Sarina walked into the Fitness center, waving when she saw us. “Hey strangers!”
Izaiah grunted. “There’s no way you bounced back that fast.”
She frowned, slowing her steps. “Oh, I uh, I forgot to tell you that if you wanna borrow my notes, they’re in the top drawer of my desk.”
Where they always are.
“U-huh,” I said slowly, straining as I completed another push. Sarina turned on her heel and hurried out of the Fitness center. She wasn’t wearing the bracelet I’d made her. I could’ve sworn she’d been wearing it earlier. My exhaustion was playing tricks on me.
“Well, that was weird as fuck,” Izaiah said.
“Maybe she found a mystical source of endless energy. Or a badass Skinscript we don’t know about.”
“Yeah, sure.” Izaiah curled himself up into another sit-up.
My arms were about to fall off. Standing up, panting, I positioned myself to start a set of squats. “She can be–” I bent down into another squat and felt something twist underneath me. The floor rushed to greet me. It met me with an ungentle amount of force.
“Shit!” Izaiah yelled, scrambling over.
Propping myself up on my arms, a shooting pain exploded in my ankle.
“Do not,” I ground out with a hiss of pain, “say I told you so.” Touching the ankle that had given out underneath me, I flinched at the soreness. There would be some beautiful new bruises where I'd fallen.
Izaiah let out a low whistle. “That'll go great with your skintone right now.” Veridiana had sauntered over after I'd fallen, and she now crouched too close for comfort, inspecting the injury.
“I think it’s twisted.” I touched it again with another wince. It was the searing red of abuse. Soon it would swell.
“Looks to me like it's broken,” Veridiana taunted.
“Can you stand on it?” Izaiah asked. I pushed myself up onto my knees, which still burned from exhaustive exercise. Using my arms to stabilize myself, I moved into a standing position, still staying off the ankle. Tentatively, I put weight onto the leg.
With the elegance of a drunken fish, I stumbled back down onto my knees as burning pain surged up my leg. Guess I wouldn't be dancing anytime soon.
“Wouldn't have happened if you hadn't overdone it. You should stick to your limits,” Veridiana continued.
I cast her a nasty look. “Yeah, because not pushing myself will definitely make me stronger.”
“At least it might let you make it through the midterm.” She tilted her head, a hard light glinting in her eyes. “Not that I'm complaining, the less competition the better.”
An icy wash of reality settled down on me.
Veridiana was vicious, but she wasn't wrong. I'd injured myself a week before the midterm. How could I have been so foolish? Would it still be possible for me to pass now?
“She'll be fine,” Izaiah defended. “As long as we get her to Medic services. Come on.” He reached under my arms to help support me as I stood again. I tried not to make sibilant noises through my teeth every time my wounded foot brushed the ground.
Once I got used to the burning sensation, it wasn't as much of a shock when I tried to take steps on that side. It was still incredibly painful.
He half-carried me out, and it felt like an odyssey. A swarm of lanternflies and moths followed us. An eternity later, we made it to the Medical center. I flopped onto a chair near the entrance, mollifying the ankle by keeping it raised off the floor, silently thanking Papa for the rudimentary Medic knowledge he’d taught me. Every muscle in my leg trembled as I tried to hold it aloft.
Someone let out a low moan from a nearby bed. There was a Skinscripted woman washing the unconscious man who’d moaned with a dirty rag as she murmured prayers over him. A trainee I didn’t know rocked back and forth on a cot, a charred strip of skin peeking over the edge of a bandage concealing it.
Instructor Penbrook hurried over from another bed when he saw us enter.
His appearance gave me the impression of fragility, even though he was robust enough to have solid health. There was something in the fine trim on his beard and sallow skin.
“What happened?” He demanded, probing my ankle. I stifled a cry of pain.
“Just put too much weight on it while training in the Fitness center,” I explained.
