She took a deep breath, bent her bad knee to step up a rung, screaming behind clenched teeth. She pressed her weight onto her foot—and shrieked at the pain when her leg buckled.
Gemma’s arms flailed as she tried to keep from falling—she whacked her broken arm against the bed frame, toppling sideways with a gasp; her vision darkened.
Strong hands grabbed her waist before she could hit the floor. “For stars’ sake, Gemma,” Christian scolded. “You could’ve asked me to switch with you.”
She held tight to his arm until the spots in her vision cleared. “I wasn’t going to wake you up.” She released the grip on his arm, and he removed his hands from her waist.
“Hate to point it out to you,” he said, “but that plan didn’t go very well.”
Gemma glared into the most vibrant hazel-green eyes she’d ever seen, and her resolve to snap at him evaporated. His light brown hair was a tousled mess, yet it somehow suited him. And that playful grin...
She shook her head free of its train of thought.
“Sorry,” she said at last, fidgeting with the edge of her spidersilk cast.
“Don’t apologize,” Christian replied, his tone of voice light. “If you hadn’t woken me, I wouldn’t have been about to offer you my bed when you tumbled off the ladder.”
Gemma grimaced. Twice in the past twelve hours, she’d had to be rescued. Pathetic.
“Well, thank you for, y’know.” She gestured at the floor, where she would’ve ended up had Christian not caught her.
“You’re welcome.” He smiled, the corners of his handsome eyes crinkling.
Gemma looked away, her chest fluttering a little. Blast, he was handsome.I should’ve picked a bunkmate with oily hair or rotten breath.
“You look pretty banged up. You all right?” Christian asked.
“No, but I will be. Got tiny, little robots inside me.”
He raised an eyebrow, his expression turning into one of amusement.
“That’s—oh, that issonot what I meant.” Gemma’s cheeks were on fire. She flapped her hand, motioning for him to move out of her way. “Would you just take the top bunk, please?”
Christian was grinning from ear to ear. “You got it, Proctor.”
She growled to herself. Two days in, and already two people had paid attention to her. Not a good start, Gemma.
She climbed into Christian’s bed as he ascended the ladder. She flopped her good arm over her eyes. Getting through the Trials and fulfilling her mission was going to be a lot harder than she had thought.
Even from the bottom bunk, when the buzzer screamed and the lights blazed on, Gemma still had to squeeze her eyes closed at the luminosity. She’d gotten used to the gradual brightening of the lights in her flat in Perileos. The dormitory’s lights might as well be Reva’s sun, lasering through her eyelids.
The bunkered bed moved as Christian cursed, nearly toppling off the side. “Never again, Proctor. We arenotdoing this again.”
Gemma smirked as she swung her legs over the side of the bottom bunk—
Her eyebrows rose. There was no pain in her leg or rib.You can’t be serious.
She hurried to the locker room, where she unfurled her arm from its spidersilk cast. Her mouth dropped open the moment she moved it.
Her arm had completely healed.
Gemma’s jaw clenched; her nostrils flared. It figured the Systems kept the nanobots for themselves. She was definitely on the right side, using her vengeance to also help her people. The people in Perileos deserved this kind of medicine too.
After quickly braiding her hair, Gemma scurried from the locker room and found Imara talking with Christian. The zipper of Imara’sjumpsuit barely reached the bottom of her sternum, and she stood in just the right way that her breasts screamedHello there!to whomever dared to look.
Or didn’t dare to look. No one could miss them.
“I was asking your bunkmate if he wants to join us for breakfast.” Imara slunk an arm over Gemma’s shoulders, leaning forward to make her cleavage even more pronounced.
