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I steady my grip and try to ignore how my stomach twists when Frankie reaches into her bag, pulling out a thin instrument with a hook at the end.
“I’m going to remove the piece lodged in the wound,” she says. “It’s going to hurt. Are you ready?”
Taraven nods, cracking his eyes open. “Am I allowed to scream?”
“Try not to,” she says. “Uh…think happy thoughts, I guess. Like—imagine Malix blowing you or something.”
I frown. “Blowing?”
It’s just the distraction for all three of us that she was looking for.
Frankie takes the instrument and presses it into Taraven’s chest, and he sucks in a ragged breath. He doesn’t scream, though he bites his lip so hard that it, too, begins to bleed. I feel that urge to turn away again, to run toward danger rather than staying here with these people that I amtoo frightenedto see hurt.
“Malix, keep the light on it!” Frankie snaps.
“Apologies,” I mutter.
She moves the instrument. Blood pours from the wound. Taraven groans and I move my other hand to grip his, his fingers clenching around my palm so tight that I fear the delicate bones there might break. Frankie’s mouth opens in concentration, seemingly oblivious to the acrid stench of blood filling the air.
“Gotcha,” she whispers.
She pulls gently, and a piece of metal pops out.
Yet she does not stop. She puts down the instrument and grabs something else from her bag: a tube of bluish gel. She presses the tube to Taraven’s chest and pushes down on an applicator, and the gel fills and stops up the wound.
It bleed for another second. Frankie hisses out a curse.
Then it finally stops.
Taraven leans his head back against the wall, taking a deep breath.
“Just need to rest up for the night and we can keep going,” he says. “I only need…a night.”
I do not believe that to be true.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
??
FRANKIE
I don’t know what we’re doing here.
If anyone has been in these ruins at all, they’re long gone. The place is covered in a thick layer of sand and dust, the musty, ancient smell overpowering at first. We settle in for an uneasy night, and I try to get some sleep as I listen to Taraven’s unsteady breathing.
He’s been poisoned.
He’s getting worse.
We’re going to have to figure this out first thing in the morning. My instinct is to head straight back to thecaltanand head back toward Jokahn’s villa—or even to call in his team for an extraction—but Malix disagrees. He wants to give it more time, to make sure there’s nothing here before we blow any cover we may have.
He wants revenge.
I get it.
There was a time when I wanted revenge, too.
I wake up a few hours later to take over watch, ready to relieve Malix. I blink in the strange light of the algae bulb he lit up on our way in, then look over to my left. Taraven is sleeping, propped up against the wall.
