Page 33 of Jarran

It was violent and sudden. His stomach heaved again. When it was done, he sat back on his heels, pressed his palms against his forehead, and tried to breathe.

He flushed with shaking hands. Then he sat down on the bathroom floor, drew his knees up, and rested his forehead against his forearms. The tile was cool against his bare feet. He concentrated on breathing. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The pain crested and ebbed and crested again.

He heard her footsteps padding tentatively into the bathroom.

“Jarran?”

He didn’t lift his head. “I’m fine.”

“You’re sitting on the bathroom floor in the dark.” A pause. “And it smells like…” Her feet appeared at the edge of his vision. She knelt in front of him. “Look at me.”

He tried to raise his head, but the movement sent a spike of pain through his left temple. She put her hands on his face, her palms cool against his jaw, and tilted his head so she could look at his eyes. Her thumbs brushed his cheekbones.

Something broke.

He didn’t know how else to describe it. The soft press of her fingers was like a balm, and the wall inside his skull gave way. Every barrier his mind had built came apart at once, and everything that had been held back flooded through in a single, annihilating wave.

He grabbed her wrists. He knew his grip was too tight but he couldn’t let go because the floor was falling away and her hands were the only solid thing left. His vision whited out. Sound rushed in and out and the bathroom vanished and he was somewhere else.

He was everywhere else. For a long, disorienting moment, he was every age he’d ever been, all at the same time.

He heard himself make a sound. Low and guttural, pulled from somewhere deep in his chest. Evie’s voice reached him from far away, calm and steady, repeating his name.

“Jarran. Stay with me. Jarran.”

He held on to her wrists and breathed and let it come. The flood slowed to a current, the current to a stream. The details settled into place, one after another, like stones dropping to the bottom of a deep well. When it was over, he was sitting on the bathroom floor with Evie, and he knew everything.

Every single thing. He released her hands, hating that he’d caused her discomfort.

“Jarran.” Her voice was careful. “What just happened?”

“I remember.” His rough voice didn’t sound like his own. “Everything. I remember all of it.”

Her hands went still on his face. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t move at all. “Tell me.”

He took a breath. His lungs shuddered. He lowered her hands from his face but kept hold of one, lacing his fingers through hers, and he told her.

“I was sixteen when they took me.” He stared at the bathroom tile. “I was walking the ridge trail above the underground city, wearing a surface suit. Taron was supposed to come with me but he was sick that day. I was alone.”

She squeezed his hand.

“There were three of them. Sifters. They drugged me and I woke up in a cave system, deep underground. It was dark and cold and the air smelled like metal.” He paused. “There was a male there. Waiting for me.”

“Who was he?”

“He called himself Xill Rin.” The name felt wrong in his mouth. Rotten. “I thought he was Virilian. He looked similar. But he had no tail, and he was shorter and stockier. Built differently. And he had…” Jarran touched his own face. “His eyes were both cybernetic. They looked different from each other. One was red, the other silver. And one of his arms was mechanical. Metal from the shoulder down.” He swallowed. “He had a tube running into his nose. It fed him something, I never knew what. Medicine, maybe. Nutrients. He was old and falling apart and the cybernetic parts were holding him together.”

“He was dying,” Evie said quietly.

“Yes.” Jarran closed his eyes. “He was dying, and he needed somewhere to put everything he knew.”

He felt Evie shift beside him. She settled against the wall, her shoulder pressing into his, and kept hold of his hand.

“What did he do to you?” Her voice was steady. Clinical, almost. The doctor’s voice.

“He broke me.” Simple words for a simple fact. “Isolation first. He kept me in the dark for long stretches. No food, no water, no sound. When I started to lose my sense of time, he’d bring light and food and talk to me. He was the only voice I heard. The only face I saw.” Jarran’s jaw tightened. “Then pain, when I resisted what he was teaching me. And then there were medical procedures. He’d strap me down and, ah…” He trailed off. “You don’t need the details.”

“Okay.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.