her it was illegal, I told her she was being a horrible, awful bitch, but she just kept going!” Paltrek shook his head. “And so did the rest of them. Arae... she wasn’t the only one, Jere. There were five, at least, as far as I could tell.”

  Jere shook his head. “What the fuck is wrong with them? Why now?”

  Paltrek shrugged. “I need a drink,” he muttered. “Where’s Dane?”

  “Sedated in the guest room,” Jere told him.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Jere could feel the fury emanating from him. “Paltrek, don’t be angry at him, he needed—”

  “Don’t fucking accuse me of being angry at him, Jeremy!” Paltrek snapped, standing up and walking toward the liquor cabinet on his own for the first time that Jere had ever seen. “I’m not a fucking monster like they are. I’m angry, but not at him, and not at you. I’m angry at my sister, and at the people she associates with, and I’m angry at myself and my father for not trying to stop this sooner. Jesus, Arae was a good girl, and Dane is going to be fucking crushed over this, and none of it should have happened!”

  He stormed out, returning a few seconds later with a half-full bottle of vodka and draining a good portion of what was in it.

  “You were there when they released the vote and said the SRA passed,” Paltrek continued, barely blinking as the alcohol burned his throat. “I sa
w you, and I saw you and Wren take off just a few minutes later, which was the smart thing to do. The fucking police should have made everyone disperse, but they didn’t, they thought they had it under control. I don’t know if you were there when the fights were breaking out, but everything got worse, people kept picking at each other, and then the people who were against the SRA decided to hold a grand demonstration to show how damaging the new SRA really was.”

  “By breaking all the laws of it?” Jere asked, shaking his head. It was possibly the stupidest demonstration he had ever heard of, but then, riot mentality never was that logical to begin with.

  “The SRA doesn’t pass into law until tomorrow,” Paltrek told him. “Because of the health risks, they’re rushing it into effect, but they want to give everyone until tomorrow to find out about the results and make changes accordingly. So these fucking assholes, they decide that the best way to exercise their rights ‘while they still have them’ is to do... that. To beat up their slaves. To kill them. While it’s still legal.”

  “To prove what!” Jere demanded.

  “How the fuck should I know?” Paltrek asked, taking another long pull from the vodka bottle. “Goddamn animals that they are. I think they just did it to ruin everything. Nobody was fucking celebrating once that started. People were screaming, running... the sounds from the slaves as they burned, as—”

  Jere held up his hand. “No details,” he reminded Paltrek.

  Paltrek nodded. “Anyway, it escalated into a riot. I did what I could, but it just wasn’t enough. I couldn’t get to her fast enough, and when I did, they fucking pushed me back, telling me to keep my hands off of someone else’s property. The only reason I even grabbed Arae when I did was because they had already thrown her on the pile of bodies.”

  Jere shuddered at that image, and felt Wren responding similarly next to him.

  “I gave her to Dane, hoping there would be something you could do,” Paltrek admitted. “And then I got into it with my sister, and our father was there as well, and he came by, and we fucking dragged her home. She’s screaming bloody fucking murder the whole time about how we’re assaulting her, how we’re hurting her, after what she just did to that girl. First time in a long time that Daddy and I have agreed on something, but she was making us look like shit, and she needed to be off the street. Things are bad out there, Jere, I’m surprised the clinic hasn’t gotten hit with emergencies yet.”

  Jere shook his head. “It has. It’s not as bad as it could be. There are a few other healers out there, from other states, other counties. They came to support the passage of the SRA. You know, solidarity from the medical field. They must be handling most of it, at least for now.”

  “The patients in the clinic are the ones who got away quickly,” Wren supplied. “But they’re getting more severe.”

  Jere knew he was needed, and Paltrek seemed to get the hint. He got up and left, muttering something about making sure his slave was alive and unharmed. Jere knew fully well that Dane was fine, and he suspected that Paltrek knew the same. He was relieved to see his friend care so much.

  Jere didn’t have much time to reflect on Paltrek and Dane’s relationship; he had injured patients to heal. He and Wren made their way to the clinic, where Jere gagged at the lingering odor of burnt flesh and death. There was still a corpse to be disposed of.

  “I’ll deal with it,” Wren said quietly, giving Jere’s hand a quick squeeze before taking off.

  Jere wanted to cry. He couldn’t imagine handling any of this without Wren; he couldn’t even imagine spending a day in this house without him.

  He was glad that the ban on treating slaves in his clinic had been lifted, because there were a number of slaves and free people with injuries ranging from cuts and burns to more gory disfigurements. Between him and Wren, they were able to keep up with the flow, clearing all the patients from the waiting room long enough for a break. He came back inside, finding Paltrek sitting next to Dane, his expression as empty as the liquor bottle next to him.

  Finally, Paltrek picked his head up. “How’d Dane take it?” he asked, his expression hardened and waiting for the news.

  Jere shook his head. “Not so well. That’s why he’s sedated.”

  Paltrek shook his head. “Jesus, did he do anything I should be concerned about? I’d hate to have to come down on him after he’s been through something like this.”

  Jere felt irritated at Paltrek for even suggesting such a thing. He couldn’t even formulate a response.

  “He’s just trying to keep things normal, babe,” Wren cautioned him. “He feels horrible, look at him! He doesn’t know any other way to respond. This is something he can deal with.”

  Jere relaxed a little, realizing that what Wren said was true. He forced himself to look at Paltrek, and he did look terrible. He looked closely, and saw a bruise on the side of his friend’s face.

  “Are you hurt?” Jere asked surprised. “I can heal it if you want.”

  Paltrek shook his head. “Annika got a few good punches in on me,” he admitted. “And I started a fistfight with someone when the results came out. Don’t bother healing it.”

  Jere nodded. If Paltrek wanted to suffer with the pain, he would let him. “Dane got a little self-destructive. He’s devastated. His sister just died. He needs support.”

  Paltrek nodded. “Figured,” he answered. He finished the bottle. “That fucking bitch sister of mine,” he muttered.

  “Yeah,” Jere echoed.

  “Is it okay if I stay here tonight?” Paltrek asked. “I’m not about to carry Dane home, and you’re probably right. I should be here with him.”

  Jere nodded. “Yeah, of course. Do you want us to get another room ready, or—”

  Paltrek shook his head. “Dane sleeps in my bed all the time,” he admitted. “I don’t mind sharing with him. Fuck, right now, I just want to make sure he doesn’t just fucking off himself.”

  Jere went quiet, nodding his agreement.

  Paltrek’s eyes widened. “Jesus, he tried, didn’t he? You think he’s going to? I’ll beat his ass if he tries to kill himself on my watch!”

  Jere actually mustered a smile at that threat. It sounded cruel, but it was so well-intentioned and heartfelt that he couldn’t help appreciating it.

  “It wasn’t a very coherent attempt,” Jere informed him. “I think he just wanted to destroy something. He’s hurting. Take care of him.”

  “Yeah,” Paltrek agreed. “God, I drank too much. And I can still remember it. The screams... this was sick, Jeremy.”

  “You want a sedative, too?” Jere suggested, only half-joking.

  “Don’t tempt me,” Paltrek muttered. “No, I’ll just go to bed. Thank you for trying with Arae. I knew it was probably going to be futile, but I just had to try. For her, and for Dane.”

  Jere nodded. He had felt exactly the same way. He wondered if everything they had been trying for during the past few months was for nothing. It might feel different in the morning, but right now, it felt like such a terrible waste.

  Chapter 37

  Benefits

  Jere wanted nothing more than to find peace and solace in Wren’s arms for hours, but the peace didn’t last long. He managed the ever-quickening pace at the clinic, wishing it would all go away. If there were riots now, Jere wondered what would happen in the upcoming weeks. More riots? More demonstrations? His faith in the Hojer police department wasn’t strong enough to believe that they would have this under control.

  “It’s just temporary,” Wren told him, trying to be comforting. “It will calm down once the SRA is officially passed. Once the demonstrations are over, it will be better.”

  “Better for who?” Jere asked. “Sure as hell not for Arae. Or the others. Wren, did you hear him? Paltrek? There was a pile of bodies. How many makes up a pile, do you think? Four? Five? Twenty—I don’t even know how to begin to process this!”

  Wren held him tight. “I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Obviously, no
ne of them were in a good situation anyway; otherwise, this never would have happened. No master or mistress who is kind to a slave is going to do a thing like this just to prove a point.”

  “It’s my fault,” Jere insisted. “I brought this thing here. I was the one who pushed for it, who spearheaded it. If I had never started this bullshit—”

  Wren silenced him with a kiss. “Think of the alternatives, Jere. Would you really want things to stay the way they were?”

  “I don’t want things to be the way they are now.”

  “This will stop,” Wren reminded him. “The law will go into effect, the police will control it. This is temporary. What the laws were like before? Those problems were always a risk. What happened to Isis last year, what happened to me after the speed train accident? Being taken for evaluation? None of those things will ever happen again.”

  Jere nodded, still not entirely convinced.

  “We both saw the massive number of healers and doctors out there—this is spreading. This is just the start. You helped to change things, to make things better for slaves. For us. It’s becoming a national trend. All the reasons that you gave at the press conferences? Those weren’t lies, Jere, and you know it. You were telling people the truth. Hell, you were protecting some of their rights to have slaves and treat them as they wanted, without audits like we faced. The people who are fighting this so hard... their slaves would have ended up like this anyway. Maybe not all on the same day, but that’s how they would have ended up.”

  Jere shook his head, still haunted by the image of Arae’s body, and the imagined image of a pile of similarly destroyed bodies. “Maybe they would have sold them or something,” he muttered.

  “What, to get a new one?”

  It was a cold thought, but Jere knew it was true. He hated to think about it, but it was true. “They’ll just get new ones now,” he pointed out.

  “Not before the SRA goes into effect tomorrow,” Wren reminded him. “And besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of them got arrested. Not for what they did to their slaves tonight, that was unfortunately legal, but for the fights and destruction they caused. You saw it, just like I did. Those things aren’t legal here, and they can carry hefty fines and even jail time.”