A, B, C, D … H … K.
Alexander King.
She looks up at the clock on the wall.
It’s almost three a.m.. Would he even answer?
*************************
Twenty minutes later, she waits on the curb outside a Sentinel District apartment building, two blocks from her home. She paces nervously back and forth, her bleeding hand dripping onto the sidewalk.
She should’ve grabbed a jacket, but didn’t, and now the cool night air is chilling her to the bone. She’s shivering beneath her Cadet uniform, and she can barely feel the fingers of her left hand.
Suddenly, the door to the building is thrown wide open and her heart leaps. Alex, tired and fraught, hurries down the steps to meet her. Rocking bed head and civilian clothes—jeans and a t-shirt, with a jacket thrown over top—he looks unkempt, but perfect nonetheless.
“You want to tell me what the fuck is going on?” he growls at her. “‘Cause I’d really love to know what kind of emergency has the Hunter General’s daughter getting me out of bed at three o’clock in the morning, and how she even got my number.”
“I raped my papa’s PDA.”
“Awesome. Now tell me why I shouldn’t report you for misconduct.”
All she has to do is hold up her hand, and his anger melts instantly into concern.
“Oh, geez …” He ruffles a quick hand through his hair. “What did you do?”
He takes up her hand and tears away the soaked strip of pillowcase, revealing the deep, jagged gouge, cut right through to her bone.
“Shit …”
The blood-soaked fabric hits the ground in a sloppy mess.
“I need your help, Mr. King.” Ella holds back tears. “There was no-one else I could call.”
“Your father?”
Ella shakes her head. “He can’t know about this.”
Alex clenches his jaw. “He’s my boss.”
“He’ll blow a gasket, and I’m already in enough trouble as it is.”
“No offense, but that’s not my problem. I’m on good terms with your papa, and I intend to keep it that way.”
“Look, I just need you to get me to the hospital. You can go ahead and leave me there if you want. If you don’t want people to see us together, that’s fine. I don’t care. Just, please, take me to the fucking hospital. Or give me the keys to your car.” She holds her good hand out expectantly.
He laughs heartily at that. “Yeah, right.”
Taking her by the arm, he leads her toward a beat up Old World car that’s parked at the side of the street.
“I’ll take you to the hospital, but I won’t stay. I can’t.” He unlocks the car. “Get in.”
Ella grimaces at the banged up hunk of junk on wheels. “That’s your car?”
“Do you want a ride, or not? Until I have ten years of safe driving on my record, my company vehicle requires that anyone getting into my car—including me—has to swipe their tag. My driving habits are monitored by the insurance agency more closely than a squirrel guards nuts, and the last thing I need is for you to show up on my list of passengers. You understand?”
She does.
They both get in, Alex still complaining.
“Your papa would discharge me on the spot if he ever found out about this.”
Ella rolls her eyes. “You’re exaggerating.”
“Am I? We’re breaking at least one Sentinel District law just by being in this car together.”
“There’s no law against a Hunter taking an injured Cadet to the hospital.”
“You’re a minor, and you shouldn’t be alone with an unmarried man my age. It’s considered indecent fraternization.”
“Oh, please. What could you possibly do to me that any boy my age wouldn’t do ten times as fast and not half as well?”
Alex has nothing to say to that.
A welcome distraction: Ella’s hand is bleeding all over his car.
“Check the glove compartment.” He points to it.
“What? Why?” She does as she’s told, getting blood all over everything in the process. “What am I looking for?”
Inside the glove compartment there’s a loaded gun, a street map, a lighter, cigarettes, and a pile of random papers. Alex leans over her, resting one hand on her knee and rummaging through the glove compartment with the other.
Ella doesn’t mind in the least.
Eventually, he pulls out a tie.
“Here”—he scoops up her bloody hand—“this’ll be good enough until we get you to the hospital.”
He wraps the tie tightly around her gaping wound, tying it there in a knot, not seeming to care that her blood is now all over him. Next, he reaches back into the glove compartment—his hand back on her knee—and withdraws the cigarettes and lighter.
By the time he retreats back into his own space, he’s left a nice, bloody handprint on her pants. Oblivious to that, he lights up, tossing the packet and lighter aside in a cup holder when he’s done.
Ella snatches them both up.
“Hey!” He grabs them back out of her hand. “Where the fuck do you think you are?”
“What’s the problem?”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re … and your papa …” He sighs, throwing the packet and lighter back into her lap. “Fuck it. Just do it. Whatever. I don’t wanna fight with you.”
“Thank you.” Ella lights up a cigarette. “My hand hurts like a sonofabitch.”
“I’ll bet.” Alex starts the engine and pulls away from the curb. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“Originally? Or lately?”
“Either, or both. Whatever will make the most sense.”
“Well, first, I sliced my palm open with a knife while I was trying to lure out a Chimera so that I could kill it.”
“Fieldwork?”
From behind the cigarette, “Uh-huh.”
“And then what happened?”
“I choked a Chimera to death with a rusty wire and it kind of tore stuff up in there a little bit.”
“A little bit? You’re cut to the bone. Have you had a tetanus shot?”
“I guess. Maybe. I mean, I don’t know.” She tries to remember. “I think it’s mandatory.”
Alex shakes his head, puffing on his cigarette. “I don’t understand, though. The Chimera you killed today … I thought you shot them all?”
“You heard about that?”
“The whole Division heard about that.”
“Fuck. Is there any chance you could pass on the message that it wasn’t me?”
“Is that the truth?”
“Why would I say it if it wasn’t? I only fired one shot, and it went into the skull of the animal I was sent to kill. I didn’t do anything wrong, they just want to make an example out of someone.”
“If you didn’t do it, then tell them who did. Let them make an example out of someone who’s actually guilty. I know nobody wants to be a snitch, but you don’t deserve to deal with shit like this. You’re too good for it.”
Some of the anger returns to his voice, and Ella is genuinely touched by the sentiment, but she’s confused about one thing …
“How do you know how good I am?”
“You’re the Hunter General’s daughter.”
“So? That doesn’t mean shit.” She won’t let him off the hook that easily. “How do you know how good I am, Mr. King?”
Alex looks away sheepishly. “Some of your taped training sessions might occasionally find their way into the Hunters’ lounge. That’s all I’m saying.”
Ella stares at him with her mouth wide open. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Be flattered. Other people are interested in your progress.”
“Which sessions?”
Alex stays quiet, but Ella won’t drop it.
“Which sessions, Mr. King?”
“Your private monthly assessments,” he admits begrudgingly, putting
the cigarette back to his lips.
Ella’s jaw drops lower. “Oh, my god. This has nothing to do with watching me perfect a back flip with the rest of my class. You filthy perverts just wanna get off while you watch me flex my bendy bits solo.”
“I think the other Hunters are interested in eyeing up the competition, that’s all.”
Interesting choice of words, Ella thinks.
The other Hunters.
“Oh, really?” She raises an eyebrow. “And what’re you interested in eyeing up?”
Alex hopes to deflect away from that little tongue-slip with a conversational one-eighty.
“You still haven’t explained to me how you cut up your hand.”
Ella knows what he’s doing, but she’s too tired to torment him about it. Instead, she pinches her cigarette between her lips and lifts up the edge of the tie to peer underneath at her pale, oozing hand. When she wiggles her fingers, she can see her tendons moving inside.
“So?” Alex pushes the subject.
“I can’t exactly tell you.”
Alex puts on his best disapproving voice. “Cadet …”
“Ella.”
“What?”
“That’s my name.”
“I know.”
“So use it, please.”
“I don’t think it would be appropriate for us to be on first name terms, Cadet. Do you?”
“It’s my fucking name.”
“I don’t care, and neither would your papa.”
Silence.
“Fine,” she relents. “Call me whatever you want. Damned if I give a shit anymore. Everyone else calls me names anyway, so you may as well join in.”
“What do other people call you?”
“One of the most recent slurs was ‘dyke’. Remember that?”
“He was out of line.” Alex looks apologetic. “I’m sorry for that. Who you fuck is none of his—”
“I’m not gay.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“I’m just saying.”
An awkward silence drops.
“Prodigy,” Ella says at last.
Alex has forgotten the question. “Huh?”
“That’s what they call me. Mostly behind my back.”
“Okay. Well, that’s not really an insult.”
“I’m not my father’s echo. I’m me. I’m not here to replicate his glory in battle.”
That strikes a chord with Alex. “Fair enough.” A puff of his cigarette. “I know how that one feels.” Another puff. “So, come on. You dodged the subject well, but we’re nearly there and I still don’t know how you messed up your hand.”
Ella looks distressed at the thought of breaking the confidence of her peers. “You can’t say a word. You have to promise.”
“Of course.”
“Especially not to my papa.”
“I never break my word, Cadet.”
Ella sighs, preparing to divulge her secrets. “Sometimes, the older Cadets borrow specimens from the Victuals and Vivisection wing. And by ‘borrow’, I mean ‘steal’.”
“Specimens? Like urine samples?”
Ella wrinkles up her face. “Eww, gross. What the fuck is wrong with you? Chimera, Mr. King. They take Chimera from the V-and-V wing before they’ve been catalogued, the same way Hunters do when they’re stealing them to sell to the Fringe District butcher shops. It’s a common practice.”
“I won’t deny it, but how do any of you have access to the V-and-V containment area?”
“You know how it is.” She takes the last puff of her cigarette. “Someone might know a Cadet with an older brother who’s a Hunter. A Hunter who happens to have a penchant for kicks and liquor and violence.”
“And where do they take the Chimera once they break them out?”
“To the Belt, for combat practice.”
“Are you joking with me?”
Ella shakes her head and flicks the butt of her cigarette out of the window. “Why would I joke? You think I took a cheese slicer to my hand for fun?”
“Do you have any idea how absolutely, ridiculously dangerous that is?!”
“I’ve had a couple of close calls, so yeah, I’d consider myself reasonably aware.”
Alex pulls the car up into the hospital parking lot, away from the main entrance, and tosses the last of his cigarette away. “Your papa would withdraw you from the Academy if he knew.”
“And he’d put me in a plastic bubble if he could. He’d do a lot of things, were he given the chance. Like make me wear a chastity belt for the rest of my life.”
Alex acknowledges the joke, but doesn’t want to linger upon it. “How often do these Belt fights happen?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“Bullshit. You can’t just say something like this and then walk away.”
“Watch me.”
She opens the car door and gets ready to step out, but then hesitates. “Thank you for bringing me here, Mr. King. I know I shouldn’t have called you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
Alex shrugs the whole thing off. “It’s okay. I’d rather you call me and force me to lie to your papa than for you to be out here all alone in the dead of night.”
“Is that an open invitation to do this again sometime?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s been a blast.” He tries to hold back a yawn. “Next time, try to fuck yourself up during the day so that I don’t have to go into work suffering from sleep deprivation. I’m a lousy shot when I’m tired.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
She gets out, closes the door and begins to walk away, but Alex can’t seem to let her go.
“Ella,” he calls her back.
She leans in through the open window, secretly pleased that he used her name.
“What?”
“How will you get home?”
“I’ll be fine, but thank you for asking.”
She disappears inside the hospital and Alex tries to drive away. He reaches the exit of the parking lot, but finds himself unable to abandon her.
He wishes he could.
He knows he should go home.
Instead, he gives the steering wheel a good thump. “Damnit …”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Extra Curricular Activity
Weaving through a triage line, Alex negotiates his way to Western Point Hospital’s trauma rooms in search of Ella.
Hoping to streamline the search, he stops a nurse to ask her for directions. “I’m looking for a girl. She came in here a few minutes ago with her hand all cut up. She’s a Hunter Division Cadet, so she would’ve been seen immediately.”
Before the nurse can answer him, a tray of medical implements is kicked out from behind a curtain, followed by a string of coarse expletives.
“Never mind.” Alex smiles. “I’ve found her.”
Dodging another flying missile, he peers around the curtain and finds Ella perched on the edge of a hospital bed. A doctor is sitting on a chair in front of her, working on her hand. He has her forearm resting on a small worktable, and various clamps and vices are being used both to hold open the wound, and to keep internal pieces of her together.
The doctor irrigates the wound liberally with a saline solution, and dives in to remove lodged pieces of debris with tweezers when necessary.
“Keep still,” he warns her.
“I should’ve figured you’d make a terrible patient.” Alex laughs.
Ella jumps, not having noticed him appear behind her. Surprised, and happy to see that he didn’t leave, she suppresses as much of that as she can.
“Did your conscience get the better of you?”
“It’s a long walk home from here. You’d be lucky if you made it there by dawn, and then your absence would be noticed for sure.” He takes a few steps closer to her. “It’s not like I could actually get any sleep now anyway.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You owe me.”
The doctor looks up at him. “Ah, so you’re the
helping hand.”
“Excuse me?”
The doctor’s gaze drifts down to the bloody handprint on Ella’s knee, then up at Alex’s bloodstained hands. “The mystery man.”
Fortunately, Alex isn’t wearing his uniform. He’s anonymous, and he takes some small comfort in that.
Ella squeals as the doctor pokes at something inside her clamped hand. Her good hand tenses against the bed sheets, gripping a handful of them and holding them so tight her knuckles turn white.
Closing her eyes, she tries to manage her pain—a job made easier at the sensation of Alex’s hand sliding over hers, ever so gently.
“Are you just being a baby?” he teases her. “Or did they not freeze your hand properly?”
“Properly?” The doctor snorts. “We didn’t freeze it at all. She wouldn’t let us.”
Alex locks eyes with Ella. “Are you out of your mind?”
“No, I’m a Hunter Division Cadet.”
Alex fails to grasp her logic.
“Pain management, Mr. King.” She grits her teeth and stifles another squeal. “This is an excellent opportunity for some extracurricular practice.”
At the mention of his name, Alex glances at the doctor.
The man appears not to have noticed.
Alex watches him pull a sliver of metal out of Ella’s palm. It’s gruesome, but fascinating, and Ella can’t help but turn to watch as well. She looks pale, and her breathing is fast and shallow, but she refuses to look away.
Alex, somewhat overcome by the level of her dedication, sees her whole body stiffen as the doctor messes with the clamps inside her hand, separating bone from tendon.
Despite his fear of the consequences, he reaches out and places a hand upon her cheek, turning her to face him instead.
“Don’t look at it, that’ll just make it worse.” His other hand still resting over hers on the bed, he gives her a brief squeeze. “Try to think of something else.”
She already is, but feigns otherwise.
“Like what?”
Suddenly conscious of their prolonged physical contact, Alex draws back his hand from her cheek. “Do you have any plans for the weekend?”
Ella laughs. “Are you making small talk with me, Mr. King? Or are you asking me out?”
He ignores that.
The doctor appears to ignore it also.
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