“Not surprising, given the conditions, as well as the nature of the attack,” he said, though she heard disappointment in his sigh.
“No, I...what I mean is that I think I might’ve gotten jumped by a ghost, boss,” Zip whispered. “A ghost with a baseball bat.”
His eyebrows beetled, but he didn’t snap. Apparently, her little brush with the grim reaper had earned her a grace period.
“Please explain how you reached that...unique conclusion.”
“Whatever hit me sounded like a baseball bat, and it felt like a baseball bat, but I didn’t see a baseball bat. I’m telling ya, Mal, there was nothing but empty air. It had to be a ghost.”
“No. What you are telling me that your attacker was not visible. There is a significant difference between the two interpretations of the events.”
He was back to being his calm, cool, and collected self. The Mal beneath the ice only oozed between the cracks once in a while.
“I sincerely doubt that your injuries were caused by a vengeful spirit,” he continued, frowning thoughtfully. “A vengeful entity, perhaps, but one corporeal enough to hold a blunt weapon.”
She knew that tone. He had his thinking cap on. In a way, it was a relief. It was better for everyone involved when Mal focused on productive things.
“How ‘bout you ask Nurse Bliss for four or five pudding cups— more, if you want some, too,” Zip said, wiggling a little to get herself comfortable. “Then you’ll tell me the plan while I eat. I figure you’ve got something percolating in that big genius brain of yours.”
“Theories will wait. If you plan to be any good to the team, you need to rest.” Her Alpha stood, turning for the door. “But I will see to the pudding cups.”
°
June missed what dawn had looked like on her coast. She couldn’t deny that the west had spectacular sunsets, since watching the Pacific ocean swallow up the last inch of burning tangerine light during a coast trip was one of her favorite memories of the year so far.
Daybreak in the woods was pretty, but the birds ruined it by being obnoxious. June had stayed awake for as long as she could, so she was not pleased about being rudely woken up shortly after having reached her limit. Dawn was not her brightest and bushiest hour on a good day, and this day was in the running for being one of her worst in a long time.
June snuggled further into her burrito-nest of blankets, burying the tip of her cold nose in the heavy material. Dew had fallen when she’d been asleep. Her face and hair were damp and chilly, but the morning dew hadn’t soaked all the way through the blanket. The rest of her was warm, thanks to the conveniently large boy-shaped furnace she’d fallen asleep next to.
The makeshift outdoor waiting room had been Ernest’s idea. The nurse’s station wasn’t big enough for them to loiter inside, so when Nurse Bliss had told them they’d have to wait and see, they had. They’d built a firepit, gathered up some stumps and blankets, and had circled up to wait for post-op news.
The Foundation grapevine was a speedy one, because the Sheriff had driven up not twenty minutes after they’d ferried the injured kids back to the main campus. Sheriff Galán-Grant had been livid. She’d paced and swore, her flannel pajama pants stuffed into her unlaced boots, and kept repeating, “This stinks! This whole mess stinks to high heaven!”
Which was nice, sort of. It was nice to have her paranoia validated by an expert in lethal shenanigans. Rosario had ended up escorting her mother home before she got herself worked up past the point of no return. Reverting to being mild-mannered and quiet, Roz’s lanky duckling of a partner had brought up the rear.
Neither of them had noticed when Underwood had slipped, but he’d disappeared at some point between being assured that yes, Zip would be okay, and setting up the campfire outside of the nurse’s station. It was anyone’s guess where he’d gone, but Ernest hadn’t seemed very happy about it. The dramatics were pretty par for the course when it came to Underwood, but June tried to temporarily dial down the judgmental judging. She probably would have been a basket case, too, if someone had knocked out her partner and dumped him in the lake.
As if on cue, Ernest snored, directly in June’s ear. He’d ended up half draped over her, but she couldn’t complain— his bear-like bulk had kept her warm enough to nap comfortably for a couple of hours. She carefully eased his glasses off him, sliding them down the bridge of his nose. Squashed against her shoulder, the frames had been digging into the side of his face. She doubted that it bothered him, but he was in danger of crushing them.
Ernest had fallen asleep with his glasses on, so he probably hadn’t meant to doze off in the first place. He’d been trying so hard to be the stoic protector, but it’d been a long night made longer by waiting. Nobody would’ve faulted him for nodding off. June certainly didn’t.
“I was wondering if you two camped out here all night,” Nurse Bliss called from the back door of her cabin, her hands on her wide, pink-bathrobe-covered hips. “You manage to get any rest?”
Ernest stirred at the sound of voices, tucking in closer to her with an embarrassingly kittenish murmur.
“Some of us more than others.” June said, rolling her eyes. He’d managed to tuck his head against her shoulder, his warm morning breath fanning against her neck. Boys were so gross. “How’s the condemned?”
Maks had been worse off than they’d thought. Though her brush with her mortal condition had been closer than Maks’, he’d racked up more lasting damage. They’d kept Zip overnight, but she’d just gone to sleep. Maks had gone into surgery.
It was an unlikely set of injuries. His right arm had been broken, but the real focus had been Maks’ face. They’d slammed his head into the ground so forcefully, they’d fractured the left side of his jaw. It was serious enough that the doctor had to wire his jaws shut, if what Ernest had overheard was true.
Whoever had jumped him had tried to shut him up. The viciousness behind the attack wouldn’t leave June alone. Ernest had tried to assure her that this kind of thing didn’t happen very often. He swore that peer violence was rare. But if it was so uncommon, why had Maks gotten the sparkles beaten out of him twice in a six-month period?
“He’s fine. The surgery went well, and he’s taking it easy. I think he might be better rested than you, honey.” The nurse yawned, knotting her robe’s sash. “It’s about time I put some joe on. Can I get you something warm to drink?”
“Coffee for me, hot chocolate for him?” June asked hopefully, sweetening it with a smile. She had a fifty-fifty shot at scoring caffeine from most adults. “If that’s doable.”
“You’ve got it,” Bliss said, disappearing around the side of the cabin again.
Since June was trapped under an implausible amount of teenage boy until Ernest moved, she decided that he’d snoozed for long enough. She sort of hated to wake him, since it felt a lot like shaking a dreaming puppy, but most of her side was going numb.
June brushed his bangs back for him. He usually wore his hair combed neatly, swept back like his dad’s. They were both hardcore Norman Rockwell.
“Psst. Sleeping Beauty,” she whispered, cupping her hand around his ear. “The jester is up and kicking.”
Ernest smiled, still mostly asleep. Then he yawned, stretching. When he realized that there was an entire June in the way of his arm, his eyes snapped open.
“G’morning,” he said. “Oh. Hey, um. Has your construct been doing that since you conjured it? Or is...is there something wrong with it?”
June hadn’t needed an early morning bonfire to keep her toasty, so she’d elected to skip her big cats. Her more conservative alternative was a fuzzy, fiery little Yorkshire terrier, and it was chasing its tail inside the ring of fire pit stones.
“So maybe I’m a little high-strung right now,” June grumped. “Sue me.”
“You worried about Maks?”
Yes, she was. She wanted to kick herself for it, but there it was. She was worried, and she blamed Ernest. This selflessness thing had
never been a problem before.
“They had to do surgery,” June said, disappearing further into the warm depths of the blankets. Her spastic dog construct fell apart with a yip, dissolving into shapeless flames again. “That’s worry-worthy, right?”
“He’ll be okay,” Ernest said. She felt him sigh. “He’s Maks. Bouncing back comes easy to him.”
Ernest snaked his arm around her, squeezing her closer to him. A couple of months prior, she would have thought that Mr. All-American Apple Pie was getting fresh with her, but she knew better, now. She knew him. She knew that he took a very hands-on approach to showing emotion, and that he had a lot of emotions that he was willing to show. June knew that he didn’t mean anything by it other than a desire to comfort her, and that in itself was comforting.
“Morning, sugar,” Nurse Bliss said, returning with two steaming mugs. “Want some cocoa?”
“Yes’m,” Ernest said, reaching eagerly for the mug. “Thank you, ma’am.”
June took a long, deep gulp of her coffee. It was black, but syrup-thick with sugar. There was no way that her day was not going to end in a devastating caffeine-exhaustion-sugar crash. When combined with her lightheadedness, the strong coffee made her teeth feel like they were vibrating in her head. It was a cup of liquid wonderful.
“So,” the nurse said, smiling at them absently. “Which one of you two’s his partner, again?”
“Oh, uh,” Ernest said, rubbing his eyes with his free hand and squinting in the direction of Nurse Bliss’ voice. “Neither of us, actually.”
“Ida Mae Sullivan’s his Alpha,” June said. She handed Ernest his glasses. “We’re just a concerned third party.”
“We’re his friends,” Ernest said, giving her a look as soon as he was able to focus past his own nose.
The nurse’s smile faltered a little. Apparently, Ida Mae had yet to check in with her partner. She’d been mad as hell about Maks’ injuries, but more in the sense of what his injuries would do to her, not what someone had done to him. Ida Mae was a career-oriented Alpha, so she didn’t appreciate being saddled with a glowing goofball.
Logistically speaking, June understood it. Ida Mae’s fighting style had a predatory vibe to it. She was able to sense and see about five seconds into the immediate future, a form of precognition that was more useful than advertised. Since she’d never gotten to know Maks, he probably did get underfoot and in her way when they had to work together.
If Ernest hadn’t specifically asked/begged June not to give Ida Mae a piece of her mind, she would have already earned herself a month of KP duty. She did not like her attitude.
“Well, he woke up about twenty minutes ago. He’s still a little groggy, but he’s been asking for the both of you. Now normally, we only allow partners to visit outside of visiting hours, but...” The weary-looking nurse sighed, still smiling. “He’s been insistent. Very insistent.”
“Well, if it’ll get him to shut up, I guess we’ll go see him,” June said, laying it on thick.
Joking about it made her worry less about what Maks was going to look like. He’d been a wreck when they’d brought him in, so she had her fingers crossed for anything better than a cot full of partially-disassembled Maks bits.
Nurse Bliss brought them inside. The antiseptic-and-sugar smell of the inside of her cabin confused June’s empty stomach. There were only a couple of rooms, and those were sectioned off into smaller chunks with privacy curtains. Most of the beds were empty, so the two emergency cases got their own rooms.
June caught a glimpse of Zip’s cot as they passed the open door. Underwood was hunched over in the fold-up chair beside his partner’s bed. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She hadn’t pegged him for the praying type.
After that, seeing Maks all taped and wired up was a slightly-less-unwelcome distraction. She wasn’t going to say anything, since she didn’t want to get Ernest more distraught than he already was, but the Night Games fiasco had shaken her. It stank of hatred, and she just couldn’t wrap her mind around anyone hating Maks that much.
Sure, he could be annoying, but you didn’t sentence a kid who lived to move and talk to months of impaired speech and mobility. It was cruel. Maks was an idiot, but he was nice to everyone he met. Everyone. Even her, and that took effort. She gave him loads upon loads of crap, but he just kept smiling.
Even with a fractured jaw, he tried to smile when he saw them in the doorway. It didn’t really work. June hadn’t thought it possible to break someone as bendy as Maks, but the stitches and wires and plaster keeping him together said otherwise.
“Did you manage to get your medicine down, hon?” Nurse Bliss asked. The black and blue mess in the cot responded with a very convincing tortured parakeet noise.
“It’s so sour,” Maks whined, scrunching his nose.
“Baby, as soon as you burn through your last dose, you’ll be wishing you never let the pain get ahead of you. I wish I had an alternative, but it’s gotta be the liquid stuff. You’re on all liquids until that jaw’s healed up. No exceptions.”
Maks grumbled, scratching at the adhesive edges of the butterfly bandage on his cheek.
“Quit that, you.” Nurse Bliss said, lightly smacking his hand. “I’ll leave you three to chat. You yell if you need anything, alright?”
“I will,” Maks promised, waving his fingertips. It was a serious downsize from his usual arm-flailing.
“And make sure he gets that Roxanol down.”
“Oh, I will,” June said, only too happy to volunteer.
Ernest had gone very pale and very quiet. She had a pretty good idea what was going on in his head, so the ice breakers were all on her. Thankfully, she was a pro at massaging difficult situations. She hadn’t brought this difficult situation on herself this time, which was a rare plus.
“So,” June said, after the nurse had closed the door behind her. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it?”
“Flaming bees,” Maks said, somehow managing to be theatrical about legitimately over-the-top pain. Ernest chuckled, and Maks’ faint sparkling said that’d been what he’d been going for, too. It seemed like they were both putting on an act for each others’ benefit.
They were stupid, sad boys, and watching them pretend to be okay unraveled the last of her nerves, then set them off like a string of firecrackers.
“This shouldn’t have happened,” June said, taking a seat. If she didn’t sit, she’d end up going in circles, just like her yorkie construct. “If your friggin’ Alpha had been there, it wouldn’t have. She ditched you like a bad prom date, didn’t she?”
Maks squirmed uncomfortably, so Ernest moved to his side and helped him rearrange his pillows. The busted little circus boy was clumsy, like he had no idea what to do with his mismatched limbs. Being stuck in bed had to have been a punishment reserved for one of the lowest rings in Maks’ personal iteration of hell.
“Yeah, uh. You don’t get the jump on Mayhem. That’s her thing. She’s a precog, y’know? She’ll always see you coming.” Maks sighed. He itched under his cast. “But she works better on her own. And that’s how I ended up an electric bug zapper.”
His shoulders hitched, but it was jerky.
“None of that was your fault!” Ernest said, loudly. It was like he was prepared to argue it if he had to. “You stood up and you helped Zip when none of the rest of us could. You’re a hero.”
“Hero?” Maks made a hoarse, slurry noise that might have been a laugh. “Nah. I can’t take credit for it. Zapping Zip was June’s idea.”
And June had really hoped he wouldn’t say that.
“Yeah, well. Whatever. I’m full of ‘em,” she said, hoping to propel the conversation through that tiny, yet-untriggered bomb. “You need the fifteen minutes of fame more than I do, so enjoy the limelight while it lingers, hero.”
“But you...you told Jack to go jump in after Mal, and you told Roz to keep back, and you told me to turn on my mask so I could find Ofelia an
d Cindy quick...” Ernest’s blue eyes rounded behind his glasses, his mouth falling open in a soft ‘o’ of surprise. “...’cause you knew that she’d need oxygen and a water rescue, so you put together the next best thing. June, you saved the day.”
Crap. Fred wasn’t supposed to be the one to solve the mystery. Ernest was better at putting things together than he gave himself credit for. She’d tried to keep it on the down-low, too. He was going to try to soapbox for her benefit if she didn’t head him off. She really, really didn’t need him to do that.
“Yes, okay! I told you to go get Cindy and Ofelia because both of them are close enough to Zip to willingly forfeit the game and help without screwing around,” June said, her confession as sharp and defensive as a rebuttal. “Nobody else was bringing good ideas to the table, and if I hadn’t, Maks and Zip— Maks and Zip...”
“Yeah,” Maks said, looking at his cast. “It could’ve been bad if you guys hadn’t come to the rescue. Really, really bad.”
Dwelling on the reality of how near that miss had been turned the air in her lungs to lead. He was right. So right. Too right. Things had looked bad. So yes, she’d overstepped her bounds and put on her bossy pants, but it’d been for the greater good. For once.
Ernest stood, his cheek flexing, hard, as he clenched his teeth. He was mad, she realized. Just...furious.
He looked like he could put his fist through something. And if he did, it’d be like the fist of a god giving someone a righteous knuckle sandwich. She’d never seen Ernest anything north of mild irritation, so June was speechless. It was the little things that reminded her that he could shotput a pachyderm. He was so gentle, it was surprisingly easy to forget that he was a designated tank.
“I’m gonna go talk to Dad.” Ernest gave Maks a cautious hug, trying not to put pressure on any of Maks’ bruises. That was not an easy task. He was like one giant, faintly sparkling bruise. “I’m glad you’re okay, buddy. Rest up, okay? We’ll sort this out.”
Ernest closed the door behind him as he left. His hasty exit hadn’t given her an opening to follow him out, so she figured that she’d hang for a few minutes longer. Maybe make some small talk with the guy with his jaws wired shut.
The Posterchildren: Origins Page 27