Poison

by Lan Chan

  “I said stop!” the pilot says. I don’t stop. She shoots me twice in my left thigh. My legs buckle and I slam my knees as I fall. “Move again and I’ll kill you.”

  Sully is within reach, and I use her weight to drag myself over to her. I expect to be shot any second, but it doesn’t come. I know I should be pleading for my life, but the fog of pain and fear makes me reckless and illogical. All I can think of is whether or not Sully is still alive. When I discover she’s not breathing, a guttural cry escapes me and I burst into uncontrollable tears.

  I claw at Sully’s side, trying to find the bullet wound. If I can just remove the bullet, then she might wake up. The only thing I achieve is to smear her hair with my own blood. I hear footsteps behind me and my head snaps up. The sudden movement combined with the loss of blood makes my vision swim.

  The barrel of a gun becomes the centre of my vision. The female pilot is holding it inches away from me. There’s nothing in the world but the blackness of the gunmetal and the beating of my heart. Then suddenly, a hand moves to intercept the gun

  Another figure has appeared whilst I was grieving. This one is draped in a forest-green hooded cloak.

  The hooded Seeder crouches and places his fingers over the scar on my cheek. The movement causes my tears to streak over his thumb. He’s so close I can smell the pine scent on him. I make one last-ditch attempt to reason with these Seeders.

  “The Landing…” My voice cuts out. Is that really me? Why do my words sound gargled and distant?

  The hooded Seeder leans back. Then he lifts his hood and I know I’ve failed. The Seeder is Aiden. I want to scream in frustration and anger. If he wouldn’t help me on the night my mother was killed, there’s no chance he will help me now. I want to yank the gun from the holster at his waist and empty it into his chest. Instead, I focus all of my remaining energy into speech. I want to tell him I hate him. I want him to know this before I die. The words build up in my throat. They stumble over my lolling tongue and trip past my cracked lips, but I don’t get the chance because slowly the world fades into darkness.

  Nineteen

  My head is on fire. Every follicle is ablaze with heat, yet when I try to move to douse the flames, I find myself strapped down. Before this realisation can turn into panic, a needle is inserted into my arm and I lose focus again.

  I awake to a pair of sapphire eyes peering down at me. I’m in hell and it’s full of Seeders in white lab coats. The blue sapphires sit under a fan of extraordinary black lashes. The face they belong to is flawless. Angular but not sharp, with a slight ski jump nose and full red lips. Sapphire Eyes taps on an electronic board in her hands.

  I attempt to speak, and her pointer finger comes out and wags at me from side to side. She adjusts something above my head, and suddenly I’m drowsy.

  When I wake again, I’m alone. The room I’m in is illuminated with fluorescent lights that burn my eyes. Everything in here is white. White walls, white tiled floors, white dressing gowns hung on pegs next to the automatic sliding glass doors.

  This room is too well equipped for it not to be a Seeder hospital. Behind me, a life-support machine beeps in steady rhythm.

  I’m alive. I’m alive! I want to jump out of bed and shout with glee. But I have barely enough energy to roll my eyes from side to side, taking in everything. There’s no longer restraints hindering my movements, but turning my body over seems like a gargantuan task and not the least bit worth it.

  I’ve just about given up on moving at all when the glass doors give a soft beep and Sapphire Eyes walks in. Her patent black heels click across the tiles, echoing so loudly in the blessed silence I want to cover my ears from the noise.

  “You’ll get used to being able to hear properly in a while,” she says as she taps again on her electronic board. Her voice is raspy and I’m grateful she almost whispers.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Can you tell me yours?” I say brazenly. If they were going to kill me, why go through all the trouble of fixing me up?

  “Gloria,” she says.

  “Aurora. Which hospital am I in?” This will tell me what level prisoner I am. The Seeders hoard their medical treatment like they do their seeds.

  Sapphire shakes her head. “Aurora who? From where?”

  Out of habit, my mouth clamps shut. She raises an eyebrow at me. “This isn’t an interrogation,” she says. Then she glances away and I get the feeling she’s hiding something from me even if she’s not outwardly lying. What have I got to lose? The Seeders would know everything about me from one drop of my blood work anyway. I tell her my name and that I’m from the Landing, and this seems to satisfy her.

  “Inspection time,” she says, and before I can protest, she strips off the sheet covering me. Her hands are everywhere. Pulling each of my eyelids up, prodding my palms to see if I can make a fist, and worst of all, lifting my dressing gown where she has no business going.

  “You can make as many faces as you like, sweetheart. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. You’re less fun to examine than your handsome friend.”

  My scowl relaxes into astonishment. “Gage? He’s here?” She nods absently and taps something else on her little tablet. “Can I see him?”

  “Not until you’ve undergone quarantine and all your wounds have healed.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, trying to push myself up into a sitting position.

  “Oh really?” Her voice goes up several decibels, and I feel like someone’s let off an explosion in my head. There’s nothing for it but to lie back down. My head itches like crazy.

  “Don’t touch that!” she hisses as I try to pull the surgical cap off my head. “It’s the only thing keeping your head together!” I find that funny considering I don’t remember anything being wrong with my head. But then again, I did pass out a number of times. Who knows what I could have hit on the way down?

  This becomes our routine for five days. On top of the week Gloria tells me I’ve spent in intensive care. Too much wasted time. I want to ask for a meeting with the Wardens to plead the case for the Landing, but I’m weak from whatever they intravenously feed me through the tubes inserted in my arm.

  On the second day, during one of my more lucid moments, I slip one of the tubes out. An alarm blares like holy bedlam and a dozen guards with machine guns barge into the room. They only back down when I’m hooked back to the drip. At least I know where I stand. As long as I’m incapacitated, I’m a patient like any other. After that… well, who knows?

  After another three days, Gloria finally pronounces that I’m well enough to have visitors, and my stomach uncoils a little thinking I’ll finally get to see Gage. In the Landing we were adversaries, in the forest we were reluctant allies, but here in the Citadel he is my only friend. I’m relieved I’ll be seeing a familiar face again after weeks of being trapped in a hive of Seeders. The thought of being relieved to see Gage Casseldon brings an ironic smile to my face. Then I remember Leura and Sully, and the smile slips away as quickly as it came.

  A silhouette darkens the other side of the frosted glass of the sliding door, and I know straightaway it’s not Gage. This person is taller and slimmer, though only just.

  “Ten minutes only, sir,” Gloria warns the visitor as the door chimes and slides open. “If her blood pressure peaks, you’ll have to leave.”

  Aiden steps into the room, the hood of his cloak pulled down. He nods at Gloria in understanding of her warning, but his black eyes bore into me without relenting. Gloria leaves and takes all the air in the room with her. When we were children, his unusual deep eyes used to frighten me in an exhilarating, daredevil way. Now they resemble obsidian shards that somehow seem to smoulder without actually being alight. They seem to promise if I’m not careful, they’ll swallow me whole and I’ll be lost forever.

  I blink rapidly and try to hide my unease. When his gaze sweeps across my left cheek I force my chin up so our attention is level, even though I want to bury my head in the p
illow. I won’t let him see how his presence disturbs me.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” I spit out the title like it’s a bitter thing and watch him closely for any sign of a reaction. Anger, disdain, amusement, anything. But if my short years in the Citadel have taught me the value of neutrality, then Aiden could teach a master class in hiding his emotions.

  He takes a step closer so he’s standing parallel to the foot of the bed. I do a mental sweep of his body for any signs of weapons, but besides the satchel at his waist, he appears unarmed. I tell myself that in the state I’m in, he probably doesn’t think I’m much of a threat. I can’t help lingering over the taut muscles of his bare forearms and the sturdy set of his shoulders. There’s only one place I could have a physical advantage over Aiden, and that’s in the sky. The one place I know he’ll never go.

  If I extend my toes a little, I might be able to touch the stiff material of his shirt. Only now do I realise they’ve put me in a custom bed. If Aiden were to lie down beside me, his feet would dangle over the edge and then some.

  With little ceremony, Aiden draws my pot of calming lotion and Micah’s Rose from the leather satchel at his waist. I ball my fists to keep from snatching the pot from him. I had hoped the contents of my backpack were discarded when I was taken into the Citadel walls. Even though the thought of losing my utility belt after having lost Micah is too much to bear. I must have twitched before I could rein in my emotions, because for the first time a smile creeps over Aiden’s lips. One side of his mouth lifts so his canine shows, and I can’t help thinking of the gleam in a fox’s eyes when it spots the weakest member of a group of possums.

  “You’re obviously still not a fan of sharing,” he says. He rolls the pot between his palms as though he’s trying to warm the contents with his body heat. “I’ll give it back if you tell me what it is.” He’s baiting me. I know it, just as I know he’s probably already figured out what the balm does. He just wants me to admit how much I want it, which is something he knows I’ll never do. Once upon a time, Gideon would have been there to settle our property disputes. I half expect Gideon to come barging in, enraged by our bickering. But the only sound is the beep of the heart rate monitor and the rest of the sterile machinery humming away as they regulate my vitals.

  I have to keep my head focused on the present dangers and not get caught up in misplaced happy memories. I try to play the docile idiot courtesy of years observing Felicity.

  “I’m sorry. I found that in the possession of one of the dead Farmers. I don’t know what it is.” Normally, Felicity follows up this kind of statement with a battering of eyelashes, but all I can manage is to blink a couple times like I’ve got something in my eye. When Felicity does it, the boys pretty much lose their wits. When I do it, Aiden’s expression seems to flicker and then settle into a steely mask.

  With two great strides, he eats up the distance between the foot of the bed and where I’m propped up by a couple of pillows. Before I can anticipate his next move, he drops onto the bed in a sitting position, trapping my legs underneath his solid frame. The mattress groans and so do I.

  “You think I don’t still know when you’re lying?” he says. He scrunches the front of my hospital gown in his fist and draws me up so we’re at eye level. “Here’s a bit of advice. Try to keep your eyes from darting around like you’re going to bolt out the door. I’ll ask you one more time, what’s in this pot?”

  The monitors scream in high-pitched alarms as my blood pressure rises. I feel the heat in my cheeks burning from the anger that roils inside me. I make an incomprehensible sound like a wildcat ready to pounce.

  “Why don’t you run and find your father and get him to make me tell you the truth?” I say. The effect of my words is astounding. A storm of wild emotion breaks, rages, and subsides within a heartbeat over Aiden’s face. His eyelids come down over those black orbs, and when he opens them, he’s a rock again.

  The sliding door sounds. Gloria barges in. “What did I say about not aggravating her condition?”

  Aiden rises without so much as a second glance in my direction. He slips the pot of balm back into the satchel. “My apologies, Doctor. I had wanted to spare us all the formality, but since Aurora insists on playing dumb, we’ll have to go ahead as the Council intends.”

  Gloria’s brow creases, and she looks as though she’s about to say something and then thinks better of it. “How much time do I have?” she says.

  “Until tomorrow evening. The Council convenes at dusk.”

  “There’s no way I’ll be able to get her ready—” The protest dies on her lips as Aiden levels her with the same cold glare he gave me.

  “She’s alive and she can speak. That’s as ready as she needs to be.”

  “Yes, sir,” she mumbles quietly.

  He steps into the automatic door’s sensor zone. It beeps to signal it’s about to open. I think he’s just going to walk out, when he turns and pins me with a glare.

  “If you happen to see my father,” he says, “tell him I wouldn’t mind catching a glimpse of him either.”

  What’s that supposed to mean? I have no comeback.

  “That’s the face you should pull when you’re trying to act the fool,” Gloria says. I take it from this that she was monitoring Aiden and me the whole time.

  “What does he mean by that?” I ask. My fingers grasp her wrist as she bends over me to smooth the sheets. All thoughts of caution around this Seeder have flown to the wind.

  “What does he mean by what?” Gloria says. I exhale in exasperation and she purses her crimson lips to suppress a smile. “Isn’t he a great friend of yours?” she asks.

  “Can’t you for once give me a straight answer?” I yell. My fists pound the bed on either side of me, sending the spare pillows tumbling to the floor. Gloria’s half smile turns into a thin-lipped grimace.

  I close my eyes and count backwards from ten, but it does no good. My heart is pumping a thousand times a minute. I need to know.

  “One answer, please,” I say. “What does he mean when he says he’d like to see his father too? Where’s Gideon?”

  She shakes her head at my persistence but finally says, “Gideon Forrester has been declared an enemy of the Citadel. He hasn’t been seen since the end of the Wanderer Rebellion.”

  My mouth opens and closes uselessly. All of a sudden, my tongue feels too big.

  “Doesn’t matter now,” she says. “I’ve got to get you ready for discharge.” In no time at all, my drip and other medical impediments are removed and the nurses come to prepare me for discharge. I begin to suspect Gloria’s been keeping me longer than required, but then dismiss the thought because it doesn’t make sense. Where would be the advantage in that for her?

  “Do you want to walk or would you like to be wheeled out?” she says to me once I’ve changed out of my hospital gown and into a hideous polka dot wrap dress. “What did I say about making that face?”

  I make another face and decline the wheelchair. My legs are still tender, but they’re sturdy again and it feels good to be on my own two feet, doing something for myself. The bandages and surgical cap stay on for now, but Gloria promises I can take them off once I’m relocated. My head still itches like I’m being attacked by lava ants, but every time I go to scratch, she swats my hand away.

  I pretend to cough to hide my trepidation. Two nights earlier, when the itching got unbearable, I scratched and my hand came away caked with dried blood and a yellow substance I can only think was dried pus.

  Gloria leads me to the elevators on the other side of the reception area. She presses the G for ground floor and we go down two levels. The lifts open to a much bigger reception, and I realise my room was a small wing in the makeup of a much larger hospital.

  Unlike the comfortable but modest hospital in the Merchant quarters of my region, this building feels like it’s been built to impress first and care for patients second. Where walls aren’t necessary for structural purposes, big glass windows
dominate or gilded paintings decorate. The reception desk to my right is a black marbled beauty of a thing, taking up one entire side and manned by impeccably dressed women and men. At home, you would be hard pressed to find a quiet place to wait your turn, but here, there’s room to swing a shovel and miss your target.

  “Where is everyone?” I ask without expecting an explanation. As we step outside, Gloria points to a sign mounted on the front of the building. I squint to keep out the glare of the afternoon sun. The sign reads:

  FOURTH TIER HOSPITAL

  That’s all I need. This building is for those Merchants and Farmers who happen to be in the Citadel on approved business. The Seeders would have their own hospitals. Or have visiting doctors. When I was younger, I had the privilege of being attended by Gideon’s doctors.

  Thinking of him makes my head spin with a dozen unanswered questions. What could Gideon have done to warrant his status as an enemy of the Citadel? Did he really sign my mother’s death certificate? Where could he have been all this time? I wrap my arms around myself to stave off a chill despite the sun warming my back and try not to obsess about the obvious. That Gideon is most likely dead.

  A black limousine is waiting for us at the curb. It occurs to me that I should be trying to memorise the layout of the Citadel, but we make so many turns I begin to get motion sickness. After a while, even the uniformly paved streets and buildings full of clothes no longer hold my interest. Besides, I don’t want Gloria to think I’m impressed, because I’m not.

  It’s hard to separate the luxury of a fur-skinned coat from the haggard appearance of the trappers and meat farmers from Ismail’s Belt. I asked once why the Seeders don’t simply synthesise the material to make it look like animal skin. My father told me there is prestige in knowing you possess something that is in short supply. He stopped answering my questions after I told him one day I’d have a necklace of Seeder teeth.