15. Just like Me

Just like Me

Luella

“Did you know about the Dominus? I thought he wasn’t at court?” I snap at Mia.

Mia raises her hands in defense. “He’s been with the legions for the last two years! I didn’t know he was back.”

“Well he is.” I slump into a chair in the waiting room at Mia’s infirmaria. The plush blue fabric warms my exposed back and I shiver. It’s after hours, so only Mia and I are here, the front door locked and the windows drawn. If Ledo followed me, it’s easy enough to fake illness. I have vials just for it and Mia and I have a standing story involving nausea.

“He’s not going to be a problem,” Mia says. “He’s either perfectly normal or celibate, because no one has ever mentioned him.” I give her a dubious look. “He won’t be a problem,” she repeats. “You can handle him.”

Mia might warn me, but once I’m in it, she falls in line and offers the support we both know I need. “He is going to be a problem. He warned me away from Ledo and when I asked about his brother he said the Imperator isn’t as blind as Ledo. Like he suspects something.”

“Or maybe he just is a decent man who knows what they are?” Mia shrugs.

“Is he that decent if he doesn’t stop them?” I growl. Mia, wisely, doesn’t answer. I throw my head back in the chair. “I’m sorry. It was just… a close one tonight. Ledo is more unpredictable than I expected.”

“Luella,” she says. It’s all she needs to say.

“It’s fine. Silas was just too easy. I grew too confident.” I scrub a hand across my face.

Taln comes into the room, his eyes wide. “Good lady?”

I smile at him, although he hasn’t seen me with this face yet, as his guarded look reminds me. He looks to Mia, waiting for permission to speak.

“This is my friend, you can speak.”

“We have a patient. She came through the back…” Taln trails off, but we both know what this means.

Someone’s been hurt.

I trail Mia and Taln past the rows of healing rooms to the very back of the building. We pass a sign that says ‘private’ and then the storeroom before we come to the door hidden in the corner.

“Should I wait out here?” I offer. I don’t usually accompany Mia. She’s the healer; I’m the killer. Nevertheless, something is telling me that what’s behind this door concerns me.

I never ignore my intuition, not anymore.

“You can come. If she’s uncomfortable we’ll send you back out,” Mia says, maybe sensing the same thing as me. This isn’t a coincidence.

We file into the small room. It has a cot, a washbasin, a few cabinets, and a steel door that leads to the back alley. A small portal towards the top of the door allows Mia to see who is on the other side before admitting them. I don’t know exactly how people know to use this entrance, or what the underground network knows about Mia. I just know that when Mia helps those who are afraid or forbidden to seek help, they come here instead of through the front. Mia keeps no records on the patients she sees in this room. The only information that leaves here are the predilections that become profiles for me.

Sitting on the cot is a young girl. I refuse to calculate how young as I take in her state. She’s wearing what was once a white shift, although it’s hanging in shreds now, covered in dried blood.

The girl has blonde hair and blue eyes. In fact, she bears an uncanny resemblance to me. Well, to Skylar. The girl keeps her face down as Mia approaches.

“My name is Mia. I’m a healer. May I remove this so I can look at your back?” Mia’s voice is soft, her words practiced and careful. The girl nods, and Mia starts peeling the gown off the girl’s back, using shears to cut it away in some parts. The room is silent except for the girl’s harsh breathing, interrupted by small gasps when Mia brushes a particularly tender spot. As the fabric falls away, my skin burns hot. It’s one thing to hurt myself in an effort to eliminate a monster. It’s another to see what a thwarted monster can do to an innocent.

The whip–probably a flagrum, based on the pattern of the lashes–tore apart the girl’s back. My blood heats further, my skin shivering at the contrast between it and the night air.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Mia asks.

“I’m…” The girl hesitates and Mia looks towards the door where Taln and I wait to assist Mia as needed and hear what the girl will say.

“Everything you say here is confidential. This is my apprentice and my partner. I trust them, but if you want them to leave, I will send them out in an instant.” It’s not a bluff. Mia won’t put my curiosity or Taln’s learning above a patient. Patients come first. I know that better than anyone.

The girl shakes her head. “It’s fine.” She takes a breath. “I’m a harem worker. An imperial flora.” My stomach drops. A pretty title for a terrible life. “Silly to call us floras isn’t it?” The girl scoffs, but there is no venom behind it. It’s a scoff of acceptance, an acknowledgement of a ludicrous situation that will never change. “I usually serve the Praetors. Sometimes the Emperor calls for me, but usually just for parties. I’m not…”

Mia takes a washcloth to wet a particularly stubborn piece of nightgown before she tries to pry it off the girls back. “It’s okay, take your time,” she whispers.

Bolstered by Mia’s gentleness, the girl goes on. “I’m not trained for his specific tastes… so I didn’t expect…” She takes a deep breath. “A Praetor and the Emperor requested me tonight. They have a routine they like, but I didn’t know it.” I might vomit. I might actually be sick, no potion needed. Mia listens to this routinely; it’s how she creates the profiles. Drawing details from victims, determining if they gave consent, filling in the gaps with her physical assessment. A new appreciation for my friend fills me. She’s so gentle, so calm. I breathe, trying to let her calm wash over me, too. I urge it to soothe my racing heart and sweaty palms. My nausea and rage.

Oblivious to my guilt, the girl goes on. “Most of it was… the usual. Then he punished me with the flagrum. I… I didn’t take a tonic before because I thought it was another party, and I don’t like to be too out of it for those.” Mia had told me about this practice. The women would premedicate with a pain tonic to dull their nerves so they could stand the punishments better. Some took mind alterers, too, so they didn’t feel like they were in their bodies at all.

“I’ve removed all this, so I can heal you now. Is it okay if I check you with my power? I’ll start with just your back. Then we can do the rest,” Mia says. Her power will heal, but if something is lodged under the skin, like the cloth of the nightgown, it could become embedded and cause long term issues.

The girl nods and Mia taps into her power, one hand tucked in her pocket. The girl’s shoulders drop, her brow smoothing just a little, as Mia’s healing warmth must move through her. I know that sensation—and the relief that accompanies it—well.

“I don’t sense anything else in the way, like the nightgown… Can I heal the rest?”

“The rest?” the girl asks, confusion flitting across her face.

Mia bends down to whisper in her ear, but I can still hear. “I can heal your internal injuries.”

Internal injuries, from an assault so brutal that she needs healing. I mask my features as the girl stiffens, eyes widening. She looks at me and I refuse to look away, meeting her eyes with understanding but without pity. No one likes to feel pitied, but she doesn’t look defiant. She doesn’t look like she’d even register my pity if I shouted it into her face.

She looks broken. Empty.

The longer I look, the more undeniable it is. She looks just like me.

Mia puts her hands on the girl, and the girl’s face relaxes completely, a soft whimper escaping her lips.

“Excuse me,” I mutter.

I leave the room quietly but then I’m running down the hall, towards the front of the building, past the cots and the washbasins and the cabinets of gauze and sutures. Tears blur my vision as the hallway stretches before me, lengthening with each step I take. Finally, I reach the front entryway where I fall to my knees, hugging a trash basin.

I heave, the contents of my stomach burning my throat and nose. My ribs protest each renewed convulsion as Taln joins me, gently patting my back as I sob between bouts of retching. The retching turns to dry heaves, and it doesn’t stop until there’s nothing left. It doesn’t stop until at last my insides are as empty as the young girl’s eyes, her body broken in place of mine.