Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

ALINA

T wo days later, Alina was just about ready to crawl out of her skin.

She'd been alone save for a nurse assigned to her, Manda, dropping by with meals and bandage checks. The first day Manda was accompanied by a looming uhyre. But later she came alone. The night before, Alina had even dared invite her to stay for an episode of Guy Meets Girl . Manda stayed for fifteen minutes before hastening back to her shift.

On the morning of the third day, Manda showed up with a hoverseat.

"That's a little fancy." Alina raised an eyebrow.

"Mrs. Halena sent for it," the nurse smiled thinly from the hall at her door, expression tense as she glanced left and right.

"What is it?" Alina craned her neck from the bed.

Manda directed the hoverseat into the cabin. It was too large to fit, and she had to jam it in the corner at an awkward angle. Finally the door managed to shut, and Manda sat at the edge of the bed, eyes still traversing as though whatever she was looking for might somehow materialize.

"I saw one of them hanging around here yesterday," Manda said in a hushed voice.

"They have guards everywhere, Manda. "

"No," the nurse shook her head. "It wasn't just a guard. It was him. The bright blue one. The…" she made a disgusted face, air quoting, "the commander."

Alina tensed, fisting her hands in her lap. "When?"

"A few times. First time I came to check on you, he was in the hall, just walking. Thought it was a guard at first." Manda's cheeks vibrated with a shudder. "But when I was leaving your room last night, he was there again. He was right there, right outside, and this time I could see it was him. I just about jumped out of my skin, Alina."

The thought of Threxin looming outside her cabin like a damn ghost… A chill ran through her.

"He said… he said to keep walking," Manda rushed. "I did, but I waited at the corner, out of sight. I stayed long enough to watch him leave. But it was so weird, Alina. Why's that thing hanging around your cabin? It's fucking creepy."

"If it was the commander, it was probably just curiosity," Alina dismissed. "He's the one who found me and brought me to the medbay."

"Since when are those monsters curious about what happens to us? I'm telling you, it was weird."

Alina shrugged and began to pull her crutch up to get off the bed. Manda jumped to action, helping move her to the hoverseat.

"I don't know, but I'm glad I finally get this splint off."

Alina thought about Threxin and what he wanted as Manda guided her down the final stretch of hall to the medbay.

When she saw Kaia Halena standing in the exam room with the doctor, Alina scrambled to shove Threxin far out of her head. For a flash of a moment, something raw and completely illogical inside her worried that maybe Kaia could read her mind. It was a childish fear she'd always carried about adults, one that impulsively sprung up at the most random moments.

"How are you feeling?" Kaia asked.

"Much better, thanks," Alina smiled thinly as Manda and the doctor helped transfer her into the examination chair.

As soon as her ass hit that seat, Alina tensed. The synthleather against the backs of her thighs and arms grated her nerves. Pain bloomed up her casted wrist at the phantom memory of the cuffs snapping shut on it, right on her swollen tender skin. Alina jerked her hands off the armrests, squeezing them to her chest.

"Are you okay?" Manda frowned.

The feeling of the thick needle going in—sucking red-yellow from beneath her kneecap—pushed bile up her throat. Her spit curdled in her mouth as Alina took thick gulps of air.

"I… Can I just…" Words barely through a dry, gasping throat. "Can… can we do this on the table? Please? Please."

Manda's blurry face turned to the doctor and he began to shake his head, but Kaia's voice cut through the buzzing in her head. "Do it."

As soon as hands lifted her from the seat, the pressure unwound from her ribcage and blood rushed back to her head. Alina could feel herself again as she was laid horizontally on the exam table at the side of the cramped room. She was shivering, and someone put a blanket over her, keeping her splinted leg exposed.

"Better?" the doctor asked near her head.

Alina nodded fast and hard, wringing her hands together atop her stomach. "Yeah, I'm… I'm really sorry. I'm such a wimp, I don't know why I?—"

"I know," Kaia snapped from somewhere behind. "I saw how that uhyre kept you in that other room. You were still restrained when we found you. Goddamn brutes had you tied up and knocked out, and all that shit he used was… "

Kaia must have seen the color drain from Alina's face again and stopped talking.

"Don't worry," Kaia said lightly, though all Alina saw was the white coat of the doctor shifting around the table, preparing his work. She fixated on the zipper clasp of his robe. "He'll pay with the rest of them."

It didn't take long to remove the splint and the bandage wrapped around her knee. The swelling had gone down; all that was left was a faint bruise and a puckered mark where that insane needle had been pushed through her skin. Alina wondered if she'd keep that reminder forever.

"I must admit he did a good job," the doctor sounded resigned as he held a scanner to the knee. "The kneecap was fractured, I can see here. Nearly completely into three distinct shards. The uhyre must have removed the swelling and prevented the pressure underneath from splitting it completely just in time."

Oh.

Was that why he stabbed her with that needle so quickly and carelessly, without any pain relief? He'd felt her knee with his hand so roughly that Alina was convinced he was trying to agonize her. Was that all the uhyre had needed to detect the risk of further damage?

No. The speed at which he treated her was a convenient side-effect of his cruelty, nothing more. The uhyre weren't thoughtful. They weren't considerate. The memory of Threxin standing there and watching the ordeal with calm indifference was proof of that.

"He then injected shrinking resin into the fractures to secure them as they healed. Do you remember that?" The medic turned to Alina, and she shook her head.

"That must've been after I fainted…"

"Fainted or sedated?"

Alina couldn't remember. "I don't… He stuck something in my neck, I think. "

The doctor nodded. "Sedated. It would have been excruciating otherwise."

It had been excruciating. Alina examined her knee. "Will there be any long-term damage?"

"No. The resin was precise. It tightened as it healed, bringing the bone back together securely. You'll limp and be in pain while it heals, but that'll pass. I can prescribe pain relief."

"No," Alina said. "I don't need it."

They were rationing.

"Fine. Let's see the hand."

She exhaled with relief when the medic told her the hand hadn't been broken. "When I saw the cast, I thought… I thought it may be worse than the knee."

The hand hadn't been fractured, but two ligaments were torn. They had been cauterized back together. Alina hadn't even realized just how bad she'd hurt herself until the doctor explained it to her. When it happened, everything moved so fast, there'd been bigger things to worry about.

He shook his head, inspecting the x-ray of her bones on his tablet. "The hand is much harder to stabilize and prevent movement without casting. That would've been why he did it… If you'd moved it too soon, the ligaments would tear again. You'll need physical therapy to regain full range of motion. The ligaments lost tissue during the cauterization. You'll find it hard to make a fist. Try."

Alina's hand shook at the wrist as she tried to bend her fingers, and a little over halfway there it was as though she hit an invisible barrier.

The doctor nodded, unsurprised. "We don't have any physiotherapists available. I'll document what you can do on your own."

In the corner of her eye, Kaia bristled, shifting.

"It's okay," Alina reassured her. "I've supervised someone's physio before. I know how to do it. "

Her mother had been a horrible patient.

Once it was done, Alina was cleared to try walking. It was a strange sensation to lean on her leg again. At first her knee buckled beneath her, but she found her balance quickly.

Outside of the exam room, Alina tried not to look too curious as Manda took Kaia aside.

Alina's pulse jumped—she was surely telling Kaia about running into Threxin.

What would Kaia think about Threxin loitering near her cabin? What else could she think other than the obvious fact that something had been going on?