She fumbled for a wick, the least expensive and resource using light. It flared, sending a small, slim band of light upward from its casing. Clara groaned as she sat up; her head ached, and she felt sick and slightly weak.
It all came flooding back. Clara staggered out of bed, determined to go have it out with Marik, but she could barely walk. She staggered into a chair just as the day’s bill came into her chamber.
Clara stared at it. The extra cleansing was not in there. Neither was the telecall for the phys—the one where Marik had gassed her for some reason.
She blinked a few times. Her brain felt dulled and fuzzed. Her fingers were sore. There was a distant roar in her ears, and her limbs felt buzzy and queer. She surveyed the bill again, trying to think.
Had she imagined the phys? Fallen asleep and dreamed it? It had felt so real though. But there was no bill for the call nor for the extra cleanse. She frowned, trying to think.
The day’s events unfolded in her mind. She got to the part where she had been attacked on the hall’s floor, and a new question arose.
Had she dreamed that phys? She had to have. Had to have. But—if that was so—had she also dreamed up that romantic encounter with Renall?
“Oh boy.” Her breath came out in a slow exhale. It was possible. That skull scrape had been no joke. She seemed to have dreamed up a cleanse that had never occurred, and a telecall that had not happened, and a phys—complete with a mask filled with gas—that had not happened either.
Relief sliced through her confusion. She didn’t want to examine how she felt about Renall and not knowing for certain if that tryst had been a figment of her imagination should have made things so much worse, but it didn’t. In fact, things felt far better with that uncertainty around it.
Too confused and sick to really process those things, Clara made her way back to the bed and cut off the wick. Her hands folded beneath her skull. Her eyes closed then flew back open as she felt, through all the other long list of complaints in her body, a stinging pain at the base of her spine.
“What the…?” Her fingers crawled around her waist and downward. She pressed softly at the stinging place on her skin. Misery stitched up along her spine. Her eyes went wide. She had felt that pain before.
When her chip had been placed in her body.
Eyes wide, terror creeping in, Clara lay there, staring into the blackness and wondering exactly what was going on.
Her courage had always been what had gotten her through, and it kicked in then too as the day dawned outside her window. She slung the covers aside and stood. She stood and then went to the dresser, yanking out clothes. Dana had made her another dress, but Clara disregarded it. She felt off-center, and the last thing she wanted to do was put her flesh on display.
Besides she had to go to Renall and demand an answer, and if she wore one of those dresses—well. She thought,I didn’t dream that. It happened. We made love. I don’t know what happened after, but I know we did make love. If I wear a dress like that again we may again. I want that, but not before I get answers.
