Chapter 21
KILA
I open my eyes, and everything around me is white.
“Ella,” I say, thinking we are in her bed, somewhere in her sea of white pillows and thick blankets. My voice is groggy and the inside of my mouth tastes like rubber.
“Kila.” There is a gentle tug at my arm. “We are in the operating room.”
I narrow my eyes on the face before me and try to make it not so blurry. There’s a blue spot of hair bobbing in front of me. “Oh, Kiva,” I say distantly. “What are we operating?”
A sigh. “It is a human phrase. This is where the surgeon did your procedure. Remember?”
“He’ll need a minute to recover his senses,” a foreign voice says.
“Thanks, Dr. Vaxxon. We’ll handle it from here.” That sounds like Pakka. The brightness begins to fade slightly, so that I can take in the silvery faces surrounding me. My team. All four of them.
I lift my arm, but it can’t quite move.
“Ah, will I be able to move soon?” I ask. Kiva comes into focus. He’s hanging over me, inspecting my face. I feel something tugging at my skin, followed by a little popping sound. It seems he’s removing some stabilizer cords from my head.
“The good news is that the procedure went well. All your brain activity is perfectly normal, and the cut site healed up nicely. Suppressor removed without issue,” Pakka is telling me.
I try to sit up, but I cannot. I try to pick up my leg, but I cannot. “Does this mean there’s bad news?” I say. I can’t possibly be paralyzed, otherwise I don’t imagine ‘without issue’ would be an honest assessment.
There is a pregnant pause while I begin trying to wiggle my fingers and toes. The room is coming into focus. It’s a sterile box with only an equipment cart and a light fixture overhead. Kiva, Pakka, Mori, and Vala are all at my side, wearing matching grim expressions. I realize that my fingers are responding just fine, so I tug at my arms and legs again.
And then it’s clear. I look down at my body and see I’m strapped tight to the gurney. Strong leather cords are crisscrossing me all over. Is this some strange dream?
“What is this?” I demand.
“Take a breath and relax, Kila. We need to tell you something,” Pakka says.
“Let me up,” I say, testing the strength of the cords by straining against them. “Where is Ella? If this is some attempt to take her away from me, I swear I’ll —”
“Please relax,” Kiva insists. His voice has a calming effect, and I realize vaguely that Kiva would never be a party to anything that would hurt Ella. His presence gives me a sense of trust. “This is about Ella, but it’s not what you are thinking. We’ve taken precautions strapping you here because we don’t want you to hurt yourself or others.”
I go limp and suck in a sharp breath. “Tell me where she is,” I grit out.
Mori gets straight to it. “She’s been taken. There was a security breach while you were under, and while a team of six men infiltrated the computer system and crashed the cameras, they also found Ella and took her with them when they escaped.”
I blink for a moment. Then, all at once, rage fills every nerve in my body with electric energy. I snarl and growl, nostrils flaring as I desperately tear against the bonds that keep me in place. Mori and Vala fall on my arms and chest, pressing me down.
“Let me up, you Ka-forsaken spineless Deviant-born bastard shika trash—” I shout curses at them in an unfiltered stream. “Cave-dwelling rat-eating shikava… Ka-forsaken scum worse than the bottom of an Azza boot —”
“Look at his eyes,” Kiva says. “They’re absolutely black! Greak Ka, he’s lost his mind.”
“Where have they taken her?” I scream. “How could this have happened? Pakka, she was with you!”
“I know, I know,” he sighs. “I am guilty. That I am sure of. We had a discussion that upset her, and she went seeking ‘fresh air’… She hadn’t returned when the security breach began. The building locked down and every door sealed shut.”
“How long?” I snap. “How long since she’s been gone?”
“Two hours,” he says.
I shut my eyes and imagine every horrible thing that could have happened to my precious Ella in the span of two Earth hours. I cease my fighting against the bonds and dig my fingernails into the side of the gurney.
“Release me,” I beg. “If any of you feel any sense of compassion, any shred of loyalty towards me as your crew member, as a fellow male, as a fellow warrior. If you care for me at all or ever did, you will release me immediately.”
“We are doing this because we care for you, Kila, and we are trying to keep you from whatever insanity you are planning. If you go on a rampage and kill humans in the process, there will be nothing we can do to protect you from either Earth or Alliance authorities.” Kiva’s eyes plead for me to cease fighting against them. But I will not.
“If anything happens to her, you should carry me straight to the funeral pyre,” I tell them. “I could not live with it.”
“How can you say that and not see what the hormones have done to your mind?” Mori asks. “We all wish to see Ella safe, and we will do what we can to help find her, but you speak as if your life has no value without her. It’s insanity.”
I let out a cold, angry laugh. Perhaps I have lost my mind, but it happened long, long ago. I realize this now, because Ella has brought my sanity back from the ashes since I’ve known her. How can I make them understand?
“I have been insane. I have always been angry. Do you not realize this? You will all know this truth soon, as you live on without that handy little chip which for so long kept us at some low level of living… You will realize you have always been lonely, or sad, or angry just like me. I have felt this since they day my command unit was left to die on an Azza-run planet. I have felt this since I watched each and every member of my team die screaming. I have felt this since they left me in a desert with nothing but rags to cover me— laughing, laughing at my pathetic cries.”
Now they are listening. Every single face is turned towards me with wide eyes as they realize what I refer to. They have never heard details of this story from my own lips.
“Do you know why I survived?” I shout at them. “DO YOU?”
Kiva shakes his head just barely.
“I SURVIVED BECAUSE I WAS ANGRY,” I rage, screaming my voice hoarse. I rip at the bonds and my arm snaps free. I clench my free hand into a fist. “I survived because every bone in my body wanted retribution. It was the only thing that made me crawl through sand, lick the dew from the top of a rock, eat from a dead carcass and hope it would not kill me… You think that I am like this because of Ella? You are lying to yourselves because I know you feel something deep inside. It’s probably crawling to the surface as I speak.”
I am faced with silence as my chest heaves from my quickened breathing. They stare at me, and I wonder if a single word I’ve said has gotten through to them.
Then with one swift movement, Vala leans forward and cuts the straps with his knife. Kiva’s mouth drops open.
“You are right,” Vala says. “But we won’t let you do anything alone. Promise us that at least. We will work this research team as a command unit.”
I nod. I am surprised, relieved, and energized all at the same time.
“I, too, would like to find Ella-vi,” Kiva pipes up.