I freeze, and my pulse races. I could’ve sworn I just saw a man in the hospital lobby wearing the brown-and-green uniform of a Rowansmark tracker. Craning my head so I can see around Elim, I sweep the lobby, a spacious room done in calming green and white, but can’t see anything out of place.
“Everything okay?” Elim asks me.
I look at the lobby again, but all I see are doctors, our seriously wounded, and a nurse or two. I haven’t slept since the night before last, and I’m running on nothing but worry and adrenaline. I can’t trust my judgment, but I’m also not willing to take any chances.
“I’d like all of my people to be on the same floor, if possible. I understand that means you’ll need to put several people per room, but we prefer it that way.” I smile at her and hope she doesn’t ask me why I don’t want my people spread all over the building.
I really don’t want to have to explain that I need guards stationed, and that one of the citizens I’m guarding is a traitor who deserves to die. Or that I’m worried a tracker might attack us if we’re separated.
“Of course,” Elim says. Her smile is warm. “Please come inside, and I’ll make arrangements. Let me just check with the doctors to see which floor they prefer to have the most critical patients on.”
We follow her into the hospital, which smells of soap and illness, and I take the opportunity to wander through the lobby, checking every chair and every corner, and looking down every hall.
I don’t see a tracker, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Lankenshire was the only possible destination in the area. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that’s where we were heading. The tracker could’ve come inside the city’s wall last night after setting the fires that killed some of my people.
I’m going to take all the necessary precautions to protect my people as if an attack is imminent. And hope that once the triumvirate hears my case against the Commander and Rowansmark, and sees what I have to offer in exchange for an alliance, they’ll help protect my people, too.
Until then I’m going to plant myself next to Rachel’s bedside and work day and night on the tech I need to bring down our enemies.
Chapter Forty-Six
RACHEL
Awareness creeps through me as if a thick fog is slowly lifting from my thoughts. I’m lying on my back, and something soft cushions me. I feel . . . disconnected. Like my brain and my body aren’t talking to each other yet.
“Almost three days,” a voice says somewhere above me.
Someone else replies, but I don’t catch the words. My head is heavy with sleep and something else. Something that dulls my thoughts and makes it impossible to lift my eyelids.
I feel like I’m floating underwater beneath my skin.
“. . . not normal, is it?” the same voice asks. It sounds familiar, but holding on to the voice long enough to put a name to it takes more effort than I can give.
My thoughts spin away from me, but it’s not unpleasant. I don’t have to think or remember or make any decisions. I just have to lie here.
I should float underwater more often.
“. . . both exposed to the smoke for longer than anyone else,” a different voice says. This voice is higher than the other. Calmer. A woman.
I don’t think I know her.
The woman says, “They breathed in a great deal of smoke, Logan, but look. Quinn woke up several times today and his breathing has improved. He’ll be walking around by tomorrow.”
“What about Rachel?” Logan asks.
Logan. My thoughts spin faster until pieces of memory fly through my head in rapid disorder.
A little girl by a white stone. Familiar eyes. Thick billows of noxious smoke rushing down my throat and burning my lungs.
Burning.
White-gold flames. Explosions. Pain.
As soon as I think the word, I realize a dull throbbing reverberates through my right arm, from my shoulder to my fingertips. Trying to move my arm gives the pain a set of vicious teeth.
I moan and my eyes flutter open. The room I’m in tilts and wobbles, and I close my eyes again before the motion makes me sick to my stomach.
“Rachel?” Logan asks, and calloused fingers stroke my cheek.
I try opening my mouth to answer, but my lips feel sewn shut.
“Here,” the woman says, “give her some water.”
The woman is a stranger. But the hand belongs to Logan. The room—I have no idea how I came to be inside a room instead of a wagon, but my mushy brain refuses to tackle this conundrum.
Something cold presses against my lips, and water trickles over them and into my mouth. It feels like my throat is the size of a small canyon when I first swallow, but the second and third swallows are easier. After five swallows, the cup is removed from my mouth, and I risk opening my eyes again.
The room remains unfocused. A wash of soft green and white. I turn my head, and a blurry Logan crouches beside me.
“I can’t see you,” I say, and my voice sounds like that time I caught bronchitis from Sally Revis, who coughed right in my face during Social Etiquette class.
“Are you . . .” Logan’s clothes rustle, and when he speaks again it sounds like he’s stepped away from my side. “Is she blind?”
“My ears work. You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” I say, and he crouches back down.
“I’m sorry. I’m just worried. It’s been . . . you’ve been asleep. For days. And it’s fine if you’re blind! I mean, it isn’t fine. Of course it isn’t, but it doesn’t matter to me. I love you just the same—”
“Everything okay?” Elim asks me.
I look at the lobby again, but all I see are doctors, our seriously wounded, and a nurse or two. I haven’t slept since the night before last, and I’m running on nothing but worry and adrenaline. I can’t trust my judgment, but I’m also not willing to take any chances.
“I’d like all of my people to be on the same floor, if possible. I understand that means you’ll need to put several people per room, but we prefer it that way.” I smile at her and hope she doesn’t ask me why I don’t want my people spread all over the building.
I really don’t want to have to explain that I need guards stationed, and that one of the citizens I’m guarding is a traitor who deserves to die. Or that I’m worried a tracker might attack us if we’re separated.
“Of course,” Elim says. Her smile is warm. “Please come inside, and I’ll make arrangements. Let me just check with the doctors to see which floor they prefer to have the most critical patients on.”
We follow her into the hospital, which smells of soap and illness, and I take the opportunity to wander through the lobby, checking every chair and every corner, and looking down every hall.
I don’t see a tracker, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Lankenshire was the only possible destination in the area. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that’s where we were heading. The tracker could’ve come inside the city’s wall last night after setting the fires that killed some of my people.
I’m going to take all the necessary precautions to protect my people as if an attack is imminent. And hope that once the triumvirate hears my case against the Commander and Rowansmark, and sees what I have to offer in exchange for an alliance, they’ll help protect my people, too.
Until then I’m going to plant myself next to Rachel’s bedside and work day and night on the tech I need to bring down our enemies.
Chapter Forty-Six
RACHEL
Awareness creeps through me as if a thick fog is slowly lifting from my thoughts. I’m lying on my back, and something soft cushions me. I feel . . . disconnected. Like my brain and my body aren’t talking to each other yet.
“Almost three days,” a voice says somewhere above me.
Someone else replies, but I don’t catch the words. My head is heavy with sleep and something else. Something that dulls my thoughts and makes it impossible to lift my eyelids.
I feel like I’m floating underwater beneath my skin.
“. . . not normal, is it?” the same voice asks. It sounds familiar, but holding on to the voice long enough to put a name to it takes more effort than I can give.
My thoughts spin away from me, but it’s not unpleasant. I don’t have to think or remember or make any decisions. I just have to lie here.
I should float underwater more often.
“. . . both exposed to the smoke for longer than anyone else,” a different voice says. This voice is higher than the other. Calmer. A woman.
I don’t think I know her.
The woman says, “They breathed in a great deal of smoke, Logan, but look. Quinn woke up several times today and his breathing has improved. He’ll be walking around by tomorrow.”
“What about Rachel?” Logan asks.
Logan. My thoughts spin faster until pieces of memory fly through my head in rapid disorder.
A little girl by a white stone. Familiar eyes. Thick billows of noxious smoke rushing down my throat and burning my lungs.
Burning.
White-gold flames. Explosions. Pain.
As soon as I think the word, I realize a dull throbbing reverberates through my right arm, from my shoulder to my fingertips. Trying to move my arm gives the pain a set of vicious teeth.
I moan and my eyes flutter open. The room I’m in tilts and wobbles, and I close my eyes again before the motion makes me sick to my stomach.
“Rachel?” Logan asks, and calloused fingers stroke my cheek.
I try opening my mouth to answer, but my lips feel sewn shut.
“Here,” the woman says, “give her some water.”
The woman is a stranger. But the hand belongs to Logan. The room—I have no idea how I came to be inside a room instead of a wagon, but my mushy brain refuses to tackle this conundrum.
Something cold presses against my lips, and water trickles over them and into my mouth. It feels like my throat is the size of a small canyon when I first swallow, but the second and third swallows are easier. After five swallows, the cup is removed from my mouth, and I risk opening my eyes again.
The room remains unfocused. A wash of soft green and white. I turn my head, and a blurry Logan crouches beside me.
“I can’t see you,” I say, and my voice sounds like that time I caught bronchitis from Sally Revis, who coughed right in my face during Social Etiquette class.
“Are you . . .” Logan’s clothes rustle, and when he speaks again it sounds like he’s stepped away from my side. “Is she blind?”
“My ears work. You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” I say, and he crouches back down.
“I’m sorry. I’m just worried. It’s been . . . you’ve been asleep. For days. And it’s fine if you’re blind! I mean, it isn’t fine. Of course it isn’t, but it doesn’t matter to me. I love you just the same—”
