Page 70 of Cage of Starlight
“No.” Sena has not allowed himself to feel anger for years, but heat surges in his chest when he remembers the vest his father wore, theprototypeshe promised—all the weapons they’re making out of Sena, like he’s not destructive enough on his own. “When my ability comes into flesh-to-flesh contact, it neutralizes the energies that sustain the human body. The boy whose leg I grabbed when I was nine lost the limb to necrosis.”
Silence falls for a long while. Tory is probably horrified. But when he finally speaks, it’s not to express disgust. “So, if you can’t be affected by any Seed . . . you can’t be healed?”
Sena’s breath freezes in his chest before he regains control of it.
Typical Tory. Since the day they met, Sena’s had a beast of a time trying to predict him. He shrugs, brushing off the flutter of surprise. “My Seed has, thus far, kept me from experiencing any major illness.”
Another long pause. Uncomfortably long, this time. “And physical injuries?”
Sena flinches. Heat climbs his neck. Tory must be thinking of that shameful incident in Kirlov’s tent. “I’ve developed a high pain tolerance.” He speeds up. “We need to hurry. We’ve got an hour or so until nightfall, and this terrain will be too dangerous in the dark.”
A low wind rustles the leaves, and Tory audibly shivers. “Gonna get pneumonia.”
“Considering your exhaustion from using your abilities so long without rest, the fact that you inhaled water, and your current state, it’s not impossible.”
Tory scoffs. “Wow, thanks. Where did you learn tointeractwith people, Sena?”
“You’re no better at it, if the way you drew your roommate’s ire is any indication.”
“Better than being a freaking puppet.”
Sena winces, but it’s an accurate-enough descriptor. He saw the NOVA before they cut him open and installed it against his spine: a strange, articulated metal thing with a long, embedded strip of pure stellite. A symbolic set of strings to control him with. “Do you think you’re beyond control? All someone has to do to sendyouon a rampage is mention your tattoo. I’m still not sure why.”
Tory’s glower is palpable. “I just don’t like it. Do I need a reason?”
“You must have one. I don’t need to know it, if that’s what you’re asking. I didn’t intend to cause offense.”
Laughter explodes from Tory. “Oh, you’rereallygood at not pissing people off.”
The sun is a sliver ahead, barely visible through the trees as they climb a hill blanketed with dead leaves. It will be dark soon. Sena stares straight ahead. “I don’t mean to,” he offers.
“What are you trying todo, then?”
Sena’s chest hurts, and not only because of the fall. He never learned how to talk about this. “I’ve never been as . . . socially competent as my peers. I’ve gotten better at interpreting behavior by observation because I’ve had to, but not overwhelmingly so. Not enough to keep them from—” His shoulders go tight. “Never enough for it to matter. It’s not my intention to ‘piss you off’. The feeling is mutual, if you care to know.”
“What didIdo?”
Sena levels a dry stare at Tory. “You were loud. Reckless.”
He was infuriating. Heisinfuriating. But he is also, to Sena’s great chagrin, infuriatingly impossible to look away from. When he arrived at the Compound and threw himself up against every wall, tested the give in every rule, spat in the face of safety and propriety—
It made Sena furious. It was like Tory didn’t know that people could only fall so many times before they couldn’t stand again. Like his bones didn’t know how to break.
Tory huffs. “Not everyone can have their panties in a bunch all the time.” His footsteps slow, considering. There’s a smile in his voice when he continues, “So I pissed you off, huh? The blindfold thing, on the training field—you did that ’cause I annoyed you?”
“No.” A bald-faced lie. Sena amends, “That wasn’t the only reason. I thought it might help. Seeing you bombarded with balloons was merely a pleasant byproduct.”
“Didn’t see the point of being nice anymore, after where it got me.”
There it is again, that awful nonchalance. Sena’s trembling, but that’s no surprise. It’s been ages since anger didn’t make him shake. It’s at least as dangerous as hope has ever been. “Thepoint,” Sena grits out, “is to not become a target. Were my heritage somethingI could have disguised when I was young, I would have. If I could have matched the graces of my peers, I would have. If I could—if the colonel—” It’s not fair. Tory makes rebellion look soeasy,so consequence-free.“You invite violence and blame the ones who bring it.”
“Fuck you! I was tired of appeasement!”
Sena shouldn’t be glad to have gotten a rise out of Tory, but it douses some of the furious heat in him. It means, at least, that Sena isn’t alone in feeling like his body is a fuse waiting for a spark.
“I was so tired, you have no idea.I’ve spentevery momentsince I was eight just taking it. Why don’t you get it? Your dad fuckingbledyou and you let him. I—what I saw—don’t you understand you’re just making it easier—”
“Nothing makes it easier!” The heat surges back, foreign and horrible and frightening. Tory plucks this feeling from him so easily. He makes Sena weak and unsteady. Out of control, when control is the only thing that’s ever kept him safe. Sena clamps down on the surge of anger and throttles it. Calmly, he says again, “Nothing makes it easier. I tried everything. The only thing I could do was make it happen less often.”
