The Gender War

by Bella Forrest

  “I figured you still hadn’t looked at that hand,” he said.

  I rubbed my left hand over my thigh, my stomach fluttering with apprehension. “There hasn’t really been a good time,” I replied, and he tsked as he sat down, setting the box on the seat.

  “That’s a lie,” he stated evenly. He wasn’t upset—he just knew, and for a moment, I hated that he’d seen my weakness.

  I looked down at my right hand where it was resting, palm up, in my lap. I’d taken more of the painkillers that we’d brought from the cabin, but even so, the ache had increased in the past few hours. I could see that dried blood saturated the crumbled wad of Viggo’s shirt underneath the black lines of electrical tape holding it all together.

  “I… I’m afraid to see it,” I admitted, looking up at Owen to meet his gaze.

  His mouth flattened to a thin line, and he nodded. “I would be too,” he said. “But it’s going to get worse if we don’t treat it. We should have done it already, you know. We don’t want you to lose the hand.”

  I knew he was right, but I couldn’t stop this terrible fear coursing through me. The pain in my hand fueled it, making visions of my hand being split completely in half feel perfectly real. It pushed aside my memory of seeing the knife only embedded in my palm, and insisted that, somehow, along the way, the cut had worsened. It was a lingering fear that I could taste thick in my throat. It whispered to my subconscious that when Owen pulled apart the bandages, I would see my hand split in two to the wrist. Maimed and mutilated.

  I bit my lip and nodded to him, battling to keep the fear at bay. “Do it,” I said.

  “Okay,” Owen said, “I’m glad you agree. Let me just bring in our expert… Quinn!”

  My jaw slackened. As though he had been waiting for the call, Quinn came running in. He darted around Owen and came to a stop in front of me. I pulled my arm up to my chest, suddenly glad Owen had let me have the earlier part of our conversation in private—and questioning the wisdom of letting a teenage boy inspect my hand.

  Quinn was all smiles as he flopped down on the cushioned seat, his dark eyes gleaming. “It’s okay,” he said enthusiastically, and I pulled my arm tighter to my chest, bringing my feet up to the backs of my thighs and creating a barricade with my legs.

  “Expert? Are you sure you’re qualified…?” I asked. I didn’t recall anyone ever mentioning that Quinn had medical expertise.

  “Violet, I swear! I can do this. Dr. Tierney said that I could even start training to be a real doctor. She said I’m great because I don’t get freaked out when things are really bad.”

  “That is not exactly a ringing endorsement,” I said, looking to Owen for support.

  Owen shook his head at me. “Don’t worry, Violet. Quinn started learning emergency first aid under Dr. Tierney—he did a good job helping her with Amber when she got shot.”

  I took a deep breath, slightly reassured. I was going to have to get this over with one way or another.

  Quinn smiled at me, and then flipped open the box, revealing several foil-wrapped packets with various symbols on them, tweezers, scissors, bandages, and a smaller clear plastic box with a portable medical scanner inside. My eyes bulged when I saw it—portable scanners were far too cost-prohibitive for private ownership, but Ashabee had somehow managed to get one.

  I held out my hand to Quinn, and he focused on it, picking up the scissors. He carefully cut away the bandage, cutting along the side of my hand, keeping as far away from the wound as possible. I kept perfectly still, not wanting him to slice me by mistake.

  When he reached the end of the wad of shirt, Quinn set the scissors down and carefully cradled my fingers in his hand, slowly pulling away the makeshift bandage. I winced despite how gently he pulled, but still watched in morbid fascination as he peeled it away. When he finally tried to fold the whole thing back, I groaned as the bandage caught, revealing that part of it had become glued to my hand, stuck tight with coagulated blood.

  “Sorry,” Quinn said, ripping the bandage away in one quick movement. My vision went gray as pain exploded from the spot, and I looked up, locking my jaw to prevent the suddenly formed scream from escaping my throat. The pain cut right through me, making my eyes and nose water and my stomach roil.

  I heard Owen’s soft gasp and Quinn’s displeased tsk, and slowly lowered my head, exhaling through my mouth. My eyes were drawn to the bleeding hole in my hand, almost an inch in length.

  Quinn used the bandage to wipe some of the blood away, and I had to look away again when I saw something white just inside the torn flesh—it wasn’t the remains of Viggo’s shirt. It made me dizzy to think that I had just seen my own bones, and I had a sudden need to lie down, the room sliding back and forth while I remained fixed in my spot.

  Then Owen placed a warm hand on my shoulder, and for some reason, it helped. I kept my teeth locked and leaned into Owen as Quinn carefully cleaned the wound. I tried not to cry out each time he did something that sent a throbbing, searing pain shooting up my arm. It went better when I stopped looking at my hand at all, keeping my gaze on Owen, or on the opulent furniture surrounding us.

  I felt Quinn place something on each side of the wound, front and back. “What’s that?” I whispered.

  Owen squeezed my shoulder, but it was Quinn who answered. “I’m numbing the area the best I can, Vi. And then I’m going to stitch it up. I’m sorry, but it’s still probably going to hurt a bit.”

  I nodded rapidly as I felt something pressing against the wound. I couldn’t feel anything at first, but as whatever it was dug in more, little stabs of pain increased, and my breathing became more and more ragged.

  “It’s okay,” Owen said soothingly, and I wrenched my gaze over to him. He was pale and grim, his face contorting more and more as he watched Quinn continue, I assumed, to stitch. I bit off a groan as he pushed the thing deeper, and I cried out, steeling myself not to try to rip my hand away.

  It went on for what felt like forever. About halfway through, I realized that the stabbing pain had abated—but I could still feel every time the long needle Quinn held passed through my flesh, a strange tugging and yanking feeling. As he pulled the needle out, I risked a glance and instantly regretted it. Nausea swooped up in my stomach, and I looked back at Owen, feeling the fingers on my left hand shaking.

  Owen’s hand on my shoulder continued to steady me, but I felt the spinning sensation get worse. “Breathe, Violet,” Owen muttered to me. “Deep breaths. Count to ten.”

  “Almost there,” Quinn murmured. I tried to suck in a longer breath, following Owen’s instructions, but as the needle jerked in and out of my hand again, I felt moments away from vomiting. I waited for the next one, but only felt tugging and yanking as Quinn tied off the stitches. My nausea plateaued, and then, slowly, started to drop. I felt the young man release my hand with a sigh.

  I rested my head against the wall behind me, suddenly very drained, and let the world around me disappear. It took several minutes for me to catch my breath and come back to awareness. When I did, I was surprised to see that Quinn was putting the finishing touches on a new, pristine bandage.

  “Is that it?” I asked, looking at him.

  He gave me a soft smile and an eager nod. “That’s it,” he replied.

  Woodenly, I stood up, ready to be done—then found the world spinning around me worse than ever. I managed to direct my body back toward the window seat, Owen and Quinn both rushing to grab me and support my limp form. Blackness danced across my vision, though I maintained consciousness.

  A few moments later, I struggled to sit up again. This time the two young men hovering over me would have none of it.

  “Stay there, Violet,” Owen commanded. “I’m going to see if I can get you something from the kitchen. It’ll help you recover faster. Quinn, don’t let her move.”

  “I just want to go to bed,” I croaked, my pride more than gone.

  “Soon,” Quinn said. “Soon.” He kept talking quietly and enthusias
tically, but I could barely concentrate on the words I knew he was trying to distract me with. “Viggo,” I found myself murmuring before I realized it.

  “He’s still with Ashabee,” Quinn said, smiling sweetly, and I would have flushed if there had been any blood left in my face with which to do it.

  Eventually, Owen came back with some crackers and bottled juice for me. He watched over me to see that I’d taken in at least some of it without throwing up, then made me take some painkillers and generally hovered over me like a new mother. I was definitely going to make fun of them for this afterward—if I didn’t just sleep for the next three days.

  It seemed like far too long after that before I convinced them to let me go. I made it upstairs and opened the first door I saw. It led to a bedroom, and within moments I had collapsed on a bed. The sensation was coming back into my hand, and I didn’t want to be awake by the time I could feel everything again. I was covered with filthy layers of sweat and dirt, but I was too tired to care. My eyes fell closed, and I let the darkness take me away.

  18

  Viggo

  I was buried in the southeast corner of the house, in a security room with reinforced steel doors and no windows. A panic room, Ashabee called it. With no way of telling what it looked like outside, it felt like we’d been in here for hours. We probably had.

  Three monitors filled the desk inside, each reflecting four different views around the house and grounds—including the front gate. There were so many cameras that every ten seconds or so, four new views would appear. Each angle of the camera had been carefully mapped out, giving an almost three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view around the house, a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the area around the gate, and another full view of the entrance with the cameras pointed at the wall from the inside.

  Ms. Dale and Henrik were standing in front of the desk where I was sitting, rapidly exchanging ideas (or arguing against them, in some cases) on the best way to proceed. I wished I could say I was completely engaged in the discussion, but I wasn’t—my brain had stopped working over an hour ago. My head had been pounding since shortly after we arrived. I attributed it to the company.

  Owen rapped on the door, pushing it open, and I dragged my gaze over to him as Ms. Dale and Henrik fell silent. “I just wanted to let you know that Violet’s passed out upstairs,” he said softly. “Quinn looked at her wound and… well… it took a lot out of her. Also… Quinn’s here to look at Ashabee’s leg. And that cut on your back, Viggo.”

  Ashabee leaned forward from his reclined position on the panic room’s couch, using his elbows to heave himself up farther. Jeff had tightened a belt above Ashabee’s wound to help stop the bleeding and wrapped his leg up in towels, but it looked pretty makeshift. “About bloody time,” Ashabee grumbled.

  Quinn stepped out from behind Owen and into the room, holding a med kit in his hand. “How’s Violet?” I asked quickly. “Is her hand… Is it going to be okay?” I had wanted to inspect it earlier.

  Quinn smiled, but he looked tired. “Her hand’s going to be just fine, but it might take a while to heal up. The cut was very clean, and it didn’t damage any bones or sever any tendons. If you could just convince her to take it easy… Owen and I had to force her to lie down for a minute and eat something before she tried to run away from us again.”

  I smiled ruefully. That sounded like my Violet. “Thanks, Quinn,” I said, genuinely grateful for his concern and his expertise. “I’ll try.”

  “You little twerp,” bellowed Ashabee from his couch. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here with a bullet in my leg?”

  I sighed and dropped my face into my hands, trying to press my fingers hard enough into my eyes to scrub out the dry, burning sensation that accompanied sleep deprivation. By now my headache was a full-on throbbing, bearing down on me like a ton of bricks, and my skull was threatening to snap.

  As was my patience.

  I began giving orders. “Quinn—see to Ashabee. If he gives you a hard time, don’t give him any painkillers.” Ashabee squawked indignantly, but I ignored it. “Ms. Dale, Henrik—we need a roster drawn up for who is guarding the king.” Then I frowned, a thought occurring to me. “Who’s with him now?”

  “Jay,” Ms. Dale responded. “Tim felt he could handle the staff without him, so I tapped him to do it for an hour or so.” She checked her watch and frowned. “That was two hours ago,” she added.

  I grimaced, and nodded. “All right—pass it off to whomever seems the freshest. I know we’re running on empty, people, but we have to hang on for a little bit longer.”

  “I’ll go relieve Jay,” Owen offered, and I nodded to dismiss him, mentally ticking that off my checklist.

  “You two, get some sleep,” I ordered Ms. Dale and Henrik, who remained. “One of you can take the room nearest to Violet, just in case.” Ms. Dale’s mouth tightened and I sensed her oncoming argument, but I interjected before she could speak. “While I appreciate your concern for me—something that is wholly remarkable in its own way—I need you both up in four hours to relieve Owen and Tim.”

  “Not Tim, Quinn,” Quinn said from where he was kneeling by Ashabee’s leg, inspecting the wound. “I’ll relieve Tim, and they can replace me in four hours.”

  I exhaled, relieved that Quinn was willing to take the hit, but also feeling guilty. Should I really let him displace me from where I had intended to go once I had everything in order? Under normal circumstances, I would protest, but if the boy thought he could do it, then I wasn’t going to stand in his way. “Thank you, Quinn,” I said, and he inclined his head, never turning his focus away from Ashabee’s leg.

  “Good—go when you’re ready. Now, Ashabee, I need you to walk me through the security system,” I said.

  “Is this the appropriate time?” he spat, his hands rhythmically clenching and unclenching against the couch pillows in pain.

  “It’s the only time,” I said. “And… it’ll have the added benefit of distracting you from what Quinn is doing.”

  “May I be of assistance, Viggo?” came Jeff’s oddly formal, dry voice from the threshold. I turned back, surprised to see that Ms. Dale, Henrik, and Owen had silently left the room already—they must have been more exhausted than I thought. I gazed at Jeff. Most importantly, I focused on the lack of bags under his eyes, and wished that I could trust him, if only for four hours.

  “No,” I said tiredly. “But you can sit with Ashabee and help him through this.”

  Jeff’s head dipped down in a gracious nod, and then he moved to sit next to Ashabee, taking his employer’s hand into his own. “There, there, sir,” he said in the same stiff and formal tone as before. I couldn’t help but chuckle, as it looked about as comforting as being consoled by Marina or Selina.

  I cringed belatedly when those particular enemies flashed into my head, my hand drawn inexorably to rub against the scar over my heart, unerringly finding the spot through the bloodstained shirt I was wearing. I wasn’t sure when I had picked up that habit, but I was more aware of it these days. The tiny twinge where Violet had cut the tracker out of my back was nothing in comparison to my memories of that wound.

  I lowered my hand, reminding myself yet again that I had survived and the princesses hadn’t. “Now—the system.”

  Ashabee gave in. “It’s a closed system running on an automated server, buried in the house, making it impossible to hack. A perimeter is formed using nexus laser crystals that emit an infrared beam, undetectable to the naked eye, all around the property. Those lines form a tightly woven—”

  I groaned loudly, cutting him off mid-sentence. “I’m not buying it from you,” I said, annoyed that he would walk me through such miniscule details. “As far as I’m concerned, I own it for the next few days. So, spare me the techno-babble, and tell me how it works.”

  Ashabee’s eyes narrowed on me, his mouth a thin-lipped line of consternation. “Fine,” he spat. “I’ll tell you—but I demand to see my daughter!”

 
That was it. That was my breaking point. I stood up so hard the computer chair I had been sagging on tipped over, landing with a thump on the carpet. Everyone froze as I leaned over the desk and slowly dragged the gun over to me, letting the sound of metal on wood fill the room before bringing it to a stop by my side, the muzzle pointed at Ashabee.

  “Everyone is doing their part, Ashabee,” I enunciated, my anger cold and tight, begging to be released. “Everyone except you. You are doing nothing but wasting my time. And out of all of us, your staff included, you are the most expendable. So let me be clear—you are not to go anywhere near Amber ever again. Especially not after what you did to your wife.”

  Ashabee’s face, which had frozen into abject fear, broke apart into an expression of pure puzzlement as I came to the end of my speech. My anger came to a shuddering halt. I was poised on the precipice of picking up the gun and holding it on him, when my analytical mind suddenly kicked in, screaming loudly that I had missed something. I looked over to Jeff, whose face was an implacable mask.

  “Mrs. Ashabee died in a car accident, sir,” Jeff said, and I could swear I detected a hidden note of pity. “Mr. Ashabee wasn’t even at the house that day—he had been in the city for a month, demonstrating his new defense system.”

  I blinked, suddenly feeling too heavy and bereft of all of my anger, which had drained out of me quicker than water in an open sink. Straightening my chair, I sat down heavily, shaking my head. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Then… why does Amber hate her father so much?” I asked.

  “Who knows with women!” Ashabee griped. “They’re a hysterical bunch, prone to gross overreactions! Right, Jefferies?”

  “Quite right, sir,” Jeff supplied automatically. I could tell by his face that he did not quite agree, but I wasn’t about to call him out on that. My anger returned again. Maybe Mr. Ashabee hadn’t killed his wife, but why had Amber been so quick to suspect him of it—shooting him in the leg? Was it childish exaggeration? Or the product of years spent growing up… with this?