Tainted Plans

by Jenn Vakey

  Rhydian looked down to meet my eyes as we passed through the training field and moved toward the clinic. He didn't look angry. Thankfully, there wasn't any pride there either. I didn't want to see that. To have someone tell me I did well. Instead, he looked as uncomfortable with the situation as I felt.

  “You shouldn't have gone out there alone,” he said.

  I wanted to agree with him, but then the events of the encounter came back to me. I knew what could have happened if I hadn't. “He was after the boy. I couldn't let him take him.”

  Rhydian simply nodded, not saying anything else as we made it the rest of the way to the clinic. Once inside, he placed me down gently on a bed, then stepped back to let Noella look at me. But he didn't go far. He just stood there pensively, arms folded as he watched her work. A mix of confusion and worry still clear in his green eyes.

  “What happened?” Noella asked.

  She was looking me over, but I could tell her question was directed toward Rhydian. I was glad. It wasn’t something I really wanted to talk about. Even to think about.

  “A Tainted came in,” he said, looking to me for confirmation. I nodded. I might not have known anything about the guy, but I did know he was Tainted. He had to have been. “Jordi found us and said there was a man in the woods. That Leeya was trying to stop him.”

  She picked up my wrist carefully and looked at it, then ran her scanner over it. “Was he using weapons?”

  I shook my head. “Just his hands. He was strong. Really strong.”

  Rhydian made a sound that closely resembled a growl, but he didn’t say anything. Noella nodded in a knowing way. Like I had told them everything they needed to know about the guy. Maybe I had. This was all so new to me.

  “You have three breaks to your radius and two to your ulna. There are also two ribs with small fractures,” she said, placing a pain patch to my neck. I closed my eyes as a tingling sensation washed through me like a wave, taking with it nearly all of the pain. Then she pulled out a pill and handed it to me, along with a glass of water. “You know the drill here. It will take two hours for the breaks to mend to the point that you can use the arm. Six before they’re completely healed.”

  I nodded numbly. It felt like I was stuck in one of those nightmares I had been plagued with recently. Especially now that the pain was gone. My head was foggy, thoughts muddled in a way that made me feel slow and unable to understand most of what was going on around me. When I tried to clear them, though, I quickly decided that it was better this way. I didn’t want to feel the weight of what I’d just done.

  “I’ll have dinner brought to you,” Rhydian said from where he still stood back against the wall watching us. “You should stay in here and relax.”

  It wasn’t needed. That was confirmed when Noella looked over to Rhydian for an explanation. He just held her eye, not saying anything. It seemed to be enough to let her know what had happened. That the reason he was telling me to stay in there wasn’t medical.

  I had no doubt that if I had decided to go to dinner that I would be asked countless questions and be forced to listen to people repeating whatever bits and pieces they knew. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. It wasn’t even something I thought I could handle in that moment. I needed time. Time to process, time to accept. He seemed to understand that.

  Noella nodded, then Rhydian turned and walked out.

  He didn't even look back at me.

  I really didn’t understand him. Sure, we had had some friendly conversations after the not so pleasant ones, but that was a far cry from saying he was actually friendly toward me. Then there were times where he would do things that just didn’t fit in with the way he normally was. Like stepping protectively toward me when the alarm was going off, or the tenderness he showed when he moved the hair from my face. It was so confusing.

  Noella didn’t try to talk to me after that. She just left me in the room, checking on me every now and then to see if I needed anything. Just before seven, Aarys walked in with a plate of food for me. Meat of some kind–I was still too afraid to ask–and vegetables. She gave me a kind smile and sat it down on a tray she moved over toward the bed.

  “That was impressive,” she said, although not in a way that made it sound like something to celebrate. She might have been conveying the fact that she thought I handled myself well, but her words still carried the weight of just how serious we both knew it was. She wasn’t expecting me to be happy about it. In fact, in the hours that I had been left alone, the guilt had started to build to an uncomfortable level. It was almost to the point that I was left questioning whether it would ever go away. “I’m glad you’re okay. Werewolf strength isn’t something that’s easy to go up against. Especially if you’re not Tainted.”

  “Who was he?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.

  She sighed heavily. “He was from another community. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes people will come here looking for trouble. Usually if they were banished for some reason or another. He isn’t someone that anyone here recognizes.”

  “Thanks, Aarys,” I said, trying my best to give her a smile. I wasn’t sure how effective I was, but she thankfully didn’t push me more. After making sure I had everything in reach that I needed, she left me to my thoughts.

  I ate in silence, then waited until I heard the sounds of the community dying down before I pulled myself out of the bed and started making my way toward the dorm. There were still a few voices carrying out from the houses, but the majority of what I heard was just the sounds of the nighttime creatures. I didn’t mind.

  As I neared the dorm, my eyes landed on the table I had been lying on a couple nights before. Without really thinking about it, I veered toward it, taking my place again on top of it.

  When my head hit the surface, I searched again for that familiar star in the sky. The one that brought me a feeling of warmth and safety, not the sorrow that was threatening to consume me.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, the words catching in my throat as they came out. “I… I killed someone today. I didn’t mean to do it, and I’m not handling it well. I know he would have taken me if I hadn’t stopped him, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I just…” I let out a heavy sigh. “I wish you were here. Or Lillith, or Dallin. I feel so alone, and I miss all of you so much. So much it hurts.”

  I watched as the star twinkled above, smiling as I let myself believe that it was her way of letting me know she could hear me. That she was there for me even though I couldn’t see her or feel her.

  Only a few more minutes passed before a shadow moved beside me and a weight dropped down a few feet from my head. I should have been startled after what happened today, but I wasn’t. There wasn’t any question in my mind as to who was there. Not that I had been expecting him, but I was oddly relieved by his presence.

  “Should we just set up a tent for you so you can stay outside permanently?” Rhydian asked, pulling his feet up onto the bench and resting his elbows on his knees.

  It was said in an almost joking way, which did a surprising job of making me feel a little lighter. Enough so that I actually gave a real smile for the first time in what felt like days. Had it really only been hours?

  “We’ve got what, maybe a month before it starts to get cooler?” I countered. “Maybe we should wait until after winter.”

  He looked down at me from the corner of his eye, the corners of his mouth twitching like he was fighting back a smile. Then, after a few long moments, he sighed and I watched as his face hardened again. “I was twenty the first time I killed someone.”

  I let my head fall to the side so I could get a better look at him. His words made my chest tighten in an uncomfortable way, knowing the reason I was here was because he had killed someone. Would he admit to it in an attempt to make me feel better? Would it? Or would it just make me feel guiltier because his kind act would only act as a way to remove whatever hesitations I might be having about what I needed to do?

&nb
sp; Before I could come up with an answer for any of those, he went on.

  “I was out picking up a new arrival that was coming in. He was on the ground outside the wards, much like you were when I found you. We went out to check on him when a group of Sentry attacked us. They weren’t trying to capture us like they usually do. They shot the guy I was with before he could even react. I fought as hard as I could, but I was outnumbered. I ended up grabbing one of the dropped guns and using it.”

  The pit in my stomach only grew with his story. It was self-defense, just like mine had been. It was also different, though. He acted intentionally when he killed the Sentry. In that moment, gun in hand, he knew he was going to kill. That was what made it different.

  I turned back up toward the sky, not really knowing how I should respond to that. How I should even feel about it.

  “It’s never easy,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’ll never get easier. All you can do is hope that you never have to do it again. At the same time, you have to remember that you have to do everything you can to save your life and the people with you.”

  “But there’s a chance that I’ll have to?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Apparently I can’t lie to you, so…”

  His answer actually made me smirk, despite the heaviness of it. I didn’t know how he could do that. Everything about him screamed shut off, yet he still managed to make me smile.

  “Do you think the majority of the people in Eden actually fear or hate Tainted?” I asked, letting my eyes shift to him again. I wasn’t sure why the question was coming up, but all I seemed to be able to hear were Melenia’s words in my head.

  He thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. As he did, he shifted just slightly toward me, although his gaze still stayed on the darkened city around us. “Most people don’t know anything more than the stories. I’m sure I don’t really need to tell you that. How many people did your sister tell?”

  “Including me, three. Dallin and our friend, Paxton.”

  He nodded slowly, looking down at his hands. I wondered in that moment if he was questioning his decision not to tell his family. If things would have been different for him if he had. “And how did they react?”

  “Fear,” I said, not needing to think about it. I had been there with her both times, and they were conversations I would never forget. “But not of her. For her. They both accepted her and didn’t treat her any differently. They kept her secret, not telling anyone what she could do. What she was. Other than Dallin when he was trying to figure out how to get us out of the city. Their anger was at Eden. Even Paxton, and his dad is on the council.”

  Rhydian’s eyes shot quickly toward me, looking nothing short of worried.

  I grinned and rolled my eyes, knowing just how he was going to react to this. I wouldn’t make him ask, though. I could already see him struggling to hold the questions in. “Before I tell you more about that, let me assure you that Paxton never would have told his father. We’ve been friends since year four. Best friends.” A playful smirk met my lips. “Besides, Pax is in love with my sister. Something she somehow remained oblivious to for the past twelve years.”

  He absorbed the information and gave a slow, tight nod.

  “Paxton Meltzer, only son of Othman Meltzer, the Sentry council member.”

  Bracing myself for his response, I carefully watched his face for the inevitable signs that he was going to blow. To his credit, he actually appeared to be holding it back, thinking over everything before speaking. Hopefully he was considering that it wasn’t something he would have been able to likely learn, and I didn’t have to volunteer the information. Otherwise, I had just given him more ammunition to think that I was a Sentry spy.

  “How much do you know about Councilman Meltzer?” he asked, his tone tight and controlled. As he asked, his eyes moved around my face, judging my response. No doubt also looking for any signs of deception.

  “I know that he’s a complete ass,” I shot back with a grin. “He wasn’t happy at all when his son chose Grower instead of Sentry. We learned at a young age to spend playtime at our house instead of his. Although his wife does make really good cookies.”

  I hadn’t really thought much about Paxton since arriving at Alkwin. When I did, I felt a deep heaviness again as my smile faded away.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I was just wondering if Paxton knows about Lillith,” I said, feeling my heart breaking at the thought. “That they got her, and she isn’t safely out of the city. His dad would have to know, right? Would he have told him? He knew how close we all were, and he was never shy about the fact that he didn’t like it.”

  I didn’t want to think about what Paxton’s reaction would have been to that, or how he must have been feeling now. He would be beating himself up for not insisting to come with us, or not making us change the day we left.

  Thinking about it brought up all of that pain again, the fears that I would never see my sister again. That deep longing just to have her here with me. The feeling like half of myself was missing. And it hurt. God, it hurt.

  My eyes started to fill with tears, and I could feel myself starting to break down. Rhydian might have seen me during some of the weakest moments I’d had in a long time, if not ever, but I didn’t want him to see that.

  “It’s getting late,” I said, pushing up and sliding off of the table without waiting for him to give me an answer. “I should get some rest.”

  I pulled my arms up across my chest and started walking toward the dorm, but I only made it about five feet before he stopped me.

  “About Paxton…” he said, his voice trailing off.

  I stopped and turned, trying to hide my growing tears. Seeing his gaze sweep over my eyes, I could tell he knew. He hadn’t moved, though. He was still just sitting there on the edge of the table watching me go. “Yeah?”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Completely,” I responded, not even needing to take a second to think about it. There were few people that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I could trust with anything, and Paxton was one of them. It didn’t matter who his father was.

  He didn’t look doubtful when he nodded that time. “Okay. Goodnight, Leeya.”

  “Night,” I said quickly, then turned and made my way inside. I tried to keep my stride steady, but I was fighting a losing battle as the first tears broke loose and dampened my cheeks. I barely managed to hold it together until I got into my room and closed the door. I didn’t bother looking for my night clothes. I just pulled my shirt and pants off and dropped them on the floor, then climbed in bed and buried my face in my pillow. And I cried. I didn’t even try to hide it when I heard Rhydian go into his room a few minutes later. There was no point.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Although no one I passed in the dorm the next morning said anything to me about the events from yesterday, I still wasn’t sure I wanted to brave going to breakfast. The few hours of sleep I got managed to take away some of the edge of it, but that guilt was still burning deep within me. It wasn’t something I wanted to think about, let alone talk about. Added to the violent, painful nightmares that I’d had, I felt nothing short of raw.

  Grabbing something quick so I could get out of the dining hall before anyone called me over, I took my food to the garden to eat. I had my first shift of the day out there anyway, and I’d always been more comfortable around the crops. They might no longer be the only source of outdoors anymore, but there was a nostalgia to them that was soothing.

  I had just finished eating and was beginning to work my way through the tomato plants when Rhydian walked over. He reached his hand over the fence lining the garden and plucked a plump cherry tomato off of the closest plant and popped it into his mouth. Something I still wasn’t comfortable doing since this was the community’s garden. I had a feeling there wasn’t much he couldn’t get away with around here, though.

  “I had one of our people in Ede
n have a brief talk with your friend this morning,” he said, shifting his gaze down to where I sat on the ground.

  Panic instantly swept through me. Had I not convinced him that Paxton wasn’t a threat last night? Had me telling him about him at all put him in danger? Made him a target either because he knew or because of who his father was?

  “Not about anything relevant,” he said, seemingly oblivious to the terror I was feeling. “It was just to judge his mood.”

  Judge his mood? It took me several moments to understand what exactly he was saying. When I finally did, I felt my heart speeding in my chest. Wondering if I even wanted to know the answer.

  Rhydian didn’t seem to warrant a response to his statements before explaining further. “Now, our contact was a woman, so forgive the phrasing here, but she said he seemed longingly optimistic, while at the same time a little lonely.”

  I nodded, quickly puzzling together what that meant. “So he doesn’t know. He just misses her, misses us.”

  Rhydian nodded, undoubtedly having already come to the same conclusion. “If you say he can be trusted, I can have a message given to him telling him what happened. It’s up to you.”

  The offer made a surge of excitement spread through my body. I had been aching to talk to someone, anyone from my old life since that awful night. If Rhydian agreed to not only deliver a message, but bring me back a response in return, it would be more than enough.

  But it would also be selfish. It was one thing to admit to myself my actions here in Alkwin were just that, but I couldn’t do that to someone I cared about. Not to Pax.

  As much as it hurt, I shook my head. “Who would you rather be? A man like Harun, who has spent the majority of his life knowing that the city he can’t really leave killed the woman he loved, or someone who gets to dream about the life she could be having even if he isn’t a part of it?”