Anderson smiles, unhappily, at the window. “A babysitting job gone awry.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
“So—we’re not moving anymore? We won’t be going to the capital?”
Anderson turns back around. “Don’t sound so excited. I said I don’t know yet. First, I have to figure out how to deal with the problem.”
Quietly, I say, “What’s the problem?”
Anderson laughs; his eyes crinkle and he looks, for a moment, human. “Suffice it to say that your girlfriend is ruining my goddamn day. As usual.”
“My what?” I frown. “Dad, Lena isn’t my girlfriend. I don’t care what she’s telling any—”
“Different girlfriend,” Anderson says, and sighs. He won’t meet my eyes now. He snatches a file folder from his desk, flips it open, and scans the contents.
I don’t have a chance to ask another question.
There’s a sudden, sharp knock at the door. At my dad’s signal, Delalieu steps inside. He seems more than a little surprised to see me, and, for a moment, says nothing.
“Well?” My dad seems impatient. “Is she here?”
“Y-yes, sir.” Delalieu clears his throat. His eyes flit to me again. “Should I bring her up, or would you prefer to meet elsewhere?”
“Bring her up.”
Delalieu hesitates. “Are you quite certain, sir?”
I look from my dad to Delalieu. Something is wrong.
My father meets my eyes when he says, “I said, bring her up.”
Delalieu nods, and disappears.
My head is a stone, heavy and useless, my eyes cemented to my skull. I maintain consciousness for only seconds at a time. I smell metal, taste metal. An ancient, roaring noisegrows loud, then soft, then loud again.
Boots, heavy, near my head.
Voices, but the sounds are muffled, light-years away. I can’t move. I feel as though I’ve been buried, left to rot. A weak orange light flickers behind my eyes and for just a second—just a second—
No.
Nothing.
Days seem to pass. Centuries. I’m only aware enough to know I’ve been heavily sedated. Constantly sedated. I’m parched, dehydrated to the point of pain. I’d kill for water. Kill for it.
When they move me I feel heavy, foreign to myself. I land hard on a cold floor, the pain ricocheting up my body as if from a distance. I know that, too soon, this pain will catch up to me. Too soon, the sedative will wear off and I’ll be alone with my bones and this dust in my mouth.
A swift, hard kick to the gut and my eyes fly open, blackness devouring my open, gasping mouth, seeping into the sockets of my eyes. I feel blind and suffocated at once, and when the shock finally subsides, my limbs give out. Limp.
The spark dies.
Kenji
“Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
I stop, frozen in place, at the sound of Nazeera’s voice. I was heading back to my room to close my eyes for a minute. To try to do something about the massive headache ringing through my skull.
