Page 189 of Because I Killed Him
She pulls back as a Pinkie steps in and adjusts a node at my temple.
“Stabilization underway,” the robot drones.
I fall back under.
DAY TWO:
I feel an itch beneath my skin, as if something is moving where it shouldn’t. When I force my eyes open, weak and dizzy, I see my right leg sealed in clear gel, while the left is wrapped in a scaffold of glowing lines. My Bond tracks every stage of the process. I try to speak, but my tongue slurs the words. My eyelids slip shut again, too heavy to lift.
Somewhere nearby, I catch a faint scent of daffodils. Vincent’s voice reaches me first, saying that Dickie and I are two of only five people to have survived falling into the Luminescent Lake without a Rippletone, and that he’s rooting for me. Then William speaks more softly, admitting he lost twenty civil credits and that he’s sorry.
Everything fades.
DAY THREE:
I wake to a deep, stretching sensation in my thigh, as if something is being built beneath the surface. When I look down, I see new muscle fibers forming, fragile threads climbing along the scaffold of my left leg.
At the foot of the bed, Harrison and a Grandmaster liaison officer watch me. Harrison twists his cap, folding and unfolding the brim as if trying to steady himself.
“Miss Waldsten,” the liaison officer says, “Grandmaster University requires formal consent before contacting your family. Would you like us to inform your parents of the incident?”
“Miss Waldsten is not currently in a condition to authorize external communication,” the Pinkie surgeon interjects.
“I think your parents deserve to know,” Harrison says. “Loredana, let me call your father.”
“No.” I try to sit up, but pain tears through me, dropping me back against the bed with a gasp. “Harry,please. Don’t tell them.”
The Pinkie steps past them and checks my vitals, its fingers tapping through my chart. “Twenty-three percent,” the robot mutters.
I black out before I can ask:twenty-three percent of what?
DAY FOUR:
Edmund is at the door when I open my eyes. He’s rubbing his neck, his face worn at the edges, as if he’s been sitting beside me for hours. I try to call out, but no sound comes. He disappears down the hall.
A groan escapes me as heat rushes through my legs. My right leg is whole, but the left is still rebuilding, thickening with layers of new tissue beneath a glowing mesh.
“Vascular flow restored,” a Pinkie says nearby.
My toes spasm. Then I go still.
DAY FIVE:
Dickie’s voice startles me awake. I turn and realize for the first time that he’s been in the bed next to mine all along, separated only by a partial wall.
The Pinkie surgeon tells him he’s cleared for discharge, but Dickie insists he’s still unwell and unfit to return to lectures. Then, as he shouts for a hospital food attendant, something moves.
It’s my left leg. The shape is back, swollen and still healing, but real. I see it. I feel it. And then I feel nothing.
DAY SIX:
I wake to fire. Nerve pain lances through my leg so sharply it tears a gasp from my throat. A visor presses over my eyes, blocking light and muffling sound. I try to move, but the pain cuts deeper, and my body shudders.
A needle slips into my arm. My Bond pulses behind my temples, flaring red, then fading. Somewhere nearby, a mechanical voice speaks.
“Scar suppression at seventy percent.”
“Stop.Please.” The words scrape out weakly. The pain is too much.
