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My throat bobs as we continue to stare at each other, and I become vaguely aware of the scent permeating the air around us. Like a mixture of mustard and sweat. Slitheron emit a sort of … odor … when they’re stressed. Great.
“You’re not alloooooowed here!” he hisses. “No Terrans!”
That rule doesn’t actually exist. At least, I don’t think it does, because it would be highly illegal, and I doubt this place could afford that kind of lawsuit. I flip the Slitheron off and turn back toward the cable machine.
It was the wrong thing to do, because the Slitheron strikes while I’m turned, sinking its fangs directly into my exposed calf. I’m on my knees before I can even register what’s happening to me. The Slitheron coils itself around my chest and squeezes.
My vision immediately blurs. A few people nearby scream, and I hear footsteps all around me.
I can’t fucking breathe. Can’t call for help, can’t do jack shit with this guy wrapped around me, squeezing the very life out of my lungs.
The seconds trickle by like a slowly dripping faucet, where each droplet of water is my very life leaving my body. I never thought it’d end this way. The way Aiken and I drive around the city, I always assumed that when I died, it would probably be in a jammerjet crash. Or maybe on a job, like the one on Nocturne. Not once did I imagine I’d be taken down by a Slitheron in a gym during a normal workout session.
Spots burst in my eyes, and I hear the muffled shouts of people again, though I can’t see them anymore. I don’t even know if the voices are real. Maybe I’m just hallucinating them.
As I slowly lose consciousness, my final thought is of Kallista and her pretty smile. Her even prettier laugh, and the way she looked so fiercely alive as the crowd cheered for her. Standing off stage, watching her woo the crowd with her incredible voice, I finally bought into the hype and saw her for who she really is. A true star princess.
17XAVIAN
An irritating beeping sound wakes me up.
At first, I swear I’m dead, floating high above my body, looking down at myself in the bed. Crisp, white linens cover my body, which makes the bed look two sizes too small for me. Next to my body, an IV drip filters into my arm, pumping me full of strange, blueish liquid. I try to open my mouth to scream, but I can’t. I can’t move, can’t even lift a finger. The panic is overwhelming; my pulse races, my heart thundering inside my chest as the machine beside me beeps louder and louder with every passing second.
And then my eyes bolt open. Kallista’s face hovers a couple inches from mine, and when she realizes I’m awake, she inhales sharply before flying to the other side of the room.
“Shit!” she yelps, then races out into the hallway.
I hear her yell for a nurse, fear lacing every syllable, and my heart lurches in my chest. I don’t love hearing her sound scared. And right now, she sounds terrified. Makes me want to leap into action and do something about it, but the onlysomethingI can do is lie here in what I can only assume is a hospital bed.
The memory of being bitten and asphyxiated nearly to death by that Slitheron piece of trash comes rolling back in waves. I clear my throat. It’s sore, and every time I try to work up the phlegm clogging it, it feels like I’m running sandpaper up through my esophagus. Fuck, that guy really did a number on me, didn’t he?
Luckily, whatever they’re pumping into my system is keeping me from actually feeling any pain. I’m completely numb save for my throat, unfortunately.
Seconds later, a Terran woman around her mid-sixties glides into the room, holding her wrist terminal up in front of her deep-set hazel eyes. Her grayish hair is pulled back, away from her face, which has a softness to it that instantly puts me at ease. Kallista strides in behind her with her little hands clenched into fists at her sides. She’s wearing her “disguise,” which is pretty much just an oversized, ratty gray hoodie and enormous sunglasses.
Kal’s not wearing any makeup—or a Weave—today. Her dark brown hair peeks out from underneath the hood. Good. I enjoy seeing her natural face. At the moment, the sunglasses sit on top of her head, giving me a good look at her eyes. They’re pink around the edges. Has she been crying? That’s an unpleasant thought. Why was she crying? More importantly, who made her cry? I’ll end them.
“Good morning, Mr. Melrose,” the doctor says. “Do you know where you are right now?” She doesn’t bother to look away from the numbers and letters whizzing by on her terminal screen. How she can even read them when they’re moving so fast is beyond me.
I nod and grunt in reply. My throat is still too scratched up for me to form any actual words yet.
The doctor looks down the bridge of her nose at me as her thin lips press back into a stern line. “Mm. Right. Vocal strain, from when the Slitheron choked you.”
Beside the doctor, Kallista winces and lets out a distressed whimper. For me? Really? I’m flattered she cares that much, and I’d tell her exactly that if I could.
“We delivered the antidote to your system, and it worked beautifully. You won’t have any permanent nerve damage,” the doctor says as she waves her hand in front of the soft purple glow of her terminal screen. It flickers to a fresh new screen, this time bringing up a set of X-rays of my ribs. “However, the Slitheron cracked two of your ribs. They will take two to three days to heal completely. You’re currently on a high dosage of numbifying agent, but should you start to feel any discomfort, you can press the button and a nurse will give you more.”
God, I love modern medicine. Three days and you can completely mend a broken bone.
Kallista’s pretty pink lips turn down in a frown, and my gaze softens on her. I want nothing more than to tell her I’ll be okay, that everything is okay, but I can’t, so I just curl one of my fingers at her, beckoning her closer. It’s hard to look at her face when her eyes are so full of worry, especially when my dumb ass just got knocked out by a Slitheron. I wasn’t even on the job. I wasn’t protecting her. I wasn’t in the middle of some grand heroic moment. No, I was at the fuckinggym.
Kal kneels beside my bed and murmurs, “I was so scared when we got a call from the police saying you got injured.”
This whole situation is so stupid it’s kind of funny, so I chuckle, but when I do, my eyes water.
She touches my arm gently and shakes her head, wincing. “Take it easy. Take it easy. Do you … do you need anything? Water? Uh, vengeance? Do you want me to avenge you?”
If she’s trying to get me to stop laughing, she is doing a terrible job. I can’t help the smile that creeps across my face, and she smiles back at me. God, I just want to touch her cheeks. Feel her soft skin against my fingers. Her eyelashes flutter gently, and so does my heart.
