I blushed. I didn’t know everyone knew about it. And it made very uncomfortable to think people pitied me.
“Um, thanks.” I didn’t really know how to respond. She nodded and left, pressing something into Pietre’s hand as she glided out the door. He muttered to her with a scary smile on his face.
He turned to me, still hanging in the door like he didn’t want to step into the room. “Here, take these,” he said flippantly.
Two pills flew in an arc towards me. I caught one fuzzy-edged pill in my palm but the other rolled under a trolley.
“Why? What for?” I stammered as Pietre let the door slowly close between us.
“Because if you don’t, you’ll die,” he said sharply, the words slicing through the closing gap like an arrow.
I jumped off the table like a spring and scrambled to find the second pill. Pushing the trolley aside, it clanged into the wall and bounced back towards me. My fingers grasped the powder-white disc and I carefully held it, worried my new strength would turn it to dust. I shoved them both in my mouth, feeling them grazing my throat as I swallowed them without water. I was about to yell a tirade of abuse at Pietre when a ripple of nausea rolled through me like a tidal wave. I turned to the bucket placed neatly at the foot of my bed and vomited pure blue.
Careen’s perfect face appeared in the doorway. She cracked a pristine smile as I raised my head from my bucket. I wiped the tears from my eyes, my hands streaked blue. Puzzled, I looked to her for explanation.
“Oh yeah,” she said, flipping her hair behind her ear. “Don’t wear any white for a while.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully with a slender, white finger. “Actually you’re safer to just wear blue for a few days. You’re gonna pee, sweat, and cry blue.”
“Fascinating,” I said sarcastically as I turned back to my bucket to continue emptying the contents of my stomach. Now I understood why the doctor seemed displeased that I had eaten.
I heard a tapping. I followed Careen’s foot to her face. “What?” I asked, irritated.
She looked uncomfortable. “Um, we’ll just wait outside until you’re finished, ok?”
I was about to say, ‘fine’, when the rumble of nausea overtook me again.
The door pressed shut.
As we left, after the vomiting fireworks, I asked Dr. Yashin what the pills were for.
“The liquid can’t stay in your system for more than fifteen minutes, or your body starts to shut down,” she said matter-of-factly.
I gulped. “What do you mean?”
“Just imagine how you felt in the procedure times a hundred, then suddenly, everything just ends,” she said, playing with her glasses chain.
“I don’t remember Joseph crying blue tears,” I muttered.
Pietre whistled low and said, “Maybe he’s not as big a baby as you.” I couldn’t even be bothered glaring at him.
Dr. Yashin shook her head disapprovingly. “Yes, I heard about his operation. They took his heart out, injected the blue solution, and then injected the antidote minutes later. This was done before they placed it inside his body.”
“Oh,” I said, because I couldn’t come up with anything intelligent to say. I felt out of my league. Overwhelmed. There was so much about these people I didn’t understand—or couldn’t understand.
I turned to the soldiers, Careen and Pietre. “So, what about this training?”
When training started, I split myself in two. One half walked towards Joseph, lay in his arms, kissed him, and let his warmth grant her safety. The other half walked away, walked into the woods.
COMBAT
The morning after my procedure, my body jerked in the bed like I’d been electrocuted. A hard shiver. It felt like some of the blue stuff was still swirling around my insides, poking at what was left and looking for any remaining damage. Joseph lay next to me, warm and beautiful. I gave him a gentle kick with my heel and he groaned and rolled towards me. Reaching out, he pulled me into his arms. I folded like a V, unable to fight him in his sleep. Unable and unwilling. He moved his hands up under my shirt, unaware of what he was doing. I blew my hair out of my face and rolled my eyes. If he was going to do this, I’d rather he was awake. I turned in his arms and kissed his nose. “Joseph, wake up.” He blinked at me cross-eyed for a second and then chuckled. Opening his arms, he stretched out and yawned, folding them behind his head.
“What time is it?” he asked, mid-yawn.
“Nearly eight, you need to go.”
His eyes shone in the morning sun and told me he wasn’t going anywhere. Still drowsy from sleep, he rolled over and pinned me under his big arms, coasting just above my body. I smiled up at him but something twisted in his face and he paused. “Sorry, is this…?”
“I’m all better now. See…” I flipped over and I rolled up the back of my shirt, “no more bruises. I feel great.”
Joseph finally shook off his drowsiness and frowned. “Obviously, I’m glad they did it but I still don’t understand why. Your injuries were pretty superficial. I didn’t think they used the machine unless it was a life-threatening injury.”
I pulled myself up onto my elbows and met his questions with a kiss. Quickly following it up with, “Yes, of course, Dr. Sulle, but you have to go. You’ll be late.” I needed to leave for training really soon.
“Oh, right,” he said, his mind distracted momentarily. He jumped out of bed and made his way to the shower, pulling off his shirt as he walked. I had to sigh. The sight of his now-tanned, naked back, little freckles dotting the skin around his neckline, was too much. I considered joining him in the shower. I could imagine the hot water running over our bodies, my hands… but I let my shyness talk me out of it.
Training, I reminded myself.
Joseph left with Orry in one arm and a medical bag in the other. Five minutes later, Careen and Pietre were knocking on my door.
“Geez!” I said in surprise. “Were you hiding in the bushes?”
“Something like that,” Pietre snapped as he pushed his way into the house without invitation. He looked me up and down with an unwelcome stare. “You can’t wear that. You need to put on something more… flexible.”
I regarded my clothing. I was wearing jeans and a button-up shirt. I appealed to Careen questioningly.
“Just put on leggings and a t-shirt,” she said happily. “Blue,” she called after me.
I changed and they led me down our house steps. At least they weren’t shoulder to shoulder like yesterday, but I still got the sense I was being babysat. They turned right and we headed towards the thick patch of forest that edged the top line of houses. We were close to the Wall and its silhouette hung over the roofs of the small timber cottages. Dark, spindly shadows dripped down the trunks and darkened the foliage of the forest we were about to enter.
They disappeared into the brush and it closed around them like a heavy curtain. I followed.
I watched the two of them. They were unlike Joseph and me in so many ways. Pietre moved through the woods like the trees presence offended him and should jump out of his way and salute. Careen followed behind him, mirroring his footsteps. She never touched him unless he initiated it. And when he did, it was like he claimed her.
He was rough and cursed a lot, which reminded me of my Construction boys. A feeling that rocked and ached my heart. But apart from the cursing, he was nothing like them. He seemed hardened and certainly unused to not getting his own way.
When there were no more branches to slap and abuse, the forest gave way to smaller shrubs. The woods had now sprung green and yellow. It had changed as if overnight. From bleak and cold, life just managed to press itself against the icy panes of winter, to buzzing and bursting with pollen dust. Life was defrosting, long, green stems beckoned and bent in the breeze. Little crackles of noise, leaves shifting, gave evidence of small, scurrying creatures that had poked their wet noses out of hibernation. I inhaled deeply, the smell of layers of rotting foliage, the shed skin of trees, wafted up from where we trampled. It was thick and sweet, damp and moldy, but wonderful. I doubted Pietre noticed.