by Cooke, Chele
“Hey, George!”
Georgianna turned, her arms filled with bandages she’d been reorganising. Wrench was climbing into the car, a tyllenich rifle hung over his shoulder.
“Hi Wrench, how’s things?”
Wrench dropped himself heavily onto one of the makeshift beds, adjusting the tyllenich by his side.
“Good. Nervous about tomorrow.”
She wasn’t sure whether it was a statement of his nerves or a question about hers so she simply nodded.
“Anyway, I just came to get some more of that paste.”
“The hyliha.” She nodded.
Moving to one of the lined crates, she dumped the bandages into it without bothering to organise them. She picked up the box with the hyliha powder in it, and taking one of the small cloth bags, poured in a generous amount.
“You just need to add a little cold water,” she explained, tying the strings from the bag around it and grabbing the first dressing her hand found.
Wrench nodded, placing the bag and dressing in a jacket pocket. Giving her a grateful wink, he got to his feet.
“We’re all ready for tomorrow.”
“You found another absorber?” Georgianna’s voice filled with excitement and relief. Of the things Beck had refused to help them with, the second absorber had proved the most difficult to find.
Grimacing, Wrench shook his head.
“What are you going to do?”
“The charge might last enough for two collars,” Wrench explained. “They’re designed for copaqs, which give off a stronger charge.”
“It might last?”
Wrench shrugged.
“Can’t promise. Only thing we can do, I guess, is hope for luck.”
Georgianna nodded, but it didn’t ease her fears in the slightest. Wrench moved towards the door, stopping just as he was about to jump out, and glanced back.
“See you when it’s done, George,” he said with a cheerful smile.
Once Wrench had disappeared down the tunnel, Georgianna went back to her counting. However, the task was pointless, as she never got all the way through the box before she became distracted by her thoughts, and lost count. In the end, she gave up and simply organised them by size, which she could do without distraction.
The afternoon was slow going. Jaid was meant to take over at sundown, but Georgianna was considering telling her not to bother. After all, Georgianna would need to be here in the morning because it was easier to get to the compound from the tunnels than the camps. She didn’t have a shift in the Rion district, and didn’t exactly want to go crawling into Keiran’s shack. However, knowing that she needed sleep if she was going to be alert the next morning, Georgianna decided that she would simply sleep at the back of the train car with Jacob.
The young man was practically healed. While he still had his scars and anxiety levels to rival a rabbit being chased by coyotes, he was physically fit enough to leave Medics’ Way. The problem was that he didn’t have anywhere else to go. So, instead of kicking him out, Jaid had agreed to let him stay as long as he needed, on the condition he pulled his weight.
She wasn’t sure what kind of weight that might be: he was still rather skinny and didn’t like touching other people. But as it turned out, he was good at inventory and slowly coming out with more and more information from his training as a herber. Georgianna had yet to find anyone who would take him on. Funnily enough, it wasn’t that she couldn’t match the price they were asking, or that they didn’t want an escaped drysta (she had left that part out for now), but just that they didn’t have the necessary supplies to do a good job. Despite her disappointment, she was impressed with their honesty. Some people would just have made the deal anyway, but the ones she’d asked seemed like nice people.
She hadn’t yet asked Liliah. Georgianna trusted her friend to see that Jacob would be expertly trained, but she hadn’t wanted to put that sort of pressure on her. Liliah would immediately know how Georgianna knew the young man, and once that knowledge was there between them, Liliah would have no say in whether she even wanted a secret like that.
“You avoiding me, George?”
Georgianna jumped. She glanced over and gave Keiran an anxious smile.
“No, just busy, you know.”
He pulled himself up into the train car, an amused smile on his lips. She was sure that he didn’t believe her. Even as busy as Georgianna usually was, she found time to see him. In fact, it was usually when she was busiest that she saw Keiran the most, because his shack was rather conveniently located.
“Yeah, those stocks look riveting.”
Keiran’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and reached up to scratch her ear. She’d never thought it would be so difficult to have a conversation with Keiran, and yet here she was, with no idea what to say.
“Just nervous, I guess,” she finally mumbled. “About tomorrow.”
He smiled, shifting the strap of his weapon from his shoulder and placing the device down on the bed. Moving over to her, he took hold of her arms.
“We’ve got everything covered,” he bent a little to look at her properly. “You just need to do your thing at the compound then meet us when it’s all done.”
She nodded, avoiding his gaze. Yet with him this close, she could see his face in her peripheral vision everywhere she looked, which only made trying to evade the awkward conversation worse. At the end of it all, she did want to keep seeing him.
Leaning forward, Keiran placed a gentle kiss against her cheek, squeezing her arms as he stepped back again. Unlike usually, when Georgianna would have leaned into him, this time, she found herself moving away. She couldn’t do this; she couldn’t keep pretending that she was fine with casual when she wasn’t. It was only making things more confusing.
“Are you coming to mine tonight?”
She frowned and chewed on the inside of her cheek.
“I don’t know.” She tried to think of a reasonable way out of it and couldn’t. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, I just…”
Georgianna looked away. She went and sat on the bed, tracing her fingers carefully along the barrel of the gun he’d put down.
“What’s going on with you? I’ve not seen you for days and now you’re being all weird.”
Weird was hardly the word she’d give to it. She’d maybe been a little more emotional, but seeing as Keiran had his wonderful reputation with women, surely this wasn’t the first time a girl had realised she wasn’t happy keeping their relationship at just sex.
“I dunno, I’ve just been thinking and… and my brother said some things…”
“Your brother, huh?” He nodded in understanding as he took a seat next to her. “So, am I about to get my face beaten in or do I need to provide a grass symbol before the week is out?”
Georgianna glanced at him. So, this definitely wasn’t the first time someone had had an issue with the just-sex arrangement. Only maybe it hadn’t been the girl he’d been sleeping with, but her family that had the problem.
“I think he’s more likely to beat me up than you.”
Keiran whistled.
“Well, that’s a relief!” He mockingly brushed the back of his hand against his forehead. “Dunno what I’d do if I had to go up against a horse rearer.”
Georgianna smacked his arm.
“This isn’t funny!”
Keiran sighed. Moving a little closer to her, he slung his arm carelessly around her shoulder. Georgianna wanted to be angry at him for mocking her brother. Halden was only trying to look out for her. However, she was almost impressed that Keiran remembered what he did.
“Okay, so what did your brother say?”
She scraped her front teeth over her bottom lip as she glanced at him and away. If she was going to tell him and sound like an idiot, she might as well get it over with.
“He accused me of liking you,” she mumbled.
Keiran gave her a look of mortified shock.
“How dare he?” he mocked. Georgianna rolled her eyes. He could at least try to be serious.
“He doesn’t think you and I just having fun is…” she paused, trying to think of the right words. “He thinks I’m kidding myself. He said I was being childish because I thought you and I just having fun would work… that I should stop being with guys for fun, and instead think about the future.”
Keiran looked at her, eyes narrowed, and hummed out his thoughts for a moment.
“So he wants the grass symbol,” he answered.
“No,” Georgianna defended quickly. “He just thinks that I should… I don’t know, it’s ridiculous. But he’s wormed in and… and I don’t know.”
Keiran reached out and hooked his finger underneath Georgianna’s chin, turning her to look at him.
“You’re not happy with things the way they are now?”
When he put it like that, she didn’t know what to say. She loved how things were now between them. Not right this second, because it was awkward and embarrassing, but in the more general sense, yes, she did like what they had. She just wasn’t sure she liked that he also had the same thing with other women.
“No,” she mumbled before her eyes widened in panic. “I mean, yes, I do. I like how things are between you and me, but…”
“But…”
She looked down at her knees.
“I think I want it to be just you and me,” she murmured. “I want to…”
“You want to be together, properly,” he finished.
Finally looking up at him, she shrugged a little. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap, trying to stop herself from fidgeting, she found herself drumming her fingers nervously against the backs of her hands.
“I… maybe.”
Keiran nodded slowly. He stared past her, his tongue darting across his lips again. She held her breath, wondering whether he was about to tell her that this wasn’t what he wanted, that he couldn’t be just with her. Only, when he looked back at her, he smiled and leaned forward, pressing a kiss against her lips.
“Look, we’ve got a whole lot of shit to deal with tomorrow,” he said as he brushed a lock of wavy blonde hair back from her face. “How about, you stay at my place tonight, we free some dreta tomorrow, and then we’ll discuss what this relationship stuff entails?”
Georgianna’s mouth dropped open. Had he just agreed to it? He hadn’t walked out. He hadn’t told her that he wasn’t interested. He wanted to talk about it. Staring at him blankly, she blinked and shook her head.
“Yeah, yeah that sounds good.” She smiled.
“Good,” he answered. “And tell your brother that who you have sex with is not a conversation to have with siblings!”
He leaned forward, planting another soft kiss on her. This time, instead of being worried, instead of leaning away, Georgianna felt her lips smiling against his. She leaned into him until he pulled back.
“I’ll see you in a bit, alright?”
She nodded, not moving from her place on the bed for a few minutes, even after Keiran had left, the sound of his boots against the stones fading through the echoing tunnels. That hadn’t gone nearly as badly as she’d thought it would. Oddly enough, it made her feel a little better about the next day too. She knew where she stood, and by the end of the next day, she would have two of her friends standing there with her, almost free.
31 Back Before Sunset
When Georgianna awoke that morning, it was with a knot in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t think she should really be worried, they had everything planned, but knowing that just one thing going wrong could mean the whole plan falling apart, she had tossed and turned through nightmares until Keiran woke her. Each time she apologised and slowly fell back to sleep, only to be revisited by the same horror of seeing Keiran and Wrench up on the execution block in Javeknell Square, of Landon and Nyah being killed as Wrench tried to remove the collars from around their necks, of Taye being dragged off to Lyndbury by Maarqyn and other faceless Adveni.
It was still early when Georgianna gave up trying to sleep, far too early to actually get out of bed, but the knot in her stomach would not let her drift off again. Instead, she lay motionless against Keiran’s body, listening to his breathing and watching the rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand through the shadows.
By the time Keiran finally woke, she had not only suffered her nightmares, but each scenario had played itself through her conscious mind a dozen times. So Keiran’s first act of the day was not to get dressed, but to talk Georgianna through the plan again so that she could see how they would get out of it if something were to go wrong.
Georgianna was set to visit the compound late in the morning, before sun-high. At sun-high, Nyah and Landon would be ready to run. Taye and Keiran had put aside their sniping at each other long enough to figure out the quietest route through the dwelling quarter, which would also lead them closest to Oppression City where Wrench would be waiting.
Once in Oppression City with Wrench, Keiran and Taye would keep a look out while Wrench removed the collars. Only when that was done would they move onto the new location at the southern edge of the district, where they would wait for Georgianna.
Georgianna didn’t particularly like the fact that Nyah and Landon would have to travel so far with the collars still attached, nor did she like that they would be waiting for her in the same district the collars would give off as their last location. However, it was too late to change the plan now.
Taye banged on the wall of the shack not ten minutes before they had to leave. When he entered, it looked like he’d not slept a minute in days, yet he seemed alert and ready to go. Georgianna could only imagine he’d been pacing down in the Carae for hours, waiting until a decent time when he’d be able to come up to meet them.
“You ready?” he asked, looking at Keiran as he began wringing his hands, his heel bouncing against the ground.
Keiran nodded, tugging on his second boot and reaching out, grasped the strap of Georgianna’s bag to hand to her. Keiran had already tucked two small guns into his belt, where they were covered by his dark shirt. Georgianna wished that he was taking the tyllenich with him, but it would be almost impossible to hide and a coat in the mid-heat weather would only raise suspicion.
Georgianna slung her bag over her shoulder, giving Taye a quick, tight hug before turning to Keiran.
“You…”
“No,” he interrupted. “None of that ‘be careful’ crap.”
She gazed at him in surprise. He took her face in his hands, thumbs brushing gentle, rhythmic strokes across her skin.
“I’ll see you later.” he told her, with a self-assured nod.
He tipped her head up, a soft kiss that felt almost innocent as he looked down at her, his forehead against hers.
“Go save some buryd guy’s life.”
Georgianna nodded against him, squeezing his waist in her fingers for a moment. Then she left, not daring to look back.
Every step of the walk sounded like the beating of hooves in the migration, pounding and echoing through the tunnels. She kept her gaze on her feet, trying to clear her mind from what was going to be happening in the city. She needed to appear normal, couldn’t give anything away to the guards. If she showed up acting suspiciously, they’d know for certain that something was going on. The problem was, the harder she tried to think about other things, the more the plan filtered into her mind. As she walked, her only salvation became that the Adveni had no mind-reading technology, at least, not that she knew of.
When the sun finally blinded her as she stepped out of the tunnels, she shielded her face and took a deep breath. This was it. Keiran and Taye would be setting off. Wrench would be in the Oprust district making sure the coast was clear, and that he had everything set up for the cinystalq removal. Nyah and Landon were probably trying to act normally, just as she was, so nobody would suspect what was about to happen.
The compound looked more ominous than ever, a mass of dark stone against the bright backdrop of mid-heat. With every step Georgianna took towards it, her trepidation grew until she had to curl her hands into tight fists just to stop them shaking. She had to stop; she had to think about other things.
Pausing just before the gates, she closed her eyes, focusing on the first thing that came to mind. Oddly, though she’d figured her thoughts would jump to Keiran and their conversations in the thick of the night-time, the only face that came to her was that of her father. She took a deep breath. She had to calm down because her father needed her. Her brother and Braedon needed her to be flawless.
She stepped through the gates, but before she’d gone five steps, Edtroka appeared out of the guard station.
“Med,” he greeted with a formal nod.
“Morning,” Georgianna smiled forcefully. “How’s it going?”
His jaw tightened a little and he shrugged.
“There was a fight last night,” he explained emotionlessly. “We have three injured.”
She nodded, gazing up at Edtroka with narrowed eyes. Maybe he was just in a bad mood because of the fight, not that he’d have to do anything about it. Guards didn’t intervene in fights within the block. They simply let it play out until the Veniche inside either broke it up themselves or one of them ended up dead. It wasn’t like there weren’t a hundred more Veniche to take their place. She grimaced, unable to believe she’d even had the thought.
“Well, I should get in there then,” she agreed.
Following him down the path and through the heavy doors into the compound, she placed her bag on the table and let Edtroka search through it. She submitted to the usual hand check to see if she was carrying anything on her and even gave Edtroka a smile as if hoping to cheer him up. Throughout the whole ritual, Edtroka did not say a word.
“Call when you want letting out,” he finally told her as he pushed the block door open.
