Tainted Plans

by Jenn Vakey

  “What pill?” I asked, because I knew none of the ones I had brought would do anything to repair internal injuries like that. In fact, there wasn’t anything in Eden that would.

  Noella met me with a proud little smirk and reached into one of the drawers at the end of the room. One I had yet to find need to open. “As I’m sure you’ve already figured out, we have our share of injuries around here. I started tinkering with the bone pills a couple years ago and found a way to reprogram them to focus on tissue instead of bone. Now, it’s not going to fix significant damage like a tear or anything, but it helps with the bruises.”

  “You might be one of my favorite people in the world,” I said, holding out my hand to take the pill. And in that moment, she was. A pulmonary contusion, depending on how bad it was, could take quite a while to heal. Even the minor ones still took a week or two. That wasn’t time that I had. This little pill could mean the difference between success or failure on my rescue attempt.

  “You say that now, but you might not feel the same when I tell you you’re going to have to stay here tonight,” she said, a look of determination on her pretty face. That look made it clear that it wasn’t open for debate. “At least until I know that it’s working and you’re no longer coughing up blood. Especially since that one actually comes with a side effect of making you drowsy.”

  I couldn’t really find a reason to argue with her. As it was, it hurt to move. There wasn’t really anything pressing that I needed to do, so I might as well just stay.

  “I’m really, really sorry, Leeya,” Aarys said again.

  I waved my hand at her. “Stop apologizing. That was actually really fun right up until the point that I couldn’t move. Next time you can just be careful when it comes to my chest.”

  “Next time?” she asked, giving me a faint little smile.

  I nodded quickly, although my head was starting to feel weighted. Clearly the side effects didn’t take long to kick in. “I’ll probably have to take tomorrow off, but I still need practice. And you’re my girl, Aarys.”

  The way she looked at me left me wondering how many people refused to train with her after an injury. She looked so grateful. I probably would have questioned her about it had my eyes not started to grow heavier. I hadn’t really intended to sleep, but it was actually starting to sound like a really good idea.

  Maybe I would take a little nap.

  “I think she’s out,” Aarys said. I wasn’t, not completely, but I decided it would be pointless to argue. I knew it would come eventually. For now, I was actually enjoying the spinning feeling in my head. It made it feel almost like I was flying. “I’ll let her get some sleep. Let me know if she needs anything. I still feel terrible.”

  “You know as well as I do that it comes with the training,” Noella said, her voice sounding surprisingly distant, although I was sure she was still right next to me. “Leeya will be fine.”

  It wasn’t long after that when I heard the door open and close. I still knew I wasn’t alone, though. Drawers were gliding on their tracks, doors clicking as they opened and closed on the cabinets. Noella tidying up.

  Then came another sound. Another door. And a sigh.

  I wanted to smile, knowing that sound probably better than I should have, but I couldn’t seem to make my face cooperate. It was almost like my body was asleep while my mind was still fully aware. An interesting sensation. Hopefully I would remember this later and I could ask Noella about it.

  “She okay?” Rhydian’s deep voice asked.

  “She’ll be fine,” Noella answered. “What has she been training with?”

  “Bastons.”

  She hummed something, but it didn’t sound like anything more than an acknowledgement. Like he had confirmed something she’d already suspected. “That would explain it. Aarys got her pretty hard, but the bruising isn’t severe. She might not have even come in if she hadn’t been coughing up blood.”

  “Coughing up blood?” he asked, more seriously now.

  I wanted to open my eyes to see his reaction. Or to actually be able to talk to him myself. Again, my body didn’t seem willing to do anything I wanted it to. Okay, this was starting to get a little annoying.

  “It’s normal with this type of injury,” she said reassuringly. “She’ll be back to herself in a day or two. She even told Aarys she still wants to train with her, which I think was exactly what the girl needed to hear. She hides it, but you and I both know it bothers her that you’re the only one who will work with her.”

  He groaned, and I could hear the sound of his fingers moving through his hair. I could almost hear the conflict there. Rhydian had been the one who told me not to grapple with her, but I knew how much he cared about everyone here. He wouldn’t want to hurt Aarys by telling me I should avoid working with her. Not if this was an ongoing situation with her.

  “I’m going to go grab us some dinner,” Noella said. “Can you do me a favor and keep an eye on her until I get back? The pill I gave her to speed the healing will make her cough more as it tries to get everything out of her lung. Just turn her head so she doesn’t choke.”

  Rhydian must have nodded, because the door opened again a few moments later, then the room was filled with silence. I could feel the warm fingers of sleep tugging at me, but I fought to stay out of their grip. I hadn’t talked to him in days, and I didn’t want to go to sleep now that he was here. In fact, I wanted to be able to open my damn eyes so I could actually see him. Talk to him. Erg, this was so frustrating.

  “I change my mind about setting up a tent for you outside,” he said, followed by the sound of the stool moving toward the bed. “I think we’re just going to have to designate one of these rooms as yours on a full time basis.”

  I tried to laugh, but the only thing I accomplished was coughing again. Even my hands weren’t working as I tried to pull them up to cover my mouth. Thankfully I felt the towel being pressed against it, a warm hand sliding over my cheek as my head was turned to the side.

  “You should probably slow down when it comes to getting hurt like this,” he said as my coughs eased. “We’ve had people come here who have quite a few injuries as they settle in, but it’s like you’re trying to set a record. Trust me, there are better records in camp to shoot for.”

  That one made me smile. To my surprise, I actually felt my lips curling up a little. Not much, but it was a big improvement.

  “Not quite asleep yet, I see,” he said, almost sounding like he was smiling himself. “I don’t know if Noella doesn’t know about the strange state they put people in before you’re actually asleep, or if she just has a funny sense of humor and doesn’t tell anyone. But it’s normal. I’ve had to take them a few times myself. Although being able to smile is actually impressive. I guess you’re even more stubborn than I thought. Which says a lot.”

  I wanted very badly to show him a finger that my mother had always told me never to show people, but it seemed that I had reached the limit on just how much I could make my body do what I wanted it to do.

  “The upside for me is I can say anything I want right now and you can’t respond at all, which actually sounds fun,” he went on, and I could feel myself grinning again. I couldn’t help it.

  It was followed soon after by another coughing fit, and another groan from Rhydian when it was over and he pulled the towel away.

  “Maybe I should have been more specific when I told you to avoid grappling with Aarys,” he said gently. The soft scratch of the towel brushed over my lips as he wiped off the lingering blood. Then came the graze of skin on my cheek, my hair being pushed from my face. “She’s still too young to know how to control her strength. You’re lucky she didn’t hurt you more than she did. Maybe you should just tell her you’re still not healed enough for training until I can get back out there.”

  I wanted to both argue with him and to ask him why he was in the clinic and not out in the community like he usually was. I hated that I couldn’t. The lack of control I felt c
ombined with the residual guilt over what I had done to him. The fear over what my actions could have done. He could have been hurt. Arrested. My heart started to race, panic building. He could have been killed.

  My thoughts started to cloud, images starting to play through my mind like a recording. I would have thought them memories, but as the scenes started to become clearer, I knew it was anything but. I was seeing Lillith. Not my Lillith, but the one that had been filling my dreams. The one that I had to listen to as she begged for me to get her out of that place.

  And I saw Rhydian. The look on his face when Adler told him it was my fault. That I had betrayed him. I saw what they would have done to him. Torturing him, tearing into him.

  I didn’t want to see it. Any of it. I didn’t want to see them like that. Noella hadn’t told me how long I would be out, but if it was anything like this, I feared I wouldn’t be able to wake up to get away from them. I would be stuck there with them both, watching everything they were going through. All because of me. Because I had failed them both.

  Even the pain patch wasn’t enough to ease what I felt as my breathing started to grow faster and harder, my body fighting against what it knew was coming.

  “Hey,” Rhydian’s voice said, cutting through the images like a sharp knife. Warmth spread over my cheek as I felt his hand slide over it again, his thumb rubbing gently against my skin as he tried to coax me away from the demons that were waiting in the darkness for me. “You’re okay, Leeya. You won’t dream when it takes you. No nightmares. I promise.”

  I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have any way of knowing that, but he must have if he even knew that was what was going on. That that was where my fear was coming from. Did he know that was why I went out at night? To avoid the nightmares that always awaited me? Was he right that they wouldn’t find me here?

  I wanted to trust him, but I was still so afraid. So afraid that I would have to be stuck in that room again with Lillith. That it would be even worse with him there now too.

  There wasn’t anything I could do to cast out the darkness as it started to surround me, though. It wanted me, wanted to take me. And it was winning.

  “Sleep, Leeya,” Rhydian said. “You’re safe.”

  Just before it finally consumed me, I heard another voice in the room. This one was so far away that I couldn’t make out anything other than it was female. One that I wasn’t sure if I recognized.

  “Is she okay?”

  Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Two days passed before I was comfortable enough to start training again. It was probably a good thing it didn’t take longer, because Aarys kept eyeing me like I was going to fall over at any moment. I also didn’t think that I could take her asking me, yet again, if I was sure I wanted to train with her. I will say that the smile she gave me when I asked her if she was ready to start again actually made it all worth it. I could see what I heard Noella and Rhydian talking about written all over her face.

  Thankfully, she was more careful with me in the days that followed. By the time it neared the end of the week that I had given myself, I was actually starting to feel more comfortable with my abilities. I was far from perfect, but I was certain I would at least be able to put up a good fight. All I needed to do was get Lillith out of wherever she was and make sure either Dallin or Paxton were there to get her to the wall. To put up a good enough fight to give them the time needed for that.

  Two days before I had decided I would leave, I took advantage of my day off of both jobs and training and walked around in the woods surrounding the camp. I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, nothing more than some peace, but I was glad when I found a river that flowed through the area.

  The weather had warmed up quite a bit over the past week. The cold front that had moved through the area long gone. And the water looked so… inviting.

  I spun in place, looking around for any sign that someone else from camp was out here. There was nothing but the sounds of the woods on the air. So I decided to do something impulsive, determined to give myself a happy memory before I left Alkwin. I would have been fooling myself if I thought I’d be coming back. I wanted to, more than anything, but I had a feeling that my rescue mission was going to be one that I didn’t make it back from. And I was okay with that. As long as Lillith was safe.

  Pulling my clothes off of me, I tossed them onto a boulder near the water and stepped in wearing nothing more than my bra and panties. The water was cool, and I wasn’t moving more than an inch deeper at a time before I was stopping. At this rate, it would be dinner time before I actually made it fully into the water. So pulling in a breath to brace myself, I dove into the deeper water ahead.

  The coolness of it was a shock to my body, but it started to ease by the time my head was back above the surface. I had never swam anywhere outside of the Eden swimming pool. Even then, it was rarely more frequently than for the swimming lessons every child was required to take. There was only one pool for the entire city, and my parents always said it was too full for us to get in. Especially during the summer months.

  This felt so different. The water didn’t smell like chemicals, and the bottom was slimy against my feet. Not unpleasant, but definitely not what I was used to. When I felt something poke into my abdomen, I looked down and saw tiny fish swimming around me. Trying to figure out exactly what I was. I laughed, attempting to scoop one up in my cupped hands. We didn’t have fish in Eden, but they looked just like the pictures I had seen. They were too fast, though, never letting me even get close enough to touch them.

  When I stood up straight with my feet on the bottom, the water stopped just below my bra line. It was still too cool for me to want to have that much of my skin exposed, so I kept dipping down to get warm before standing up to move around. Why hadn’t I done this before?

  “Why are you always outside of camp?” a voice asked, cutting through the quiet tranquility I had been enjoying.

  I spun around quickly to face the river bank and was surprised to see Rhydian standing there. I hadn’t seen him at all since that afternoon in the clinic. Well, I hadn’t seen him then, but he was there. Then he had just vanished all over again.

  Realizing as I stared at him that I had spent a solid five seconds with the upper half of my body very visible, I quickly dropped back down to try and cover myself. There was apparently no question as to what I was doing, because he looked nothing short of amused.

  But he smiled. One of those real smiles that I enjoyed so much.

  “I could ask you the same thing?” I countered, hoping to distract him from the fact that I was practically naked out here. Or maybe distract myself.

  Rhydian shrugged and crossed his arms. “It’s my job to monitor the perimeter.”

  “And that’s what you’re doing?”

  He gave me a funny little look that made him appear almost like a schoolboy before answering, “Yes.”

  And I knew. The small quirk of his lips. The way the corner of his eyes crinkled just slightly. He was lying.

  I considered calling him on it, but the way that his eyes moved around my face told me that he already knew that I could tell. Or at the very least that he was testing me to see if I had noticed. He didn’t look guilty, though. Like I had caught him doing something wrong. So why was he lying? Or out here at all? My heart started to race at the question. Was he looking for me? I hadn’t been here for more than ten minutes. Had he followed me without me noticing?

  “I used to dream about what it was like outside of the wall,” I blurted out, desperate to change the subject to something safer. I only had two days left. I couldn’t let anything get in the way of that. If I was being honest, the only thing that really could was him. “My sister and I would sneak up to the top of the wall and look out at the dense woods. We would make up stories about what it would be like.”

  He watched me as I talked, his eyes studying me in that way he so often did. Giving almost nothing away
.

  “Haven’t seen you around in a while,” I went on, not comfortable with the silence.

  A nod. “I had something I needed to take care of.”

  No one had said anything over the past week that would explain what had happened in Eden or why Rhydian was spending his time in the clinic. I wanted so desperately to ask him, but I was almost afraid of what his answer might be. More so after I heard that other voice before falling asleep that day after I was injured. There was someone else there. A woman. If they had gone into the city to get a Tainted person out and she ended up getting hurt because of what I told Adler, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.

  There was also a fear there that I couldn’t quite shake off. Rhydian had been so shocked by whatever Joury had told him. Then he came back and had spent nearly the entire week shut away with a woman. Though I told myself it was ridiculous, my thoughts jumped to the story he had told me about the girl he had lost years ago. But I knew that couldn’t be it. She had been killed, not locked away like Lillith was.

  Even if it was her, miraculously back from the dead, I shouldn’t be bothered by it. So what if I had been feeling something for him. I was leaving, and probably would never be back. Besides, I had betrayed him. He should have someone who wouldn’t do that.

  Even if it did hurt to think about.

  “Aarys said you’ve been keeping up with your training,” he said when I didn’t respond.

  I smirked. “You mean after you told me I shouldn’t?” His eyes flared with excitement, knowing now that I really had been able to hear him. Something I wasn’t sure he would have actually asked. “I’ve been trying to. Basically just working on the same things you taught me before you disappeared. And I’m glad I did. Who knows how long I would have been stuck waiting for you.”