Conscious of my injuries, I head towards the marketplace, taking care to avoid anyone’s gaze. I am in no mood for a chat. Luckily, it’s a quiet morning. Almost eerily so. When I finally reach the square, I see why; the police presence that Henson mentioned.
I pull up my hood and march on. I thought I’d be safe here. I didn’t think about them being in the slums, despite Henson's warnings yesterday. I’m going to need to be more careful for a while.
One of the secret entrances to the Phoenix Project headquarters is nearby. I have to go, of course I do. Nick might be back, although it’s hard to imagine why he wouldn’t have raced over to my side if he was. Still, there are other people to see. Julia, Harris… and I barely even spoke to Scarlet yesterday. I need all the juicy details of her courtship with Mi.
I locate the hidden door and drop down into the tunnel, moving as quickly as I dare. It’s hard not to run, each step bringing me closer to Nick or the place where he will be. Soon, soon.
Finally, I reach the end. There’s a panel for my ID chip. Have they bothered blocking it?
I try it. A light flashes green, and the door slides open.
The bright, steel corridors of the Phoenix labyrinth rush up to welcome me. It’s a lot more lively than the marketplace. I can hear people gathering in the mess hall, warm chatter races along the corridors. It’s still early, the tables aren’t packed, but I’ve barely been standing on the platform thirty seconds before there’s a shriek and two dark-haired small people race up the stairs to greet me.
“Ashe! Ashe!”
It’s Thor and Odine, a pair of twins I’ve worked with before. They gabble something about my miraculous survival and demand to hear the story. Before I can even respond, I’m swamped by others. Jack and Chuck, Jenn from the armoury, Blue and a handful of people I recognise but cannot name. I had no idea I was so popular. I had no idea that this many people in the world even liked me.
“Looking pretty spry, for a corpse,” says Jenn wryly. “Good to see you again, Firebird. That little boy of yours has missed you terribly.”
“I missed him, too.”
“Ashe!”
Fighting her way through the crowd is Julia, arms outstretched. She folds me into her embrace and I melt, just a little. There it is again, the thin memory of being held this way, very long ago. Almost the way a mother would hold a child.
There are tears in Julia's eyes when we part. “Scarlet told us last night! I didn't believe–” She clutches my face in her hands, her expression oozing warmth. “You're here. We never dreamed...”
“It turns out I'm pretty much fireproof.”
Julia frowns, and then her eyes catch the manacle still fastened to my wrist. She pulls one up to inspect it, trying not to cringe at the chaffed flesh underneath. “We'll get Harris to take this off for you.”
“I want to see Nick.”
“He's still running an errand,” says Julia swiftly. “I'm sure he won't be too much longer. Let's go to Harris in the meantime.”
“All... all right.”
Julia gives me a watery smile and leads me off towards Harris' lab. There's something not quite right. A seed of dread grows in my stomach.
Harris' face as I walk into the room is like sunlight. He calls out my name and skids around his table, stopping his chair shortly in front of me with his arms held out wide.
“You're going to need to get down here,” he says after a pause.
It didn't occur to me that he was coming for a hug. Harris and I never spent a huge amount of time together. He's more Abi's person. But he's clearly happy to see me, and I can't deny it's good to see him, too. I bend down and he pulls me into a tight bear-hug, slapping my back.
Julia explains the situation regarding my remaining manacle. He sits me down, opens a small control panel within the metal, and sets to work. He chats amiably the entire time, about insignificant things; the new arm he's made for Rudy, something funny so-and-so said, Mi and Scarlet getting together. He chats to fill the impossibly loud silence of Julia in the corner, and my own voicelessness; no one will want to hear what has happened to me in the past five months, not really.
Finally, blissfully, the manacle is removed, and then Julia whisks me away to the infirmary to bandage the wound. For once, I don’t fuss. I let her sit me down on the bed, clear away the ruined flesh, and smother me in ointment.
She is silent the entire time.
“Julia,” I say faintly, “something's wrong. I know there is. Something's happened to Nick, hasn't it?”
“He's alive,” she says quickly.
My fear grows. “Scarlet said the same thing. But... but death isn't the only thing that can happen to a person. Has... has he been hurt? Does he look different? Because that wouldn't matter to me. Or... or is he with someone else, now? I was away for a long time. He can't be expected to mourn forever–”
It would pain me to see Nick with another, more than I would ever admit, but it wouldn't destroy me. Only his death could do that. As long as he's OK–
“It's nothing like that,” Julia assures me. Her voice is a pained whisper. “Ashe... have you ever heard of Nemean?”
“It's a drug. Legal. A painkiller.”
“That's... that's its primary function, yes. But... there are... certain side effects.”
Last year, when Nick was ill, I managed to procure some for him. He refused to take it, too worried about the side effects. They never seemed so bad to me, but it was the only time he ever snapped at me.
“It can make you impervious to pain.”
“Yes. Long term abuse can produce that effect, but... it can make you... numb.”
“Is that not the same thing?”
Julia sighs, twisting up her hands in her lap. “Nick... Nick got sick while you were away. He... he wasn't being particularly careful, you see. He... he wasn't in the best place, after your apparent death.”
“I... I see.”
“He... it was very bad, this time. Mi donated some of his blood, of course, but... but it was like Nick's spirit was resisting. I genuinely thought we were going to lose him this time. He... he asked for some Nemean. I gave it to him. I kept giving it to him, until he recovered. I didn't... I didn't know...”
“Julia?”
“He got more. I don't know from where. I... we noticed a change in him, of course, but... but we put it down to the grief, at first. It does strange things to a person.”
“What... what's happened to Nick?”
“Ashe, Nick is addicted to Nemean.”
“He can't feel pain any more?”
“He can't feel anything anymore!” At this point, Julia's voice breaks. “I'm... I'm so sorry, Ashe. I should have been more careful. I should have noticed something, stopped him before it was too–”
“What do you mean, he can't feel anything?”
“He can't feel emotions. He can't feel anything. No pain, no warmth... no joy. No anger or sorrow or... love.”
The weight of her words floats above me, not quite crushing, not yet. They circle like vultures.
“But... he can just stop taking it... right?” I mumble. “I'm back now, and he's well...”
“Addiction is not that simple. I wish... I wish that it were.”
“I don't... I don't understand.”
“Nick is alive,” Julia says, “and he remembers you. But he is not the person you remember. He is not the person any of us love... because he feels almost nothing for any of us.”
Someone is coming down the corridor. Not Harris. A man, tall and light-footed. He appears at the threshold moments later. My heart races.
I don't think I fully understand what has happened until I lay eyes on him for the first time.
He was not expecting to see me here, but there is so little surprise, so little of anything in his face or in his eyes. From the moment I met him, there had always been a glint in his expression, an irrepressible warmth. But now… his eyes are colder than the stare of the dead.
“As
he,” he says, “you're alive.” He is colourless, expressionless, empty. His words are robotic, and his voice as far from Nick's as Nick's could be. Nick was warmth and light, a burst of laughter on a cold day. This... this person can't be him. He can't be. He’s like the other Eve. Worse than. He’s some faint imitation of the person I knew, no careful copy.
I swallow. “That, or I look pretty good for a corpse.”
I wait for something to flicker. A light in his eyes, a laugh in the corner of his mouth. There's nothing. Nothing at all.
“We thought you were dead,” he continues.
“The rumours were exaggerated.” Still nothing. “I'm apparently fireproof, more or less.”
This isn't right. This is wrong. This is all kinds of wrong. Why is he looking at me like that? Why are we so far apart?
“Julia has told you, about… how things have changed?”
“Yes.” My voice feels like someone else’s. A stranger has crawled into my body. “She told me what happened.”
“I know this must be a little unnerving for you–”
“Understatement.”
“Nothing was done to cause you pain.”
“Same here.”
Did this happen because of me? Is this… is this my fault? Is Nick like this now because he thought I was gone? If I’d gotten out sooner–
My heart rate increases. My chest feels tight. My knees are close to buckling. Suddenly, I’m wishing I’d told Harris to keep the manacles on. I am not in control.
Julia steps towards me. “Ashe–”
I need to get out. I can’t stay here. I bolt from the room, racing down the corridor, nearly tumbling into Scarlet who calls out after me. I don’t stop. I keep moving, out of the hangar, out onto the old road where no one can hear me scream, and no one can be hurt when I let loose the fire raging inside me.
Chapter 32
Gabe is the one that finds me. Of course it’s him. He can feel me even when I can’t feel myself. When my mind is torn to pieces, when my heart is rubbed raw, he can still detect the fragments.
I’ve crisped most of my clothes away, ruining all of Mi’s bandages, and when the pain trickles back it’s worse than ever.
Five months in that place. Torture, starvation, sleep deprivation, isolation. Being shot at, thrown down the rapids, fracturing my wrist and this… this is what breaks me. The thought rises like bile inside me. I hate myself for being so weak. I am better than this, stronger than this.
But not today.
Gabe wraps me in his jacket and carries me back to the loft. I do not protest, I don’t even speak. I shake silently as Abi undresses me, Mi bandages me up again, and I am tucked up once more in bed.
“I’m sorry,” Mi says. “We would have warned you–”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it–”
“I mean, it doesn’t matter how I found out. It would have hurt just the same.”
This can’t be it. It can’t be. I didn’t survive all of that to come home to this… this cold slab. This is worse than death. It shouldn’t be, but it is.
“Will he be like that forever?” I ask Mi.
“Nemean overuse is unlikely to kill you, although you are, of course, at additional risk of infection and injury–”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“You’re asking if long-term use renders you immune to the effects?”
“Yes.”
“Studies indicate not. And withdrawal is… unpleasant. Not to mention difficult if the patient doesn’t want to stop.”
And why would you? Feeling nothing would be bliss right now.
Then another part of me wants to march straight back to the base, drag Nick out, and lock him away somewhere until he’s sober. Then we’ll talk. Then I’ll punch him.
But I remember watching him suffering before, listening to those lung-crunching coughs, and thinking he was going to die. No, I couldn’t do that to him. No wonder Julia hadn’t been able to stop him.
“Try and get some rest,” Mi suggests. “I have something for the pain, if you want it.”
“I want to feel.”
He swallows, getting up. “Very well. We’re right outside.”
I wish they weren’t. I wish they weren’t because right after he leaves, I start to sob. Huge, great, guttural choking sobs, and everyone around can hear it.
◆◆◆
Mi brings me food and tea, but I don’t even have the strength to pretend to take it. I let it go cold. I had imagined so many awful things happening in my absence. I’d imagined my family moving on to another city, I imagined them struggling without me, I imagined one of them dying, Nick getting the Pax again, Nick moving on… I had not prepared for something like this, and somehow, that’s what makes it the very worst thing.
I knew it was dangerous to love him. I knew it was dangerous to tie myself to another person. Stupid, foolish Ashe.
I’d take my days with you over a lifetime of days without, Nick told me once. Would I have made the same choice? Were my days with him worth this?
The next day, Ben goes to school, Abi and Mi head to Phoenix HQ, and Gabe is told to stay here to watch over me. His awkwardness is almost as loud as my thoughts. How much he wants to come to me. How much I want him away. How much he hates that. How much that hurts me. We volley our emotions back and forth until it all gets too much, and he leaves the apartment altogether. I don’t think he goes far, just far enough that I can’t feel him.
I don't leave my room for the entire day. I try to rest, to concentrate on healing, but my mind won't be quiet and my body repels food and balks at the offer of company. Many full plates are cleared away from my bedside.
The next day, after school, Ben comes rushing up the stairs. He pauses at my door, ears pressed against the wood, listening to see if I’m awake. Without saying anything, he scurries up to the roof, coming back down again with the goat in tow. He knocks but doesn’t wait for a reply, tugging her towards my bedside.
“I brought you Cinder,” he declares. “When I’m sad, I like to bury my face in her neck, and it makes me just a little bit less sad.”
I thought I had squeezed out all the tears in the world, but apparently I’ve still got a few left in me. I turn my head away from him and bury it in my pillow.
“Don’t be sad, Ashe,” says Ben, his voice trembling. “You’re home now. You’ll be OK.”
“I’m the person that’s supposed to say that to you! I’m so sorry, Ben.”
“What for?”
For not being big and strong and tough enough. For not being happy enough to just be home, to have you back. I’m sorry for being a lousy parent. I’m sorry for being away so long–
“I’m just sorry you have to see me cry. I am happy to be home, really. I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too,” he crawls under the covers, and I don’t even chastise him about wearing his shoes. “Don’t go away again.”
“Never, baby.”
I lie there dribbling snot into his back, while Cinder nibbles at the covers.
◆◆◆
I have to get up after that. I can’t mope forever. The following morning, I crawl out of bed. Abi and Mi are having an argument in the kitchen.
“What are you wearing?” Abi asks, aghast.
“Uh, clothes?”
“For the love of... go and change! Who wears orange with blue?”
“Um, blind people?”
“I organised your clothes for you!”
“But these are the comfiest...”
“You are actually assaulting me right now, you know.”
“Don't you mean insulting?”
“No, as in, your taste in fashion is actually, physically, really hurting me.”
I cannot help it any longer. I burst into laughter. It’s so silly and stupid and them. I grab a shirt and slide out into the hall, still sniggering.
“What?” says Mi, turning in my direction. “That bad?”
“You look like a walking cartoon.”
“Oh, fine, I'll change.”
Abi huffs. “Sure, you'll do it when she asks you to!”
“She doesn't over-react like you do! Also, she's still riding the whole 'I-thought-you-were-dead' train. I'm going to do whatever she wants for at least a week.”
“I can't believe that you–”
“Help me pick out something else?”
Abi puts her arms down. “Sure.”
I sit down at the breakfast table and grab a roll from the centre. I pick at it until Ben comes in. His eyes go wild, as if he forgot I lived here, and he launches himself into my lap. He stays that way for the whole of breakfast, force-feeding me tiny bits of fruit that I eat dutifully.
“Pick me up from school today?” he asks.
Gabe coughs. “I’m not sure if Ashe is up for–”
“Sure I am,” I declare. “I’ll be there, bud.”
He throws his arms around me, and scuttles off to get ready.
“Are you sure?” Mi questions. “You did a real number on your wounds setting yourself on fire–”
I shrug. “I’m sore, they’ll heal, it’s fine.”
“You know normal people would be laid up for weeks, right?”
“We’re not normal.”
“This is true.” He claps his hands together. “Well, I’m off to the Infirmary. Coming along for the walk, Abs?”
“I’ll come with you,” I declare.
They both stop in their tracks, certain they’ve misheard.
“I want to speak to Harris about practising my firepower again.”
“Right. Sure.”
“Yeah, sensible.”
“And I want to speak to Rudy about getting cleared for missions again.”
At this, they both pale.
“Nothing dangerous, I promise! Just… fetching and carrying. Liberating supplies. Not immediately, just… eventually.”
“Are… are you sure?” Mi asks. “You’ve only been back a few days…”
“I’m sure I don’t want to mope forever.” I turn to Gabe. “Want to come too? I’m sure Rudy could find a use for you…”
Resurrection Page 12
