Page 231 of Interion

“Thank you, Zion! I love the gift, and I bet Hiro will too.”

Δ

Zion drove me to the hospital, dropping me off at the entrance and saying goodbye with a kiss on my forehead. He’d be checking on the squadrons all day since he was moving five troops for the next day’s event. He promised we’d see each other that night for training.

When I entered the hospital reception, a small crowd had gathered near the news screen mounted on the waiting room wall. The sound was so loud it was impossible to ignore. Curious, I approached to see what all the commotion was about and found myself staring at images of a volcano spewing smoke and ash. I didn’t need to hear what the reporter had to say—all Jupiterians knew what it meant when one of the Yonser volcanoes erupted: chaos.

They were isolated on the southern coast of Yonser territory, bordering the Vinturis channel and the entrance to the Emir River, but they weren’t close enough to either nation to cause destruction. The problem was that the smoke they produced was highly toxic and caused irreversible neurological damage. So whenever any of the five volcanoes became active, everything around it was evacuated and maritime traffic came to a halt, freezing commerce between nations.

“What a load of crap!” a middle-aged fae man grumbled beside me. “This again? Why doesn’t someone send the climate elementals over there to solve it once and for all? How long is commerce going to depend on nature’s goodwill?”

“If you were a climate elemental, would you go?” asked a high-pitched voice I recognized. It was Adele, wearing a white lab coat over a black turtleneck. She stood with her arms crossed at the far end of the room.

“Me?” This time the man stumbled over his words, clearly caught off guard by the question, but he quickly straightened up and replied: “If it meant helping the nations, I’d go!”

“And what if the expedition failed, just like the last five Yonser missions? What if you came back out of your mind and spent the rest of your life as a burden to your wife and children, without even coming close to solving the problem? Would you still go?”

The man opened his mouth to continue the argument, but something in Adele’s words made him hesitate, and soon the room erupted into a heated debate about whether anyone should go.

I continued on my way through the corridors. The answer was obvious: no one was crazy enough to go to that region. Everyone who had gone either never came back or returned with neurological damage. So the chain of volcanoes remained untouched, and all the scholars agreed it was better to keep it that way.

I spent the whole morning talking with Ambrose and Lorenzo. They were anxious about the test too, since it was the last thing I needed before submitting my résumé. After that, they'd do their part by delivering a letter of recommendation to the hospital administrators. Despite the problem with Kaori, I was confident they'd consider my application—every year, the number of healing elementals dropped drastically. Most healers came from Drutes, and it was rare for someone to be born outside the nation, like Adele.

When I said goodbye to them to collect my things from my locker, I wasn't sad. I was even happier and more motivated—the next time I came back to use a hospital locker, it would be a bigger one, and my name would be there permanently. Not as a resident, but as a doctor. Feeling cheerful, I walked through the corridors and entered the locker room. To my surprise, Adele was there, collecting her belongings too. I thought about turning around and waiting for her to finish, but I chose to face the moment without cowering.

“Hello, Adele,” I greeted, opening my locker.

I caught a glimpse of her rolling her eyes as she ignored me. Dr. Liríope had told me Adele was responding well to therapy and would be discharged soon—she'd even been cleared to take the test with the rest of the class.

Calmly, I gathered my few things in a box and was finishing up when I heard her belongings tumble from the box she was trying to balance. Her makeup case landed at my feet, its contents scattering across the floor. I couldn't just ignore the mess, so I bent down to pick everything up.

“Back off, I don't need help,” she said, looking at me with her usual expression of disgust. Those were her first words to me in two months, and they couldn't have been more adorable. I rolled my eyes—I'd expected nothing less. I thought about being sarcastic with her but decided it wouldn't get us anywhere. Ambrose always said that words are light, but silence is the entire sun. I decided to listen to him. I gathered her things as quickly as I could.

“I already said you don't need to,” she snapped again, her mood absolutely foul.

“I'm almost done.” I stood up and tossed everything into her box. When I looked in her direction, all I saw was a blur of movement. Adele grabbed me by the hair and slammed my face against the locker while pinning my arm behind my back. It was a classic hold—my lip split from the impact, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. What the hell did she think she was doing?

“I don't need your pity, Kyller. I don't need you looking at me like I'm some broken bird you're trying to fix,” she hissed in my ear.

What the hell was this crazy woman talking about? I grunted with my face pressed against the locker, then kicked backward—she'd pinned my arms but not my legs. Zion had taught me never to leave an opponent's legs free during a hold. I kicked her, and as she staggered back, I spun around, grabbed her by her pink hair, and twisted her arm behind her back, executing the same move she'd used on me but pressing my leg against her calf. She slammed into the locker with the same force I had.

“I don't pity you, Adele. I've never pitied you, and I'm not trying to get close out of pity. I don't see a broken bird—I see a free bird, but a stupid, furious one who can't tell the difference between good intentions and pity.”

“Liar!” she shouted, trying to break free.

“Why would I lie?”

“Why?” She laughed maliciously. “I dumped so much shit on you that I'm surprised you even bothered to come looking for me in the woods. It's easy to understand your compassion for my situation, but I don't want any of it. I can't stand looking at people who know the truth and seeing those feelings in their eyes. It's worse than simply being despised for who I am and what I let happen to me.”

I released Adele, keeping my distance, and picked up my box from the floor while she turned around, staring at me with those terrible ice-cold eyes.

“You still don't understand me. Or you're pretending not to.” I shook my head, exasperated. “I'm not your enemy. I never was,” I said, closing my locker with my elbow. “I'm not approaching you out of pity. If you looked beyond your pride and prejudice, you'd see that.”

I turned to leave and walked down the corridor toward the exit, hoping this wouldn't turn into an argument. I didn't want to fight with Adele. But I hadn't taken ten steps before she opened the door and asked:

“Then why?”

I turned around, holding the box, and faced her. She seemed a little calmer, but confusion showed in her eyes and in her furrowed white eyebrows.