by Chele Cooke
Rounding the table, Olless lifted her chin and looked down her thin nose.
“This is bigger than one man, Miss Lennox,” she said, emphasising each word. “We could save thousands of lives with these talks.”
“Thousands of lives you wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for Edtroka!”
She couldn’t look at her. She wouldn’t. Spinning on her heel, Georgianna marched back to the doorway.
“Miss Lennox, we are not finished!” Olless said. “Perhaps Grystch allowed you insolence under his ownership, but I will not allow it here.”
The growl that grew from Georgianna was feral and filled with fury. She wanted something to throw at Olless. More than anything, she wanted to hurt the woman. She wanted to hurt her almost as much as she wanted to hurt Ehnisque.
“I don’t take orders from the Cahlven. You elected leaders for the Veniche. I will talk to them.”
She didn’t turn back from the door. She didn’t dare. If she looked at Olless, Georgianna feared she might try to punch her, or perhaps claw out those pretty eyes; anything to transfer a fraction of the pain crushing her from the inside.
“Keiran, talk to her!”
The chair scraped against the floor as he got to his feet.
“Which of the elected Veniche leaders will be at this meeting with the Volsonnar and the Colvohan?” he asked.
Georgianna glanced at Keiran over her shoulder. His expression remained calm, but she had known him long enough to sense when anger was bubbling under the surface. Olless spluttered, and retreated to the other side of the table. Keiran scoffed.
“Exactly!”
He didn’t wait. He strode to Georgianna’s side and took her hand, leading her from the kitchen and back out into the rain.
Olless didn’t bother them again. When Keiran went to find Beck, Georgianna set off in search of Jacob. Troops were now regularly scouting different areas of the city, and many were returning with injuries. After being shown where most of the medical supplies were kept, Georgianna joined the Veniche and Cahlven to help out. Keeping busy allowed her to focus on something other than the events of the last week; but every time she saw a head of dark hair she did a double-take, thinking that it might be Edtroka or her brother.
Most of the Cahlven troops who returned didn’t know Georgianna, and treated her with the standard respect they gave the other medics. A few looked at her in curiosity and a vague sense of recognition. Maybe she had been pointed out by a soldier who had been in the square, or they had seen her tethered to the execution post. She didn’t know and didn’t ask. Luckily, neither did they.
Alec returned from another scouting trip late in the afternoon. One of the Cahlven medics became free before Georgianna did, but Alec waved him off and waited until she had finished splinting a man’s broken fingers before he took a seat on the box in front of her.
“How did you do this?” she asked as he lifted his shirt to reveal a large scrape down his side. He gave her an embarrassed smile.
“I slipped down a flight of stairs,” he said.
Georgianna just about held back a snort of laughter. She rolled her eyes and gathered up a salve that Jacob had told her was good for superficial wounds. The stories the young man had told her about the Cahlven medicines were astounding. With each new patient, each new injury, he was gaining confidence. She wondered whether this bubbly young man was in fact the ‘real’ Jacob, the one he’d been before he was taken.
Scooping up three fingers of the salve, she smeared it liberally over the raw flesh. Alec watched her cautiously.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She scooped more salve onto her fingers, focussing all her concentration into making sure she covered every inch of the wound.
“George, talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
The grasp on her chin as he tilted her head back was gentle, but Georgianna wrenched away from him just the same. A flash before her eyes: the memory of Maarqyn’s holding her and making her watch Keiran’s pain. She turned away, rubbing her arm across her eyes.
“I heard you have a mark now,” he said, dropping his hands back into his lap.
Georgianna gave a bitter laugh as she returned to applying the salve.
“Am I camp gossip?”
Alec sighed and took hold of her hand, pulling it away from the treatment.
“George, please. I know what Maarqyn is like. Talk to me.”
She pushed herself up and tugged her hand from his grasp. Smearing the last of the salve across the burns on her wrist, she put the metal tin back into its box.
“I told you, there’s nothing to say.”
Alec made a great show of tugging his shirt down and straightening it against his body. He squeezed his hands in his lap.
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”
There had been a time when that sort of statement wouldn’t have surprised her. She would have rolled her eyes and told him that he didn’t want to hear what she had to say, because he’d only get angry when she disagreed with him. She remembered that time so well and yet it felt like a different life, back when they would have been having this conversation down in the tunnels; when they would have been discussing whether or not she should be going into the Compound to help the prisoners. He always thought it was too dangerous, that she should be staying out of the rebellion efforts. She would have tried to distract him with a kiss, or would have changed the subject.
There was none of that now. That time was gone. Those people were gone. Georgianna rubbed her hands on her trousers and stared past him.
“Maarqyn told me they saw my family.”
“What?”
“They passed a checkpoint,” she said, fighting to keep her breathing steady.
“Are they okay?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.”
“I’m sor—”
“Don’t.”
Turning away from him, Georgianna rearranged the contents of the box, lining up the tins and tidying the linen bags. Alec touched the side of her arm and she jerked away from him.
“You let him go into that square,” she said. “You knew what would happen and you—”
“You would have been killed,” he said.
“You paid for my life with his.”
“What was I supposed to do, George? Let you die?”
“YES!” The word was out of her mouth before she had time to think about it. But even as she saw the flush of anger in Alec’s face, she didn’t take it back. He stared down at his feet.
“Do you really think I could have stopped him?” he said. “Edtroka was ready to hand himself over before your life was on the line.”
“Like you even tried! You never cared about him. You just wanted your petty revenge on the Adveni for what Maarqyn did to you.”
“Petty?”
He stepped back, his face red. Georgianna folded her arms. He had wanted her to talk and he was going to get his wish. He could have left her alone, but he’d had to push it. He’d had to demand answers she hadn’t been ready to give.
“You think two years of torture is petty?”
“Edtroka didn’t do that to you. If you wanted revenge, you should have gone after Maarqyn.”
“What do you think I was doing?”
“You should have shot faster!” Her voice was on the verge of breaking. “You let him die! If you’d just…”
Alec’s anger deflated as Georgianna gasped for air. Her hands couldn’t brush away the tears of fury and frustration. They were flowing faster than she could control them, as the hollow in her stomach consumed her. Chest heaving, she gasped desperately for air.
“He would be here. He should be here. He saved me and I couldn’t… I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t save them. I sent them away to save them from this and they still…”
Alec reached for her but she jumped away. She couldn’t. Not now and not to him.
“They’re gone!” she said wi
th a sob.
Georgianna launched herself past him. She pulled her coat tight around her body, trying to hold the broken pieces together. Lunging into a run as soon as she was through the door, she splashed through the rain to the only place she could think of.
Georgianna didn’t stop running until she was standing in the doorway of her family home. Breathing hard, exertion having fought off the tears for now, she leaned against the wall and gazed down the hallway. Every door but one was open. It looked like nobody had been here since Ehnisque sent the soldiers in to search. She moved slowly through the house, but everything familiar just made her want to scream. Why had she even come here?
Her bag still stood against the wall in the corridor, Braedon’s stuffed toy sticking out of it. She tugged it free and clutched it to her chest. It wasn’t surprising that the others hadn’t returned to take her bag, even though there was medicine and food inside. It was just too dangerous to return to the house with Ehnisque’s suspecting they were somewhere within the city.
The door to her brother’s room was closed, though she couldn’t imagine the soldiers would have left the room unsearched. She placed each step gently, creeping towards the door. Pushing it open, she let out a growl as a fresh anger flared up inside her. There was a man curled up on the ripped mattress.
She knew she shouldn’t be angry. People had been displaced from their own homes by the Cahlven troops and it wasn’t surprising that they’d taken shelter in the empty buildings. But to find someone on the bed her brother had once slept in, curled up with no mind to the fact its owner was now gone, made her blood boil.
She opened her mouth to yell, to scream and tell the man to get out. But before she could make a sound, he rolled over and looked up at her. It was Dhiren.
“What are you doing here?”
He pushed himself up and shifted along the mattress, leaning against the wall. His eyes were bloodshot and a crust of sleep clung to his eyelashes. He looked away from her and brushed a thumb across one eye.
“Nothing.”
Georgianna chewed on the inside of her lip and brushed her fingers against the toy’s back. Kicking off her boots, she padded across the room and sat down on the mattress next to Dhiren. He shifted along the wall to make room.
“Don’t ask if I’m alright,” he murmured.
“Only if you don’t.”
“Deal.”
Pulling the toy to her chest, Georgianna picked at the rip in the mattress. She didn’t know what to say without asking how he was doing. She wanted to say that she was sorry but it sounded hollow, even in her head. She had seen Dhiren cheerful, bawdy and cheeky. She had seen him so viciously angry that she feared him. She had even seen him restrain his anger into bitter obedience. But she had never seen him sad.
“Dhiren,” she said.
“What?”
“You and Edtroka…”
It was an issue that had been burning in her head for a while, though she’d never considered pulling it from the flames. It was the little things, the big things, and everything in between. Was it Edtroka’s fear or his desperate pleas to Dhiren in the cell, like he was the only one he could truly count on? Or had it been the anger with which Dhiren defended Edtroka’s intentions in the forest? Had it been the way Edtroka mocked Dhiren about his skill, or the way Dhiren teased Edtroka about her? When Dhiren had asked how many people they were catering for, as they were organising supplies for a back-up plan, Georgianna wondered whether it had been out of logistics, or just plain jealousy.
“He wasn’t just a friend, was he?”
Dhiren became intensely interested in the state of his hands. He turned them over and stared at the palms. There were scars there, old ones and new. Laying her hand over his, she leaned in closer. He didn’t flinch or pull away. He simply stared, his eyes blank.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said.
Enclosing her hand in his, he turned it over and traced the creases in her palm. His fingers were delicate as they peeled back her sleeve, revealing the blistering skin around her wrist. She wanted to ask if he was stalling to give him a chance to invent an explanation, or if the pause was his way of saying he didn’t want to tell her. She held her tongue, letting Dhiren brush the unblistered edges of the raw skin. His cheek twitched into an almost-smile and he dropped their hands back into his lap.
“I gave him so much shit about letting me rot in that compound,” he said, his lip giving the slightest tremble. “I knew he saved me from a collar but I was so angry with him. He promised me and I’d trusted him.”
Tears dripped off her chin and onto her shirt. Maybe it was as much of an answer as he was willing to give, this quiet regret. She licked a salty drop from where it hovered at the bow of her lips.
“There was a time I thought he liked me,” she said. “He was always so flirty. He teased me even before I knew him properly. I’d been so scared of him and he—”
“And he was a charming bastard,” Dhiren said, laughing. “Cocky as sin.”
“He was. He mocked me once about running whenever he called.”
Dhiren sniffed and took the rag doll from her hands. He examined it, smiling fondly. He’d told her once that he’d been a loner before he was put in the compound, that he’d never really been a tribe person. Had he ever had a toy like this? Something he treasured even though it was old and tattered? Had he ever been close to anyone before Edtroka befriended him?
“I almost denied him when he asked me to protect you in the block. It meant he cared about you. That he’d ask me— me—to be the one…” His voice cracked as he tried to force out a laugh. “It wasn’t all a lie. He cared about you, George.”
Was it resentment in his voice, or just sadness and pain? Georgianna moved to lean her head on his shoulder, but he stiffened and froze, and she sat forwards again.
“I don’t know what to do now,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“My family is gone, Edtroka’s gone. I wanted to help and I’m just making everything worse.”
Dhiren pouted and held the doll out for her to take. She crushed it to her chest and drew up her knees. Dragging his finger across the mattress between them, he nodded absently.
“I’ll leave,” he said. “Once this is done.”
“This?”
“Once I know Ehnisque is dead.”
Georgianna looked at him over her shoulder. He had rested his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. She didn’t know that revenge could make someone so content. She’d been hard on Alec about it, but there was a finality she couldn’t place—about the idea of looking down at Ehnisque’s body, at Maarqyn’s. Maybe she didn’t need to see out the war; she just needed to finish her own battles, their battles.
“You’ll go back to living alone?”
“Well, it wasn’t like I ever had a tribe.”
She smiled weakly and shrugged, though he didn’t see it.
“We could be a tribe,” she said quietly. “However dysfunctional.”
He cracked one eye open and peered at her. Behind his lowered lid, he rolled his eye and shook his head.
“You’re a simpering idiot,” he said. “But if a tribe is what you want, I suppose I can’t stop you.”
Georgianna shook her head and gave him the most self-assured smile she could muster.
“No. You can’t. You saved my life.”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
Turning to face him, Georgianna plucked his hand from his lap and pushed the doll into his grasp.
“Edtroka asked you to protect me,” she said. “And I know he’d want me to protect you, whether you like it or not.”
Dhiren patted the small of her back as he scooted across the mattress. Georgianna wriggled her shirt back down her body and knelt once she was covered again. She’d not meant to stay overnight in the house, and Keiran was probably worried that she hadn’t returned. But it had been nice to sit in the gathering dark with Dhiren. He didn’t ask her t
o talk about how she felt, nor pester her for information. It was quiet and comforting, and when she fell asleep next to him, he covered her in a blanket and lay beside her through the night.
Gathering up the items from her medic bag, she made sure each lid was on securely and nothing had been spilled before putting everything away. There were still a few food packets down near the bottom. She took one for herself and tossed another over to Dhiren. They sat on the doorstep and ate in silence, scooping up the sandy mixture with their fingers.
Georgianna scraped the food off the roof of her mouth with her tongue, making a face. It wasn’t particularly pleasant to eat, but Edtroka had said it was designed specifically to deliver nutrients to the body. Dhiren ate his without complaint and nudged her in the ribs, nodding down the road. Beck was walking towards them, flanked by Keiran and Alec.
“Can still make a run for it,” Dhiren said under his breath. “I already know I can get over that back fence.”
She chuckled into her food and met his gaze. The red rims had gone from his eyes and he looked a little better than he had the day before. She doubted it was the food that made him appear less hollow. He put on a mocking smile, continuing the transformation back to his former self.
“Dhiren, Gianna,” Beck said warily as he came closer. “How are you both?”
There was the question again; the one she didn’t want to answer. She didn’t know how to. Her companion didn’t seem inclined to say anything, either, although Dhiren didn’t know Beck very well, after all. She knew that the best way to ensure the question wouldn’t come up again was to answer and get it over with. She lifted her head.
“We’re fine,” she said, trying to sound reassuring, or at least not like she was being pulled in three directions at once. “How’ve you been?”
Alec and Keiran both looked out of place standing in front of her house, shuffling their feet and looking like they would rather be anywhere else. She wondered if Beck had asked them to come, or if they’d been looking for her.
“Needed a break,” Beck said. “If you don’t mind. My home is rather—”
