C. Redwine - Deception

“I’d like all of my people to be on the same floor, if possible. I understand that means you’ll need to put several people per room, but we prefer it that way.” I smile at her and hope she doesn’t ask me why I don’t want my people spread all over the building.

I really don’t want to have to explain that I need guards stationed, and that one of the citizens I’m guarding is a traitor who deserves to die. Or that I’m worried a tracker might attack us if we’re separated.

“Of course,” Elim says. Her smile is warm. “Please come inside, and I’ll make arrangements. Let me just check with the doctors to see which floor they prefer to have the most critical patients on.”

We follow her into the hospital, which smells of soap and illness, and I take the opportunity to wander through the lobby, checking every chair and every corner, and looking down every hall.

I don’t see a tracker, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Lankenshire was the only possible destination in the area. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that’s where we were heading. The tracker could’ve come inside the city’s wall last night after setting the fires that killed some of my people.

I’m going to take all the necessary precautions to protect my people as if an attack is imminent. And hope that once the triumvirate hears my case against the Commander and Rowansmark, and sees what I have to offer in exchange for an alliance, they’ll help protect my people, too.

Until then I’m going to plant myself next to Rachel’s bedside and work day and night on the tech I need to bring down our enemies.

Awareness creeps through me as if a thick fog is slowly lifting from my thoughts. I’m lying on my back, and something soft cushions me. I feel . . . disconnected. Like my brain and my body aren’t talking to each other yet.

“Almost three days,” a voice says somewhere above me.

Someone else replies, but I don’t catch the words. My head is heavy with sleep and something else. Something that dulls my thoughts and makes it impossible to lift my eyelids.

I feel like I’m floating underwater beneath my skin.

“. . . not normal, is it?” the same voice asks. It sounds familiar, but holding on to the voice long enough to put a name to it takes more effort than I can give.

My thoughts spin away from me, but it’s not unpleasant. I don’t have to think or remember or make any decisions. I just have to lie here.

I should float underwater more often.

“. . . both exposed to the smoke for longer than anyone else,” a different voice says. This voice is higher than the other. Calmer. A woman.

I don’t think I know her.

The woman says, “They breathed in a great deal of smoke, Logan, but look. Quinn woke up several times today and his breathing has improved. He’ll be walking around by tomorrow.”

“What about Rachel?” Logan asks.

Logan. My thoughts spin faster until pieces of memory fly through my head in rapid disorder.

A little girl by a white stone. Familiar eyes. Thick billows of noxious smoke rushing down my throat and burning my lungs.

Burning.

White-gold flames. Explosions. Pain .

As soon as I think the word, I realize a dull throbbing reverberates through my right arm, from my shoulder to my fingertips. Trying to move my arm gives the pain a set of vicious teeth.

I moan and my eyes flutter open. The room I’m in tilts and wobbles, and I close my eyes again before the motion makes me sick to my stomach.

“Rachel?” Logan asks, and calloused fingers stroke my cheek.

I try opening my mouth to answer, but my lips feel sewn shut.

“Here,” the woman says, “give her some water.”

The woman is a stranger. But the hand belongs to Logan. The room—I have no idea how I came to be inside a room instead of a wagon, but my mushy brain refuses to tackle this conundrum.

Something cold presses against my lips, and water trickles over them and into my mouth. It feels like my throat is the size of a small canyon when I first swallow, but the second and third swallows are easier. After five swallows, the cup is removed from my mouth, and I risk opening my eyes again.

The room remains unfocused. A wash of soft green and white. I turn my head, and a blurry Logan crouches beside me.

“I can’t see you,” I say, and my voice sounds like that time I caught bronchitis from Sally Revis, who coughed right in my face during Social Etiquette class.

“Are you . . .” Logan’s clothes rustle, and when he speaks again it sounds like he’s stepped away from my side. “Is she blind?”

“My ears work. You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” I say, and he crouches back down.

“I’m sorry. I’m just worried. It’s been . . . you’ve been asleep. For days. And it’s fine if you’re blind! I mean, it isn’t fine. Of course it isn’t, but it doesn’t matter to me. I love you just the same—”

“You babble when I make you nervous.”

The woman laughs. “Want more water?”

“Yes.” I drink a few more sips and risk opening my eyes again. Still blurry, but it’s getting better. “I’m not blind, Logan. Just having a hard time focusing my eyes. Where are we?”

Instead of answering, he leans down and presses his forehead to my chest. His hand tangles itself in my hair, and his breathing sounds unsteady.

“I’ll give you two some time alone,” the woman says, and leaves the room.

“What did she give me to make my brain feel so disconnected?” I ask.

“Pain medicine. I thought you were going to die.” He lifts his face, and every sleepless hour he’s endured while waiting for me to wake up is carved into his expression. “I thought I’d lost you.”

His voice breaks, and he lays his face against me again. I should comfort him. Say something soft and understanding. Reach for him, because I know my touch soothes his ragged edges.

I should, but suddenly, I don’t know how. I’m not just disconnected from my body. I’m cut off from my emotions, too. I’d forgotten the price I’d paid to be free of the terrible pain of Sylph’s death.

Not a real person.

Not anymore.

I didn’t realize my choice would also cut me off from Logan.

But I don’t have to feel soft and warm inside to offer comfort. I know what’s expected of me. I can mimic the emotions.

I can’t lift my left arm to embrace him because he’s pinning it to my side with his chest. And trying to lift my right arm sends sharp spikes of pain up my shoulder and into my jaw. I hiss in a breath, and Logan lifts his head again.

“I can’t move my arm,” I say. Only after the words are out do I remember I was going to offer him sympathy and softness.

His eyes shift toward my arm, and then back to my face. “You were burned. Do you remember?”

The white stone. The little girl. And pain like nothing I’ve ever felt burrowing down below my skin like it wanted to light my bones on fire.

“I remember. How many did we lose?”

“Seventeen.” The loss of those seventeen lies heavy in his voice.

I push with my left hand, trying to sit up. He leans forward to help me.

“Take it slow. You’ve been lying down for three days.”

The agony of those three days lies heavy in his voice, too, and I don’t know what to say. He gently fluffs the pillows I was lying on and arranges them behind my back.

Wait.

Pillows?

“Where are we?” I look around the room again, and this time most of the details are clear. The floor is covered in a beautiful white rug that fills every corner of the room. The walls are the green of pistachios, and sunlight pours in from a window framed with starched white curtains.