by Martha Carr
Cheyenne shook her head and jammed the earbuds into her ears. “Don’t go there. She’s still in the hospital.”
With a few swipes, she pulled up more classical music, this time by Liszt, and tapped play with the volume turned all the way up. Only way to drown out everything else.
For a few seconds, she stood in the office, eyes closed, arms folded, listened to the symphony blasting through her earbuds. She took a few deep breaths, then glanced at her hands. Pale, human skin. Snatching up the end of her braid, she pulled it forward over her shoulder to see the dyed black color seeping back into the thick white strands. “It worked! Great.”
Cheyenne kept the earbuds in and dropped her phone into her pocket. After slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she took a last glance at her professor’s office. If she can’t teach me how to keep the drow under wraps, I’m gonna have to glue headphones into my ears. Or wear a hat.
She stepped into the hall and pulled the office door closed behind her. A tingle crawled up her fingers just before she released the doorknob. The lights went off, the lock turned on its own, and the office locked itself.
“Yeah, nice trick.”
Chapter Fifteen
Cheyenne left the music on and one earbud in as she stepped into the main lobby of the VCU Medical Center. It was still a hospital, still sterile and depressing, but at least it wasn’t the ER. And it wasn’t as full of people. The man sitting behind the front desk didn’t have a lot of tact in watching her approach.
“Shoulda seen me last night,” she muttered, raising her eyebrows.
“I’m sorry. What?” He blinked and leaned forward, but he just couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the ring of safety pins studded through her shirt collar.
“I’m here to see a friend.”
The guy’s eyes lifted and settled on her lip ring before he cleared his throat. “Your friend’s a patient here?”
“Yeah. Ember Gaderow. They admitted her last night.”
“Sure.” The receptionist met her gaze and nodded.
Guess they don’t see the same kinda horrors over here as in the ER.
Cheyenne pointed at the outdated computer monitor between them. “I don’t know what room she’s in, so could you…”
“Huh?”
“Look her up? Please and thank you.”
“Right. Right, sorry.” The man blinked and got to typing.
Wow. People still get jobs typing that slow?
“Ember…what was the last name?”
“Gaderow.” Cheyenne shifted her weight onto one leg and folded her arms.
“Date of birth?”
“Really?”
Her reaction startled him. “Well, I mean, I need it for the system.”
Cheyenne glanced at the ceiling and tried to remember. “Yeah, it’s March twenty-sixth. Two thousand one.”
The keys clicked with agonizing slowness beneath the guy’s not-so-nimble fingers. His eyes widened when he pulled up the next screen.
Here it comes. Say it.
“And your name?”
“Cheyenne.” She unfolded her arms and stuck her hands in her pockets, but they both knew he was waiting for her to give him her full name. “Yeah, Cheyenne Summerlin. I know you’re looking at my name right now. So, can you just tell me what room she’s in?”
The receptionist cocked his head and looked from his screen to Cheyenne and back again. His mouth opened without sound before he found his voice on the third or fourth try. “Room 218.”
“Cool.” She nodded and stepped away from the front desk.
“Would you like a map, Ms. Summerlin? Or directions to—”
“You know what…” Cheyenne leaned toward the desk to read the name on the badge that hung from a lanyard around his neck. “Toby? I’m good.”
“Well…”
She made haste, not wanting to let that mess of a conversation go on any longer. My last name doesn’t make me any less capable of reading the freakin’ signs.
And the signs were everywhere, pointing with large, colorful letters down the various branching hallways. Cheyenne double-timed it toward the ICU. She passed room after room, the doors closed for privacy. Then she stopped in front of Room 218, also with a closed door, and took a heavy breath. The handle turned beneath her fingers, and she slipped into a room darkened by drawn curtains over the windows.
The bed was against the right-hand wall, just like all the monitors beside it, blinking their different-colored lights and reaching out with cords and tubes and cables like so many fingers. Just to keep her lying there like that.
Cheyenne didn’t need to look at the heart rate monitor or study the rise and fall of the green light flashing across the screen. She could hear her friend’s heartbeat, still slow but stronger than it had been the night before.
She crossed the room while staring at the thin form beneath the hospital-issue sheets. Ember looked more dead than alive, lying on her back with her head sunken into the pillow, both arms straight at her sides above the comforter. Cheyenne caught the glint of a metal contraption peeking out from beneath the covers and refused to inspect it. The oxygen tube in Ember’s nose made Cheyenne think of her mom’s next-door neighbor—if they could call twenty acres between houses next door. Ms. Master had been a smoker for forty years and did all her gardening, grocery shopping, laundry-hanging, and general existing with a tube like that strapped to her nose. She wheeled the oxygen tank around with her everywhere.
Ember looked worse.
Swallowing, Cheyenne took another few steps toward the bed. “Em?”
The door opened, spilling light from the hallway into the dim hospital room. “Oh. Hello.”
Cheyenne eyed the blond doctor, who appeared to be somewhere in his late thirties—tall, rail-thin, with huge, round lenses in thick black frames. “How’s she doing?”
“I’m Dr. Andrews.” He stepped forward, tucked a clunky laptop under one arm and extended a hand.
Cheyenne’s eyebrows flicked together. “I know she went into surgery. So how is she?”
Dr. Andrews lowered his hand and nodded. “The surgery went well. Stopped the internal bleeding, got her vitals up where we want them. She hasn’t spent a lot of time awake. And she still has a long road ahead toward recovery.”
Cheyenne wanted to yell at him to just spit it out and tell her what she suspected. She could smell his discomfort. I should’ve gone online to check their notes. This guy’s not gonna tell me anything. “Full recovery?”
“We hope so.” The doctor nodded and stepped toward the bed to check the monitors. He shot her a hesitant glance before opening the computer and clicking around. “She has everything she needs.”
“But you’re not sure about a full recovery?”
“I’m sorry. Are you related to Ms. Gaderow?”
“No.” These people and their family rules. “Just a friend who’s on her visitor’s list.”
“Sure. Well, I can’t discuss anything else about your friend’s condition without her—”
“Without her permission, I know. And she’s not waking up to sign paperwork.” Cheyenne studied the slow rise and fall of Ember’s chest beneath the thin, dark-blue comforter. “Look, she doesn’t have any family here. They’re in Chicago, and I don’t know how to get ahold of them.”
“I see.” Dr. Andrews nodded, typed a few more things into the hospital laptop, and closed it. “Are you the only person who knows she’s here?”
“I’m the only person who tried to help her.” She swallowed the thick, dry wad of frustration in her throat and considered sticking the other earbud into her ear just to keep herself under control. “I brought her into the ER last night.”
“Then you saved her life.” The man offered a small smile. “And I don’t say that to everyone who brings a friend into the ER.”
Cheyenne’s mouth quirked. “Okay, listen. I saw what that bullet did to her. Where it came right back out. It looked close to her spine.”
Dr. And
rews bit his lower lip and nodded, glancing at Ember, but he offered nothing else.
Sighing, Cheyenne clenched her eyes shut and pulled the other earbud out so she could focus on being polite. “What’s she gonna wake up to?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t—”
“Please.” The sting of oncoming tears burned in Cheyenne’s nose, and she blinked. You can cry later. Get him to talk first. “If she’s not gonna be able to walk again after this, please just tell me. It’s not like I have anywhere to broadcast it or anything.”
The doctor’s eyes widened, and he tucked the laptop under his arm again before rubbing his hairless chin. “It’s easy to forget that people without a medical degree can put two and two together and nail the issue right on the head.”
Turning away from the doctor, Cheyenne stared at Ember’s light brown and blonde hair matted on the pillow. That was as close as she could get to looking at her friend’s face. “I was right.”
Dr. Andrews cleared his throat and cast her a sidelong glance. “I hope you understand I can’t share any more than that with you.”
“Yeah, I get it. It’s enough just to hear what I already knew.” She turned away from the bed and nodded at him. “Thank you.”
“She’ll be thanking both of us when she wakes up. And we won’t be able to gauge the full extent of the damage until then. Whatever happens, it will take time. If you’re the only person she has close by, she’ll need you.”
“I know.” Cheyenne stuck her earbuds in her pocket and scratched the corner of her mouth, trying to keep from losing it in front of the doctor who’d not quite but almost broken a confidentiality oath. “Do you need to look at anything else? I can get out of the way.”
“Nope. All good. You came to visit your friend, and I’ll let you get to it.” The man paused like he was about to say something else, then went to the door and stepped into the hall.
Cheyenne’s lower lip trembled. She walked around the bed and picked up the stiff, uncomfortable-looking armchair from beside the window. She positioned it beside the hospital bed and studied Ember’s face. “I’m so sorry, Em.”
The only reply was the rhythmic rise and fall of Ember’s breath and the repetitive blinking from the monitors. The half-drow lowered herself into the chair and stared at her friend’s limp hand. She reached out, hesitated, then grabbed Ember’s hand and cradled it in both of hers. It was surprisingly warm. “This is my fault. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I should’ve listened to you. Believed you when you said you needed me.”
The hospital room felt way too quiet, but Cheyenne couldn’t just get up and leave. Not yet. “I don’t even know if it would be different. You know, if you knew why I didn’t want to get involved. Why I’m still trying to hide who I am.”
Her thumb passed over the back of Ember’s hand, and she stared at her own fingers as she sought the words to tell her friend what she’d told no one else. “But you deserve to know because my issues got you into this mess. I, uh, I know I haven’t told you much about my mom or where I grew up. There are already enough people out there talking about her, so I don’t like to add to it. But, you know, she told me the same thing you did. More than once. That I won’t be able to hide forever.”
A wry chuckle escaped her, and Cheyenne hung her head between her outstretched arms. “Except my mom was trying to hide me for as long as possible. Raised me in our own private wildlife preserve—a halfling in her natural habitat. I mean, I could’ve started college when I was fifteen, but Bianca Summerlin doesn’t budge an inch when she’s decided something. I enjoyed being away from the city and so many people and all the noise. And I had tutors. Jiu-jitsu instructor. My mom was born mingling with the Washington elite. That didn’t change when she grew up. I got to sit in on the random consultations she had with whatever senator or political figurehead wanted her advice enough to come all the way out to the middle of nowhere just to talk to her. And it was easier to be whoever I wanted when it was just us. So…”
Cheyenne grimaced and sucked her teeth. “I feel like I’m rambling.”
She looked at Ember’s hand, still limp in hers, then glanced at her friend’s face. “Okay, Em. The point is, I’ve spent my whole life knowing what I am. Knowing there are others out there, kind of like me, but never having met them. Well, maybe not halflings, but magicals. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about how to be a drow. Or halfling, or whatever. I don’t know who my dad is, and if my mom knows, she hasn’t unlocked that door yet. Instead, she drilled into me what I am will only make things worse for me. That no one else can see it, because no one else knows. Bianca Summerlin’s little secret. But that’s…that’s not what I wanna be.”
After sighing, Cheyenne patted Ember’s hand. Her vision blurred with new tears. “I promise you, Em, I won’t keep hiding. Not the way I have been. I won’t let this happen to anyone else, and if I could go back and make sure it didn’t happen to you—”
She swallowed a sob and sniffed, turning her head to wipe away the tears with her sleeve. “Whatever’s happening with your friends and that orc bastard, I’ll figure it out. I’ll help. It’s too late to keep you from getting hurt, but—” She wiped her cheek against her shoulder one more time, then Cheyenne took a deep breath and pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. “Yeah. I’ll make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to anyone else. Plus, wringing Durg’s neck is gonna be satisfying, so I’ll come back and tell you all about that. Okay?”
Nodding, she stroked the top of Ember’s hand and gave it a little squeeze. “I’m gonna go, but I’ll be back. You work on all that healing stuff, and you better call me when you—”
The softest, slightest pressure of Ember’s fingers closing around hers made her stop. A gasp of disbelief escaped the half-drow, and she blinked the last few tears away before pulling herself back together. “Yeah, sounds like a plan.”
She slipped her hand out of Ember’s, which she set back on the hospital bed, then patted the comforter. “I felt that. So don’t think you can deny it later. You’re gonna be okay.”
Cheyenne pushed herself to her feet, wiped her damp cheeks, and slipped out of the hospital room. She had both earbuds in and Diva Destruction playing full blast before she’d gotten halfway out of the ICU. A few of the nurses on staff slowed on their way to other patients just to stare. The half-drow felt their gazes on her, and she shoved her hands into her pockets before picking up the pace.
Guess I have to make my angry place and my happy place the same thing. And then I’m gonna kick that orc’s ass.
Chapter Sixteen
“Ow!” Cheyenne jerked the forkful of microwaved lasagna out of her mouth and glared at it. “Either still frozen in the middle or burn-your-tongue-off hot. Someone’s gotta make a microwave that does what everyone expects. Or I should quit buying these.”
She blew on the food and stuck the whole thing in her mouth. A quick slurp of energy drink cooled it off enough to keep most of her taste buds, and the rest didn’t matter. “Okay. Time to hunt some orcs.”
The dark-web searches she’d had running all day had pulled up four different hits. None of them mentioned Durg, but they all had O-class in them somewhere. One of them came from a forum called Borderlands, which had a lot of rabbit holes Cheyenne had to fight not to dive down right now.
“Man, what is this? Facebook for racketeers?”
The forums with names so stupid—like Fight the Power—had to be blind fronts for law enforcement just hoping to crack down on as many morons as they could find. Just distractions for the angsty teenage hacker trying to find meaning in places most people didn’t know how to access. She moved through these, scanning the titles and discarding the ones that had more than a handful of comments. This wasn’t about hopping on the most popular discussion for wannabe badasses or way more conspiracy threads than she could count. “Where’s that O-class?”
Five minutes later, she’d found the OP’s bulletin entitled ‘Third-Quarter Projections
’ and snorted. “Sounds boring.”
She sent a polite enough message asking for access to the comments. The reply was immediate from a handle she hadn’t seen before.
gu@rdi@n104: Welcome, ShyHand71. Friendly admin reminder—Users with first-time access keep their opinions to themselves for the first 48 hours.
“Aw, bummer.” Cheyenne rolled her eyes.
ShyHand71: No problem. Thanks for the open door.
gu@rdi@n104: Looking for anything specific?
Cheyenne jammed another steaming forkful of lasagna into her mouth and washed it down with Blueberry-Buzz-flavored energy. “Hey, somebody’s bringing back old passwords.” Her fingers clacked on the keys.
ShyHand71: Wouldn’t tell you if I were.
The cursor on the private message blinked a few seconds, then the admin’s message came through accompanied by a thumbs-up emoji and an A+.
gu@rdi@n104: Have fun.
“Oh, yeah. Loads of fun. You could save me time and give me that orc’s head on a silver—”
The private message disappeared from her screen, and the entirety of the Third-Quarter Projections forum rearranged itself into a different conversation. “That’s more like it.”
Grinning, Cheyenne scrolled through the message board. They were ordered by race, apparently—G-, GM-, N-, O-, and T-class labels. “Guessing it would be D for drow if they had any. At least it’s alphabetical.”
She dove into the G-class boards first. No one explicitly said anything about goblins, but it was implied. Gobbling as Free Market Trade. Gobs Pushed Off Rez. G Biz Needs an Interpreter.
“Obviously not for English if they’re writing in it.” She clicked on that last one, took ten seconds to read the bulletin, then scrolled through the comments. “Jackpot. Goblin businesses being hit by orcs. Sounds like the same problem that Trevor guy had. Except for the O’gúl threats. Whatever those are.”