Stormblood, стр. 135
More walking. Almost hit by an autovehicle. Meandering endlessly through a maze of blurry and dripping back alleys. Heaving, sweating, crying. My skin greyer than New Vladi winter streets after a snowfall. Slowly withering away on the inside.
I took another step, staggered, and my body crumbled. I couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. Every limb and muscle had locked up. My head was one planet-sized throb. Panic fluttered like a trapped animal in my chest, quickly swallowed by a warm, fuzzy glow spreading through me.
Go to sleep. Go to sleep and rest.
I closed my eyes.
‘Vakov?’ Calloused hands rolled me onto my back. A narrow slit of light, eyes creaking open. Someone towering over me and silhouetted against harsh lights. A Torven in a heavy hooded coat. Mugalesh. It was Mugalesh.
‘What have you done to yourself, blue one?’ she rasped, clothes creaking as she stooped on her haunches next to me. She tsked at the sight of me and hooked me back up, nails digging in my armpits. I wobbled to my feet and somehow managed to take one aching step at a time. I stopped twice to puke. Ropes of blue drool clung to my lips, my insides turning numb. I tried to break away and curl up to sleep. Mugalesh slapped me across the face until the idea of doing that passed.
An eternity later, she pushed me through Grim’s door. He rushed towards me, eyes wide, his mouth making shapes. ‘Get Katherine,’ is all I managed before the blue dragged me under.
44
Second Chance
Flickers of light showed me a white Harmony medclinic, medics and octodrones swarming above me. The hiss of oxygen filters. Someone breathing frantically in my ear. Probably me. I don’t know how many times I dropped in and out of consciousness until I stirred fully awake. I was wearing a medskin and attached to a system of whirring white medical machinery that was providing life-support and leeching the stormtech from my body.
The room’s visual package had been set to a winter mountaintop. Thick dark pines as old as the galaxy stretched high among carpets of moss and undergrowth, sloping away into mist. The gentle breath of wind whistling over the snowcapped mountain wafted from the speakers, a simulated breeze tousling my hair. The earthy smell of fresh petrichor filled my nose. Somewhere, a dreamy acoustic soundtrack that recalled distant and peaceful landscapes was playing.
White-coated medics came and went. I was to drink as much fluid as I could, to help drain the excess stormtech. My cheeks were still lacerated from the steel muzzle. Didn’t want to think about the state the rest of my body was in. My sheets became heavy with blue sweat, needing a routine change every few hours. But I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t dead. Zero points to Jae, one to me.
Grim was fast asleep in the corner, head sagging against the wall, while Katherine was asleep at the foot of my bed. Her blonde hair sprawled messy and loose around her face. She’d probably been there from the moment I arrived. No doubt the medics had told her to keep out, and no doubt she’d barged in anyway.
I stayed still, listening to the gentle rhythm of her breathing. How long had she waited here, hoping and praying I’d make a recovery?
A lump formed in my throat as everything came crashing down in slow, concussive waves. The friends I’d lost. The Reapers broken and shattered, dying in my arms. The people around me I’d hurt and pushed away because I thought I didn’t know anything else, because I wasn’t brave enough to listen to their help.
And my brother. The hurt we’d dealt each other because of the hurt the world had dealt us. How I’d failed him in ways I couldn’t possibly count. So many brusies and wounds, all tangled up in this mess.
I was a broken man. A poisonous pit that sucked everyone and everything down around me. And somehow, for whatever reason, my friends had seen something worthwhile in me. Something that made them stay by my side in this medclinic, continuing to believe in me, even if I didn’t.
Tears welled in my eyes, the lump hardening in my throat as I tilted back towards unconsciousness.
Katherine was waiting for me when I woke up. I could see her body was stiff and her eyes were heavy, but they lit up when she saw me. She wrapped her slim arms around me in a crushing hug, not caring how sticky and sweaty I was. Eventually, she untangled herself and punched me hard on the shoulder. ‘What was that for?’ I rasped, my throat still raw.
‘For leaving us like that.’ Her eyes were red from crying. She lifted my arm, where traces of the restraints and needle punctures lingered on my flesh like dissection markings. ‘What she did to you … if you hadn’t come back from that, what would I have done? What would Grim have done?’
‘I’m sorry.’ I croaked. I noticed I’d been freed of the med-machines sometime during my sleep. Grim was still asleep, still sagging against the wall.
‘Even Kindosh was worried about you. Grim’s been frantically tracing the routes of every spacecraft leaving Compass. Saren’s had search teams searching them out, and Jasken’s been pacing and threatening to tear the Suns a new one for hours. And there’s an angry Kaiji that won’t stop calling and asking about you.’
Juvens. I couldn’t help but smile. ‘You’ve all got my back.’
‘You’re one of us, Vak.’ Her hand tightened around mine. ‘You’re part of the team.’
‘That’s good,’ I said, ‘because we’re going to need all the help we can get.’
Katherine drew back. ‘No. No. No. You’re staying right here. The doctors still don’t know how your system recovered. You nearly died, Vak.’
‘Yeah, I’m aware