As she indicated the gentlemale in question, and the civilian got to his feet, her father gave her hand a squeeze and then reassumed his official duties.
Following his example, she sat down again. Looked at the computer in front of her. And still felt caged.
But what was she going to do? Even though he technically couldn’t stop her—she was of age, and there had been no specification on the application that a female had to get a male elder to approve the submission—she nonetheless found herself paralyzed.
It was hard to rebel against your parents when there was only one left.
And he was all you had in this world.
Selena hated pretty much everything about the exam, the blood draw, the X-ray process. And she felt bad about that. It wasn’t that Doc Jane was anything less than perfectly gentle and very kind. But to be in one of those hospital johnnies, getting poked and prodded, twisted and pictured, was like having the countdown to some kind of detonation happen right in front of you.
Plus, she hated the fake-lemon antiseptic they had to use on everything.
And the fact that she was cold even after they put a blanket over her legs.
And then there was that bright light hanging over her head.
Mostly, though, it wasn’t the external environment that was hard to put up with. It was the internal screaming that she found she had to hold in through force of will.
“Okay, I think that’s our last X-ray,” Doc Jane said from over by the desk.
On the computer screen, a ghostly image of Selena’s knee was front and center, but she refused to look at it.
She had to stay lying down until Doc Jane came back over and moved the X-ray arm out of the way. And as she sat up, the doctor took the plate from underneath her leg and put it aside.
“So . . . what now?” Selena asked.
She was numb. She was cold. She was sweaty.
But mostly she was feeling stiff. And not just in her hands.
“Let me take a good look at the X-rays with Manny. And then we’ll come talk to you.”
Selena shifted her legs off and looked over the lip of the table at her feet. She flexed one and then the other, her brain going into a tailspin of Better? Worse? The same?
“When?” she said roughly.
“Why don’t we meet around dawn? Trez could come down here with you if you like—”
The crash came from outside of the room, and both of them looked to the door across the way. When the sound repeated itself, Doc Jane raced over—and so did Selena.
After all, she wasn’t frozen stiff yet, and it seemed like a good time to remind herself of that fact.
The pair of them rushed out into the corridor and listened. The training center was otherwise silent, what with the Brothers getting their workouts in the field, and there being, fortunately, no one with injuries in the clinic rooms—
The clatter came again, and they took off, heading two doors down.
Doc Jane opened things wide.
The healer had to duck as something came flying out of the room. A tray. It was a meal tray, and it skipped along the concrete floor like the thing was really glad to be free of there—and looking to put a little extra distance in.
Inside, Luchas was out of control on the bed. Half of him appeared to be tied down, but one hand and arm were free and he was using them to destroy anything he could reach—he’d knocked over some monitoring equipment along with his IV pole, did the same duty with the rolling table that had had some sort of meal on it—and was now reaching for the back of the headboard like he wanted to tear the bed apart.
“Luchas,” Doc Jane said, with admirable calmness. “What’s going—”
“Fuck you!”
Selena recoiled. She’d been here to feed Qhuinn’s brother over the last several months, and he’d always been nothing short of a gentlemale.
“Luchas—”
“Fuck this!” He gave up on the headboard and grabbed onto the side table, shoving it so hard the thing went down, its drawers exploding out like that was its way to bleed. “Fuck you!”
Doc Jane backed out and muttered, “I’ve got to go get a sedative. Don’t go in there.”
As the doctor took off at a run, Selena stayed in the doorway.
“What are you looking at?” he screamed at her. “What the fuck do you want!”
There was a red stain on the bed. The sheeting, on one side, a little more than halfway down, was stained—he was bleeding. From some kind of wound—
“Your leg,” she breathed, well aware of the infection that had been plaguing him. “Be careful of your leg—”
“I wanted to die!” he spat. “I was trying to die!”
His face was a twisted facsimile of the features she knew well, his too-white skin stretched nearly to the breaking point over a bone structure that had no doubt been enviable before he’d been tortured by the Lessening Society.
“They took my fucking leg to save me!” He pulled the sheets off. “To save me!”
The stump was wrapped carefully in layers of surgical gauze, but underneath wasn’t doing well—blood was seeping out, everywhere.
He started to claw for what was left and that was when she had to get involved.
Marching across the room, she grabbed his flailing hands and pinned them to the bed by his head.
Luchas. Went. Wild.
Screaming, twisting, cursing at her.
All she did was shake her head and let him exhaust himself—which didn’t take long at all.
When he stopped fighting, she said, “You are so lucky. So damned lucky.”
That shut him up. Probably in a way that a direct confrontation wouldn’t have.
“What?” he stammered.
“I’m dying,” she said plainly. “And if someone could take part of my leg to save me? So I could stay here to be with the person I love? I’d do it in a heartbeat. So, yeah, I think you’re very lucky.”
He was still breathing hard, but the tension in his body left him. “Dying?”
“’Fraid so.” She released her hold and stepped back. “Don’t waste this time you have. I know you’re hurting, and I don’t doubt you’re angry at where you are. But personally, I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”
Doc Jane came back—and stopped when she saw that the place wasn’t on fire or something.
“I’m going to go get dressed,” Selena said as she headed for the door. “I’m cold in this gown. Do you need help cleaning up?”
Doc Jane looked back and forth between them, clearly wondering what had been said or done to turn things around. “Ah, no, let me take care of it.”
“Okay.” Selena nodded at the doctor, and then glanced back at Luchas. “Take care of yourself.”
She could feel his eyes on her as she stepped out into the corridor. Could feel them still as she went back to change.
When she reentered the tunnel, she began to get paranoid that she’d have an attack halfway back to the main house, and get stuck dying under the fluorescent lights. Or maybe if it happened on the stairwell up to the foyer . . . or—
Okay, she’d better stop this.
She had enough to worry about without looking for more trouble.
FIFTY-SIX
He couldn’t stop looking at her.
As iAm lay naked in front of the dying fire, his body was entwined with maichen’s, their legs one among another, their hips still locked together, their sexes close, but no longer joined. She had her head on her folded arm; his was propped up.
“I want to see you again,” he whispered.
He wanted to tell her how much he needed more of this special time, this complete break from all the shit he couldn’t shift and couldn’t make a difference with back in Caldwell. In coming here, it was as if he had briefly stepped to the side, changed his track, taken a breather. It wasn’t a permanent relocation, and he didn’t want it to be—there was no way he was abandoning his brother.