Page 85 of Veradel
No matter what happens in Xantera, it’s like you can always count on the Healing Center to stay the same. The sterile smell still stings my nostrils. The light bulbs still buzz with an obnoxious current. The information clerk still sits at the front desk, currently helping a patient check in with an excessive shuffling of paperwork.
“Help!” I hurry forward, and the information clerk looks up with a surprised widening of her gaze. “He needs immediate attention!”
“I…” She gives Diggory a once over before her eyes graze over my face, alarmed. The patient in front of her presses a hand to her heart and nearly faints at the sight of us. “You’re…” Her eyes move back to Diggory, and I can see the cogs working in her mind, piecing together who and what we are. Rebels. “And he’s…”
“Dying,” I finish for her, my impatience bubbling to a breaking point. “He’s dying, so get someone out here to help right now!”
All around us, doors crack open as healers emerge from hallways and locker rooms to see what all the commotion is about, stopping in their tracks when they take in Diggory and me. All of them are familiar faces, people I’ve nodded at or said good morning to hundreds of times before today. I’m not sure what, exactly, they’ve been told about me and the rebels, but none of them surge forward to take Diggory from my arms.
And he’s… he’s stopped breathing.
“Please!” I cry, depositing Diggory onto the waiting room floor and beginning chest compressions, horrified to hear his ribs cracking beneath my palms. I’m too strong—haven’t had enough time to figure out the strength thrumming through my veins. “I need a defibrillator right now!”
“You are both traitors to the Guardians and Xantera,” a vaguely familiar voice spits, and I look up to find that same male healer I stole the centrifuge from. He recognizes me, bitterness lining every inch of his face as he gazes upon my efforts to save Diggory.
If I weren’t busy with chest compressions, trying to employ just enough force to keep his blood pumping, I’d probably strangle the male healer with my bare hands.
But another voice answers in my stead.
“Step aside, stepaside, you miserable fool.”
Gaia pushes her way to the front of the crowd, where she immediately drops to her knees on the other side of Diggory and locks eyes with me.
For a moment, a world of unspoken words passes between us. I see shock and sorrow in hers, but also relief and maybe even joy. To be honest, I never thought I’d see her again either, but here she is now, gazing into my new crimson eyes without fear or disgust curdling her expression.
Only acceptance.
“We are healers!” Gaia shouts over her shoulder, her eyebrows narrowing. “We swore to protect the sickest and neediest and most vulnerable of our citizens! Regardless of whether or not they agree with you. Regardless of how you feel about them.Regardlessof the Rules.”
Pride bursts from me as all the other healers wither under her expression. Maybe she didn’t expressly join the rebel movement, maybe she wishes she had, but it’s clear that she regrets sticking to the Cardinal Rules so stubbornly before I was Chosen. And I couldn’t be more grateful for her change of heart.
“Now someone get a gurney so we can take him back right this INSTANT!” Gaia screams.
Miraculously, two of the healers obey, scurrying off and returning moments later with a bed on wheels. The healers get their hands beneath Diggory and hoist him up, one of them immediately continuing the chest compressions as the other wheels him away.
Gaia takes one last look at me, standing empty-handed in the middle of the waiting room with blood smeared across my front. She reaches out to squeeze my hand, and I squeeze hers back as tears slip from the corners of my eyes.
“Thank you, Gaia.” If anyone can save Diggory from this point on, it’s her.
She swipes at her own eyes and pulls away. “I’m sorry I ever doubted you, dear. I never believed one person could make a difference, but now I’m starting to think otherwise. So go make them pay for it.” She nods at the portraits of the Guardians hanging on the waiting room wall above our heads. “It looks like they’ve finally met their match with you.”
Then she’s gone, pushing through the swinging doors after the gurney.
I stand there for a moment, staring at where she disappeared as the information clerk and everyone still in the room stares atme.
The male healer has his hands clenched in fists, so purple-faced with anger that he can’t even speak. Dozens of heartbeats tick in chaotic melodies, and dozens of breaths go in and out, but otherwise, you could hear a badge drop in the silence.
Until, that is, the alarms begin to blare.
The sentries keep coming from every direction like a multiplying horde of ants.
I try my best not to kill them, just to maim or knock out cold, reminding myself what they really are: only humans, appointed to this position by the Guardians. They’re just doing their job.
Still, I keep seeing them charge at my woman with their rapiers, and my anger swells until there’s a mountain of unconscious bodies growing around me. The shouts and cries that stab the night are surely going to attract the Guardians themselves, and I can already see several citizens of Xantera pressing their faces against their windows that border the main street.
Just when I’m wondering what the hell is taking Saskia so long, the alarms start going off.
Theyring throughout the city from every loudspeaker, so piercing and echoing it’s like the sound is coming from inside my skull. Like all of Xantera is wailing in pain.
