Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“I-it’s just sh-shock.” I’ve seen it hundreds, no, thousands of times. In the years of the plague when I worked triage at the hospital. So many people losing their loved ones or losing their own lives. Everyone was in shock at first, the new normal of death not quite settled into our consciousness yet. Until we got used to it, until it was commonplace, until death was part of everything all the time. Even so, I can’t seem to stop shaking. Can’t stop seeing Gorsky bringing the club down again and again as I scream.
“In, Georgia. Slowly.” He models it. I follow again. Then again. And again until my breath no longer hiccups or catches, until I feel the warmth of the blanket, the weight of Valen beside me, the heartbeat strong in my chest. I’m alive.
A strangled laugh erupts from me, and Valen’s brow arches.
“It’s just that I tried …” My suicide attempt feels like it happened underwater, or perhaps in a dream. Like I wasn’t awake when I tried that desperate move. I’m awake now. Nothing like almost being murdered to make you reassess your situation.
“You won’t meet your end here.” He pulls his hand back. “Not in any form.”
“Not until you get what you want.”
“Just so.” He smirks, his eyes shuttering, whatever emotions he’d shown me long gone. “I can make you sleep, if you like.”
“No—” I answer quickly. “Don’t use compulsion on me.”
“All right.”
“Wait, you want me to sleep here?” I ask, worry sending my voice an octave higher.
“Afraid I’ll ravish you?” His taunting arrogance is back.
I can only scowl at him and draw my knees up.
He shakes his head and looks toward the door. “I’m afraid there’s quite a mess in the corridor. I doubt you’d like to trudge through what’s left of Gorsky, but if you’d rather—”
“No!” My heart rate jumps, panic trying to creep back in.
“Shh.” He turns back to me. “You’re safe here.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Safe from Gorsky, at the very least. And I can assure you no one—save you—” He gives me a pointed look. “—would dare come snooping in my private quarters.”
My cheeks heat. “I wasn’t—”
“You were.” He stares me down. “Find anything of use?”
“You’re still alive, so no.” The joust is empty. We both know it. I had the chance to end him and didn’t take it. Like a fool.
He rises. “I’ll get the new staff to clean. They’re probably already working on it.”
“How would they know to—wait.” A thought hits me like a brick. “How did you know?”
“Hmm?” He pauses at the hallway doors.
“How did you know I was in trouble?”
He shrugs. “Just lucky timing.” He peers into the corridor. “Unlucky for Gorsky, I suppose.”
“But you were there when I tried to jump, too. You—”
“Get some rest. You won’t be disturbed. Not by me or anyone.” He steps out and closes the door behind him, ending the conversation like the arrogant prick he is.
The weak part of me wants to ask him not to go far. The part that’s even now trying to replay the attack, the sick crunching sound of my bones, the tang of blood. I yank the cover up to my chin, my grip going tight. Then I hear Valen’s voice outside the door, gruff and rude as he bosses someone around in a foreign language. My grip eases, my body still tense but not enough for me to chip a tooth.
The adrenaline from earlier is long gone, and the more evenly I make myself breathe, the more my eyelids droop. Every so often I hear Valen, his intonation utterly dickish. I relax deeper into the bed. It smells like him. I shouldn’t be here. If I had half the courage of the old me, the one who worked for a cure instead of simply survived, I’d be out of here. This me, though, is weary and terrorized. Different. So different that I wonder if I’ll ever have a chance of being the old me ever again. I don’t think it’s possible.
I’m almost asleep when I hear something fall in the corridor. Valen curses profusely, his words a litany of acid against whoever is out there with him. The new staff, he said. My eyes drift closed again.
It’s fucked up and wrong and sick on so many levels, but I feel safe knowing the worst monster of them all is the one standing guard outside my door.
22
Recovered Journal of Dr. Georgia Clark
April 11, Year 1, Emergence Era
In Austin I was alone. I had Juno and the others at the Governor’s Mansion, but when I went to the lab, it was only me. I ran my lab as a one-woman show and went through thousands of trials on the Sierravirus. I thought I was going to find a vaccine for it, that it was only a matter of time. Now I know how stupid I was. Or maybe that was hubris, isn’t that the old school word for it? But now I know better. Having a team—even if it has people like Aang who make me want to pull my hair out—is the only way humanity is going to overcome this virus. Together.