Incoming Tablet Communication Darcy Dubois:Bride emoji loading
Incoming Tablet Communication G. Jaya:I’ve never even met these people but I’m totally in. I say later this spring.
Incoming Tablet Communication Jolene Macdonald:Autumn is my favourite season, so I’ll say Autumn.
Incoming Tablet Communication Shiloh Jean-Baptiste:Ooh, this is tough. Because on the one hand, Warden Hallum strikes me as the very motivated type. Like, once he wants something, he’ll go after it with everything he’s got.
Incoming Tablet Communication Darcy Dubois:Hot.
Incoming Tablet Communication Shiloh Jean-Baptiste:BUT! He’s also quite stringent about things like rules and protocol. And I don’t think he’d want to do anything inappropriate to jeopardise their working relationship.
Incoming Tablet Communication Darcy Dubois:Lame. But still also kind of hot.
Incoming Tablet Communication Shiloh Jean-Baptiste:My guess is that if they’re going to get together, it’ll be right before her contract ends a year from now.
Incoming Tablet Communication Magnolia Jones:When they both realize they can’t live without each other <3.
Incoming Tablet Communication Darcy Dubois:Or when they both realize they can’t stand staying out of each other’s pants any longer.
Incoming Tablet Communication Tasha Wallace:Alright, ladies, I’m going to ask that we shut this conversationdown now. Lualhati and Warden Hallum are both professionals who deserve our respect.
Incoming Tablet Communication Darcy Dubois:It is because I respect them that I want them to be happy. By humping each other.
Incoming Tablet Communication Tasha Wallace:Nevertheless, this is a shared chat with Lualhati and she isn’t here to give her input. I am going to delete this message after sending, and some of the more inappropriate ones above.
Incoming Tablet Communication Darcy Dubois:All my messages, you mean.
Tasha Wallace deleted a message
Tasha Wallace deleted a message
Tasha Wallace deleted a message
Tasha Wallace deleted a message
Tasha Wallace deleted a message
Incoming Tablet Communication Darcy Dubois:Fine. But I’m still taking bets offline. Call me with your input, ladies. I’m bored out of my goddamn skull over here and I need something to entertain me. If that means daydreaming about two people I’ve never met boning, so be it.
Tasha Wallace deleted a message
12
HALLUM
The ambulance extension encased the entire slicer, creating a new, large medical compartment at the back. When the time came to visit Darcy and Fallon, Lualhati chose to ride in the back, acquainting herself with all of the various bits of equipment and their locations. There was a window between the front area, where I drove, and the back, which she kept open for the entire journey. Every so often, she’d exclaim something like, “Oh, the Coagulator2000 is down here! Amazing! Look, Warden!”
“I cannot look,” I told her, just as I’d told her the last time she’d tried to get my attention. “I am driving at extremely high speeds and must remain facing forward.”
There was an autopilot mode, of course. But I wanted to make sure I was adequately equipped to drive the vehicle completely on my own should I ever need to. Despite my intense focus on the way ahead, my attention felt pulled backward the entire time.
Amazing, how she could distract me without even being in my line of sight.
It should have been alarming, too. But I’d grown too grimly used to it to be unnerved at this point. It seemed, as long as Lualhati occupied a place in this world, that half of me would always be with her.
Unfortunately, there did not seem to be anything I could do about it. Even though Lualhati was a doctor, I did not ask her advice on the subject. I doubted there was a name for this condition, that there existed a diagnosis to explain the way my senses were always pitching for her. It was as if I was constantly trying to pick out her heartbeat above all other sounds in my environment. Even when she was not near me. Even when there was no point.
Some nights, I could not sleep until I’d located the rhythm of her breathing from beyond the wall between us.
