Josin L McQuein - Arclight

“Tobin, wait,” I call after him. “I’m—”

He pushes past Dr. Wolff, close enough to my bed to bump it sideways.

“—sorry,” I finish, too late.

“That could have gone better,” Mr. Pace says.

I nod, scooting off the hospital bed as Dr. Wolff hands me my inhaler. The ring feels heavy and cold against my skin when I tuck it in, not comforting at all.

“If I’d known you were still here, I would have waited,” Mr. Pace says.

“S’okay,” I mumble. It’s not like he ruined a friendship; he only pushed the wedge a little wider. “Can I leave?” I ask.

“Go on,” Dr. Wolff says. “Honoria’s arranged something special for you kids at first meal. You don’t want to miss the surprise.”

Yes I do.

Unexpected variables rarely prove to be good for me. They lead to running and screaming and things that can kill me, so talk of something mysterious waiting in the Common Hall isn’t an incentive to get there any faster.

I hesitate near the door, balanced between two bad decisions. At least with the hospital, I know what kind of misery to expect. I’ve pretty much lost my appetite anyway.

“Doctor Wolff,” I begin. It isn’t easy convincing my mouth to explain my nightmares and endure whatever reactions he has to them. I anticipate a lot of needles.

“Yes?” He inclines his head, not looking at me while he sterilizes the scraper with an open flame.

My hesitation costs me the chance to answer.

The door on the far side of the room slams open. Lt. Sykes and another guard hurry in, shuffling to manage a third person between them—Anne-Marie’s brother, Trey.

Burned and bloodied.

Trey holds his arm against his chest. His jacket and shirt are burned through, the skin beneath them melted, as though someone roasted it over an open flame. It’s going to take more than a dab of cold blue gel to fix that.

“What happened?” Dr. Wolff asks.

“Briar bush at the burn site,” the man I don’t know says.

“It had gone black,” Lt. Sykes adds.

Lt. Sykes is young, barely older than Trey, and strangely pretty for a guy. There’s something off about him, like he’s always marching a half-step out of time with everyone else. And he certainly doesn’t act like someone who’s only recently aged out. He isn’t treated like it either.

“She burned me.” Trey gags on his own words, shaking as the others hold him up. Dr. Wolff extends Trey’s arm further, and Trey vomits onto the floor.

I step toward him automatically, but Mr. Pace seizes my injured wrist, only loosening his grip when I yelp. He doesn’t even apologize.

“Don’t touch him.”

“But . . .”

This is Anne-Marie’s brother. How can I not help?

“Get to the Common Hall.” Mr. Pace tows me toward the exit, still by the wrist.

“Was he attacked?” I ask.

It’s barely dark. If Trey was attacked, that means the Fade have moved faster than they did last night, or that they were closer. Either way, we’re in trouble. We should be at Red-Wall.

“Is he okay?” I try to get a clear view of Trey, but Mr. Pace keeps his body in the way.

“Go!” He dismisses me, then doubles back.

I position myself in the hall outside the door where I can watch from the side. If I tell Anne-Marie I saw Trey delivered to the hospital, she’ll drive everyone crazy until she gets details. Staying to eavesdrop is a mission of mercy, really. It’s not just to satisfy my own curiosity, at all. . . .

“What were you thinking, taking him out there?” Mr. Pace snarls at Lt. Sykes—actually snarls. His face twists into something grotesque. “He hasn’t even aged out.”

“He showed up on his own, same as last night.”

“What happened to his gloves?”

“He said they made it too hard to work.”

“You let him take them off?”

“He’s about as reasonable as his old man.”

I’ve never heard Lt. Sykes speak back at Mr. Pace before.

“Stop!” Dr. Wolff splits them apart when it seems Mr. Pace is going to do more than yell. “Elias, you can exact your pound of flesh once I’m sure I won’t have to do the same with our young patient. I need details. Are you sure the bush was infested?”

“The kid tore it up before we could warn him not to,” the man I don’t know says. “Confirmed punctures. His skin started to halo around the wounds.”

“How long?’

Lt. Sykes checks his alarm for the time. “Less than three minutes.”

“What’d she use, a blowtorch?” Mr. Pace touches Trey’s abused arm with the tips of his fingers, and Trey winces.

“There was no time for neat,” Lt. Sykes says. “Honoria held his arm over the flame until it flaked.”

Honoria?

She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t harm one of the Arclight’s own—not on purpose.

“Get him downstairs,” Dr. Wolff orders. “We need him contained so I can do a proper assessment.”

But Trey goes berserk before they can go anywhere.

“Make them stop,” he cries, trying to raise his hands to cover his ears. “They won’t shut up. Make them stop.”

Trey claws at his wounded arm, jerking against the men holding him.

“Get them off! They’re everywhere! I can feel them!”

“We’re losing him,” Lt. Sykes says. He wraps his arms completely around Trey in an attempt to steady him. He and Mr. Pace pull Trey to the floor to brace his body.

“I need morphine,” Dr. Wolff says, kneeling down to press Trey’s head against the floor. He swipes his free hand toward the cabinets, and the guard I don’t know starts opening drawers. “Third, left. Orange lettering on the package.”

“Got it.”

The guard tosses a plastic wrapper. Mr. Pace catches it and holds a syringe out to Dr. Wolff, who slides the needle into Trey’s upper arm.

“Relax, son,” he says softly. “I know that’s easier for me to say than it is for you to do, but the medicine should kick in soon.”

“He won’t make the trip downstairs,” Mr. Pace says in a rough voice. “Honoria sees him like this and—”

“Get him into a bed,” Dr. Wolff says, nodding. “I’ll do what I can. Hopefully he’ll be in the clear before Honoria ever sees him.”

Mr. Pace closes the curtain between Jove’s bed and the one I had used, and once Jove’s sequestered, they deposit Trey on my bed. The short drop when they lower him down is too much for his stomach. He throws up again.

“She overdid it,” Mr. Pace says.

Trey’s out of it, thrashing with the sheets tangled around his feet. Sweat explodes from his skin as he tries to speak, but no real words come out.

“She saved his life, Elias.” Dr. Wolff becomes the voice of reason in the room. “There’s a chance to stop them before they trench in. If we’re lucky, he’ll keep his arm.”

“Don’t lecture me on that sort of luck, Doc. I’m more than familiar with the concept.”

Another few seconds pass with Mr. Pace trying to get a response from Trey, but Trey’s gone—hopefully to the morphine rather than his injuries. His eyes roll up into his head and close. Even after he’s out, he shakes so much that Lt. Sykes and the other guard have to hold him down.

Dr. Wolff cuts the sleeve away from Trey’s mangled skin before reaching for the same scraper he’d used on me. I have a feeling that the next emptied stomach will be mine if I watch, so I hide my face against the wall, grateful for Trey’s sake that he isn’t conscious.

I keep my eyes closed until I hear the scraper hit a metal bowl. Trey’s arm now sports a shallow trench in the muscle where Dr. Wolff cut deep. Flecks of black ash fall to the floor, and both of the men who carried him in back away from it. Mr. Pace sweeps it into a bin, adding Trey’s ruined shirt and the bloody bandages to the pile. Torn pieces of the green patch declaring his status as a final-year student land on top.