Page 47 of Cage of Starlight
Beating the guy down in the rec room hasn’t been conducive to friendly relations.
It’s their first day doing maneuvers with Gavin’s unit. The Kineticists and other sword corps Seeds aim attacks at moving targets along the wall while the shield corps—CFR and Fielders—manages defense. The support corps—mostly Healers, with one or two Porters for emergency transport, evacuation, and reconnaissance—lingers along the periphery. This, Menden promises, is where everything comes together, each unit acting in concert.
Hardly. This is where everything falls apart.
Tory crashes into the mud halfway outside the forcefield, hands slipping out from under him as a Legion-sphere passes. He has a fraction of a second for horror—not long enough to move away—before thousands of pounds of metal roll over his hand.
He doesn’t scream, not while Gavin stands behind him, snickering. He doesn’t hug his wrist to his chest or invite the attention of one of the Healers. He pushes himself up with his opposite hand and keepsworking. He can’t prevent this pain, but he can deny Gavin the satisfaction of his suffering.
It’s a nicer idea in theory than in practice. By the time training ends, his hand is horribly swollen, mottled purple and red. Drumbeats of agony throb with every heartbeat. Normally he’d skip the Healers and hit the showers, but not even Tory can shower off shattered bones.
Randall fusses over him as he gets in line, and Gavin settles in behind him, glare palpable.
“Hey, Special Diet,” someone calls. “Heard you did a runner. How’d that work out?”
“At least Itried.” He fixes his eyes on the door.
Tory’s unit has mastered coordinated force redirection, and the Fielders know their jobs. With a small unit of Healers waiting on the outskirts to deal with debilitating injuries, the line to the infirmary is half its normal length.
It’s already taken twice as long as it should.
Chill wind dries sweat to Tory’s skin and rips a shiver from him. He longs for his usual hot shower. Resentment—if not for Gavin, he’d be enjoying it right now—pulses through him.
The guy at the front of the line when this whole thing started still stands at the front, though. The door hasn’t opened once.
“Something’s wrong,” he whispers to Randall.
“I know,” Randall whispers back. “Your arm’s as big as a balloon. You want me to tell Menden what went down? I saw that jerk laughing. We’re supposed to be workingtogether.”
“Not that,” Tory hisses. “It’s taking—”
The door opens before he can finish, and what might have been a spark of relief dies inside him.
“Niela . . .” Randall breathes.
The Healer who opens the door, compact with brown skin and dark hair cut at the same angle as the scar that lines her left cheek, wears blood like a robe. It dyes her apron, cascades down the front of her powder blue uniform, and sits on the tops of her white slippers. Her hands shine with it.
Randall pushes through the crowd. “Niela! Are you—?”
She just shakes her head.
Perfect silence accompanies the unit into the infirmary. Every bed lies empty. None of the Healers talk about what caused the delay, but the solemn nurses carting out blood-soaked rags and the stains not quite washed from the floor tell a story no one dares to speak. The Healer who takes care of Tory’s arm still has blood under his fingernails.
The urge to run hits him with an urgency that steals his breath, but Vantaras’ warning floats back into his mind. “Hey,” he says. “What’s a NOVA?”
The Healer’s hands jerk against his arm. “You don’t want to know.”
He gestures at the boy’s fingernails, at the stains on the floor. “Can’t be worse thanthat.”
Silence scrolls out, and the boy glances twice at the door before whispering, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” His fingertips press too hard into Tory’s forearm, creaking against not-quite-healed bone. “It’sinhumaneis what it is. It’s part kill switch, and it just gets worse from there.” The Healer pales. Far too slow and careful, he says, “Don’t tell me one’s been ordered for you.”
Tory swallows. “Not yet.”
At dinner that night, he forces food into his mouth. He can’t make himself return to his room, to Gavin with his thinly veiled hostility, so he wanders.
Every time he wanders, he learns. He files away each shred of knowledge.
The guard at the front sometimes steps outside to smoke. The light in Dr. Helner’s office in Intake stays on at all hours. She never sleeps, never leaves—except when she disappears, and no one can find her. Everyone has a filthy rumor to account for that. Someone said they saw her shoving a cute guy into a closet once. The only thing the nasty rumors agree on is that she’s always the boss.
