Flawed Fracture

by Katie Vack

  She looked down at him mockingly. "What makes you think I actually care?" They hobbled slowly back to the building, slumping down against the cold stone wall, both sweating from the effort. She smelled strongly of chemicals, which he supposed made sense considering what they'd have had to do to her to save her life.

  "Point taken." Grayson began to unwrap his bandaged and stinging feet. "You know, when I saw you back there I really thought you were dead. I reckon I preferred it that way."

  "I don't blame you. I know I'd be a lot happier if you died on me. Shame you missed such a good opportunity."

  Grayson laughed weakly. "You might be waiting a long time- I'm not in the habit of dying. Not that know what actually did happen during that battle."

  She glanced over at him. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean I can only remember snapshots. Getting shot, being beaten around, Thief getting shot. Beyond that, I can't remember a thing."

  "Weird. Not sure whether I'd call that a good or bad thing, though. So are you saying you don't know how you were injured?"

  "The broken hand and gunshot shoulder I get; the same goes for a lot of the minor injuries and broken ribs. But the burns," he indicated his now unwrapped hands and feet, which were a bloody and gruesome mess of scabs, reopened wounds, and charcoaled skin, "I don't have a clue about. I mean, you'd think I'd remember something that major, but I can't."

  "Lucky you, because I can remember everything. That leech shattered my kneecap and leg, broke my collarbone, then nailed me to a wall and left me to hang. I'm not sure whether I really want to remember all that."

  "Yeah, you really shouldn't be alive right now. How exactly did you manage to survive that one?"

  "Seth. He injected me with something; froze me from the inside out so that could be brought here for treatment. He's the only reason I made it, but he's also the reason I look like this. Apparently it's a pretty good deal, but I can't say I appreciate being too weak to even walk without support. Bloody lizard."

  "Where exactly is here?"

  She looked at him, mildly surprised. "You mean you don't know either?"

  "I only woke up today. The first time I tried to escape some guy decided the best way to put me back to sleep would be an electric shock. It wasn't fun."

  "And the second time you decided to jump out the window. Was that the best idea with your messed up feet and broken ribs?"

  "Probably not, but then I'm not in the habit of going for the easy option. It's not really my style."

  "Then what is?"

  The question, from out of the blue, caught him off guard. "I suppose... the interesting one. I tend to prefer excitement over ease."

  "Funny."

  "What?"

  "I did the exact same thing. The first time I tried to get out of here they put me forcefully back to sleep. The second time I made for the window."

  "So you were the one to leave it open."

  "Yep. I was watching you the whole time when you went through it. You were probably only a half hour after me."

  He whistled. "Now I'm torn. I don't know whether to be surprised at the coincidence or embarrassed at my spectacle."

  "I wouldn't worry about it. Your landing was probably better than mine."

  He paused, lost for words. "Wow. You're being unusually civil. I wouldn't have expected you to miss an easy target like that."

  "Grayson," she looked down on him witheringly, "I'm in constant pain, I'm half-delirious, and I've spent gods know how long choking down whatever drugs they've fed me to keep me alive. I really can't be bothered to start an argument right now. Besides," she fixed him with a pointed glare, "by tomorrow this conversation won't have happened."

  "Fair enough. It's annoying though, being broken like this. I want to be out there exploring the forest, or in the heart of some city running rings around idiots. Being stuck here with nothing interesting to do, it's just miserable."

  "How sweet. Sometimes I wish I could go back to being that childish. That's the thing about being young- you spend all your time trying to act like an adult, and yet when you finally grow up and learn what the real world is like you want nothing more than to go back to what you once were."

  "I wouldn't know."

  "Because you never grew up."

  "Because I never had the chance to be a child."

  "And yet you spend all your time acting like one."

  He sighed. "That's what I do; act. We'll forget this conversation by tomorrow?" She nodded. "Everything is just one big act. To start with it was a coping method, but now... gods, I don't even know where my face ends and my mask begins."

  "A coping method?"

  "Well, let's just say I didn't have the easiest of childhoods. I'm used to it of course, I've had seventeen years to get used to it, but there are times when I can't help but wonder where I'd be now if things had turned out differently."

  "You and I both. But at least you're comfortable with who you are. For me, it's like every day is just another day pretending to myself that I'm not the person I am. I guess that's the real world for you- it's nowhere near as romantic as the stories would have you believe."

  "Life is hell."

  "It is. And it's nice to find someone else who understands that. Just a shame that person is you."

  "Yet another great disappointment."

  "Are you mocking me?"

  "Sorry," Grayson waved the accusation away, "old habits."

  "My old habits include killing people slowly and painfully- let's not start to slip."

  The two sat together in silence, backs to the wall, and Grayson couldn't quite wrap his mind around the strangeness of the situation. Yesterday she had been his enemy, the person who he equally feared and hated, and tomorrow it would be that way again, but right now it was as though all that antipathy had been forgotten. They were just two cripples, sitting under the open air in the dead of the night, complaining about whose life was worse.

  He slid slowly down the cold stone until he was lying on his back, facing up into the sky. It was a clear and cloudless night, and as always he found that it captivated him more than anything. The stars were out in their thousands, both natural ones and artificial. Streaks of fiery purple slowly made their way through the blackness, remnants of the godly rift energy that had so warped the worlds. Up above, through the nest of satellites and monumental space cruisers, was the shard of lumin primary, the supposed location of their shadowy targets.

  Even from this distance Grayson could make out distinct features on the planet fragment. There were the forests, so much like the secondary counterparts he was so used to, the seas, the mountains, and one or two brightly sparkling cities- presumably the main hubs, since lumin weren't the kind to use electric lighting. Briefly he wondered whether there was somebody over there, looking back across at him. It seemed pretty likely. There were enough of them.

  "One of them is a traitor." Sora broke the silence, and Grayson looked over at her to notice that she too was now lying down, perhaps an arm's length away, laboured breath frosting like a thousand glittering jewels in the night air.

  He looked away, preferring the anonymity of the night to the uncomfortable intimacy of the moment. "I know."

  "I thought it was you, until I saw your injuries. I thought that you left me to die, back there at the battle. That's what the knife was for- I saw you climbing out of the window, and I thought you were trying to get away. I thought I was going to have to kill you."

  "You still might."

  "Perhaps. But not right now. I don't want to have to face that blade again."

  Grayson paused. "I would have thought it was you, actually. If Lyka hadn't near enough killed you back there, you would have been my main suspect; but then I know you aren't that stupid. You aren't gullible enough to have believed them if they promised your safety."

  "I don't know about that. I get myself injured far too often as it is."

  "I wouldn't know."

  She made a vain attempt at shrugging, app
earing to forget about her broken collarbone for a moment. She grimaced. "I rest my case. But you said his name was Lyka?"

  "Josiah Lyka."

  "Excellent. Now I know who he is. I'm going to slaughter that man."

  "No you aren't; that leech is all mine."

  "He put me in a hospital bed and gave me grey hair."

  "He tore my cloak and shot my friend."

  "I can't let you have him, Grayson. I still owe him for what he did to me last time."

  "And I can't let you have him, because nobody touches my cloak and gets away with it. It's a matter of principle."

  She frowned. "What's so special about that cloak, anyway?"

  "It's a relic. There've been two distinct stages to my life, and my cloak is the only thing I have left from the first."

  She said nothing you a few seconds. "He's still mine."

  "Mine."

  "Mine."

  Grayson sighed dramatically. "Ours."

  Sora stopped, looking round, surprised. "Ours?"

  "Sure. Ours. You can kill half of him, and I'll beat the crap of the other half."

  "That sounds..." she tried vainly to come up with a word to properly describe her thoughts, "Interesting. Okay. I can go with that."

  "Then it's settled. We can both destroy that freak." He sat up wearily, groaning at the strain it put upon his damaged body. "Well, I need to get going now. Otherwise I might just fall asleep here."

  A hand appeared on his shoulder. "Don't."

  "Huh?" He glanced down at her.

  "Don't go." She turned her face away from him, masking it in shadow so that he had no idea what she was thinking. "It's just- I heard howling- if there are wolves- I'm not in a brilliant state-"

  "You're scared."

  "I'm not scared!" He almost imagined that he could see her cheeks reddening. "I just can't fight right now. I'll want someone to distract them with."

  "So you want me to be your living shield?" He pulled a face. "That's harsh, even for you."

  She turned back towards him, and some of her old fire could be made out again in her eyes. "Man up, lumin. Whatever happened to chivalry?"

  "I wouldn't call you aren't a lady."

  "And I wouldn't call you a man. Grow a pair."

  "Fine, whatever." Against his better judgement, he found himself lying back down again. He wasn't really that bothered by it- to be honest, he much preferred the freedom of the open air and the familiarity of the hard earth to the stifling confines of a hospital room and an alien bed. He wasn't particularly worried about the wolves either; considering that Sora was a Silvan and he himself had grown up in a forest like this, he doubted there was much that could really prove a threat. He was sure Sora knew that too, which was why her request was so off-putting.

  She spoke up again, only this time her voice was little more than a whisper, and far less clouded by the fog of derision. "Grayson?" He was surprised by how young she sounded without her usual razor-like attitude and air of menace- it was almost like listening to a little girl.

  "Yes?"

  "It's cold."

  The silence hung in the air like a fog, blotting out everything but the sound of their quiet breathing. Yes, Grayson thought to himself, it is.

  No More Lies

  It appeared that Sora had meant what she said, because when the morning came and Grayson woke gazing into the soft rays of the rising sun, she was already gone. Vanished soundlessly with the dawn like a spectre, leaving nothing in her wake but a fleeting memory.

  Grayson briefly allowed a slight smile to cross his face. He had enjoyed last night. There was something about allowing yourself one moment of weakness, when you had spent your life crushing all forms of it, that was incredibly freeing. For one night he had been allowed the chance not to stamp out all his weakness, but to acknowledge and accept it. How ironic that the first time in his life he had found it in him to speak even a little openly, the first person he had ever spoken to honestly, was his unofficial enemy.

  But then, maybe that was it. Maybe it was precisely because it was Sora that he had found it in him to speak. Sure, neither of them really knew much about the other, but there were a few things which didn't need words to convey. He didn't know what kind of hell she'd lived through to make her the person she was, but that one time she had allowed her mask to slip just a little. She had done that and, looking for the first time into her eyes, he had seen himself reflected back within them.

  She was just like him; or rather she was just like the person he would have become had he made certain decisions differently. A frightening thought, but also an enlightening one. Both running from their own unfortunate circumstances, both unable to truly escape them. Both wearing their masks to protect them from the eyes of others.

  In Grayson's experience, you became not the person you wished to become, but the person the worlds wanted you to become. And for the two of them, the worlds had chosen a rather dark path. He still didn't like her, nor was he any less wary of her, but at least he felt he understood a little bit more about her. Now he knew the basics, which was more than he could have said before.

  He sighed soundlessly to himself. One moment of weakness. It had been nice, while it lasted, but that was all it was- a moment. That moment had fled just like the silvan he had shared it with, and now he was left to reconcile himself with events.

  He believed what she had said about their conversation having never happened by this morning. She wasn't the kind of person to let herself be weak for any longer than necessary, and he felt exactly the same way. Today, that weakness must be gone. He was steel, however well hidden it was beneath his smart remarks and casual demeanour, and he could not allow that steel to break. He had a job to do.

  Slowly and achingly, he rose to a sitting position then hauled himself up to his feet, soaked through with the all too familiar irritation of the morning dew. He wrung his hair out, letting the moisture fall onto his already soaked hospital shirt. He felt like little more than a block of ice, well beyond frozen and blue with cold. He probably had some kind of minor hypothermia, but then he didn't see that as necessarily being a bad thing- he was so numb that he felt absolutely nothing from his feet as he limped around the hospital building, and that was a blessing in itself.

  In the light of the early morning, he could tell a lot more about what kind of place this was. The hospital was fairly large, with three different wings which could probably accept a few hundred people at a time- he hadn't noticed any others during his escape, but then all the doors had been shut.

  It was made of some kind of soft sandstone-like rock, a yellowy brown which had been heavily pitted and eroded by the weather. Three stories tall and gothic-looking, snarling gargoyles were perched upon the corners of its roof, ivy trailed down its walls, and a circular tower rose up from an inner quadrangle like a candle on a cake. All in all, it looked like somebody had taken a modern hospital building and a weather-scarred castle, then created some kind of interesting hybrid and dumped it in a forest in the middle of nowhere. Grayson liked it. It seemed like a pretty interesting place to find himself in.

  Discovering at last what appeared to be the main entrance, two great oaken doors which had been left slightly ajar, he stepped through and into a great hall. White marble pillars rose up on either side of him in two rows leading across the room, and there were four other doors to be seen- two on the walls to his left and right, and another two down at the far end.

  He strode confidently down the centre of the hall, heedless to the unfelt pain from his legs. This was the kind of place one could get themselves lost in; the kind of place that had all kinds of secrets and hidden treasures. All of a sudden he liked it a lot.

  Reaching the far wall, he found himself faced with two sets of armour. To the left was an archaic looking suit of plate armour, silver coloured and adorned with crimson inlays of precious gems, but dulled and coated in a thick layer of dust. At its feet, seemingly thrust point first into the pedestal upon which the arm
our stood, was a longsword of the same style, runed down the blood groove in some indecipherable language, but in a similar state of abandonment to the armour.

  The armour on the right was very different; a sleek and advanced looking exo-suit, midnight black and inlaid with golden glyphs. It was comprised of a carapace of segmented plates, layered in an overlapping reptilian pattern, under which pistons and gears could in some areas be made out. It stood in an identical stance its counterpart, only at its feet there was planted a menacing and brutish chainsword. There were no chipped or missing teeth, and the longsword had no signs of wear, which led him to believe that they were probably nothing more than display pieces. Sad really, considering how cool they both looked.