“What about her?”
“Kelta will have some dermal repair gel from the BlazeStar.”
“Understood.”
Morbid disappears.
My vision fades in and out. Menace takes the next tunnel away from the group, sending us into darkness. Soon the only sounds are from my breath and Menace’s.
I’m terrified to be left alone with him in such a condition. He could do anything to me, and I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.
Throbbing pulses in my head ratchet up and down in waves for what feels like hours. I am so cold yet simultaneously sweating. I shiver and fight the ache in my neck to adjust my head against Menace’s chest.
He carries me without resting or stopping to take advantage of me like hunters and junkers would have.
I sway in his grasp, drool on his chest, and wish I was dead instead of enduring this humiliation. But the realization that without him, I would be lost, lying in the dark tunnel alone, unable to fight an animal off to protect myself, makes me tolerate it.
Then, I wonder why I should even bother fighting to live. I am broken, worthless to the rebellion in this condition.What purpose do I serve if not to protect my people?It’s an instinct, a duty passed down by generations of my family. There is no other purpose for me. And like a Relic, I am frustrating to retrain.
We have always and only ever been sentinels to the resistance. I finally crack under the weight of my failure and my current state. Tears fall, but I’m too weak to lift a hand and wipe them away.
“Easy.” Menace slows and whispers calmly to me in a tender regression I don’t expect. “Deep breaths. We’re almost to the end. Kelta will have medicine for you. Yours got coated in welvir blood, but Poppy said Cara has more, and she will get some for you.”
Something about Menace’s low voice and the way it rumbles through my body from his is soothing. I drift off to sleep again. I fight it, but I’m starting to trust him. He has carried me for hours, put up with my bullshit, and not once used me for his benefit.
When I wake next, I can finally keep my eyes open. I adjust my head for a better view and study the angles of his body, lit only by the red light of his digibadge and irises.
“Tell me what you see,” he says. I don’t know how he knows I’m awake when he hasn’t looked at me.
It is only Menace and me. “Nothing.”An ass being nice to me and making me wonder what he wants.
“I mean when there are monsters in the dark. What do they look like without the shitty Hunter mod CSP communications relay jammed in there?”
Is that what Rebel cut out?“Welvir shapes shimmer. Humans pulse. Titans ripple but slower.”
“Two beats for humans, three for Titans?”
“Except Diesel because of his modified ultromotor,” I offer.
“How do you see what I see when I close my eyes?” Menace asks.
“Same augment? My family has built and perfected them for over a century. You don’t think they just up and built Titans one day, do you?”
Menace eases us into the light at the opening of a tunnel shrouded by dense bushes and trees. “Do you know exactly how your parents made you?”
“Well, sex, duh.”
“But what position? What toys did they use?”
“Ew, stop. I don’t want to think about it.”
Menace shakes his head as he crouches by the entrance and looks out. “I think you can figure out what I mean.”
He doesn’t know how he was manufactured, just that he was. That, I understand. “Look, we all got together and pooled our best ideas. We didn’t put experimental tech in you until we’d first tried it on ourselves.”
“Why?”
“Ethical testing. Unlike Solcrue, we don’t like pain, so we tried to spare our creations as much as possible, giving them only the good stuff. Because war was going to be enough misery. At least that’s what my great-great-grandfather said.”
