Mcmolly

Amygdala Circuit

Of all the ways Dahlia had expected this to go, hearing Quinn apologize to her had not been one of them. But then, that was silly; of course she’d apologize. Not because she’d done anything wrong—Dahlia was vehemently sure of that—but because it must have felt awful. They weren’t fighting, they weren’t enemies. They were family, and there’d been a misunderstanding.

“No,” Dahlia said, following her to the couch to sit down beside her. “No, there is—and it wasn’t your fault. Quinn, watching you win that duel was…I can’t even describe how relieved I was. I was scared, really scared, and when you’re scared you don’t…you don’t think of the thing that’s scaring you as anything but…well, scary.”

She reached out, flipping Quinn’s braid from behind her. It needed brushing—she’d do that tomorrow. “I don’t. But you do. You did. You saw Roaki for more than just an opponent, you saw her for what she really was. And even when she was sitting on the floor of that cell, completely helpless, I still couldn’t see her as anything but a threat to you. That…that was wrong.

“There’s something wrong with me, Quinn. There’s something wrong with every pilot, and every program, and everyone that thinks what you did wasn’t right, or that what’s happening to her here is.” She could feel it—her eyes growing hot. She held herself together though, even if she was admitting a mistake—perhaps especially because of that—she needed to be the big sister, still. “I don’t ever want you to think I’m not with you. I don’t ever want you to be disappointed in me. And if you are, that’s not your fault, it’s mine. So I mean it. I’m gonna be better. I might mess up, I might not be perfect, but a long time ago I wanted to be just like you, and somewhere along the way I gave up. Now I know I can still try.”

Amygdala Circuit

The eyes that followed them back to the dorms were less hostile now, but still curious, confused. No one approached them, and those that drew too close received harsh stares from Besca that kept them at arm’s length. They returned to the dorms unbothered, but she knew come tomorrow there would be questions, and her answers would be unsatisfactory.

“I’ve gotta go topside, try and preempt the storm of crap that’s coming. I’ll be back late, but I’ll see you two in the morning.” Besca hugged her again, and then left her at the door.

Inside, Dahlia was waiting. She seemed a bit surprised that Quinn had come alone, but quickly forgot it, and came hurrying over.

“Quinn I’m so sorry,” she said, speaking fast and high-pitched and written all over her face was a novel of guilt. “I didn’t—I shouldn’t have done that I just…I was…I saw her and you and I didn’t really see her but I should have stopped and looked and I was being so ridiculous. You were being so nice and I just didn’t understand but that’s my fault it’s not your fault and—and—and—”

She gasped in a breath, held it to think. This time she spoke slower. “I’m just really sorry. I’ve been…you just…you mean so much to me. I’ve been so worried about keeping you safe that I never stopped to think that I should be trying to learn from you. That’s not an excuse, it’s just…it’s just how it is. I’ll do better. I’ll really, really try.”

Amygdala Circuit

Something lurched in Besca to see Quinn hug Follen like that. She trusted him so completely, and she knew it wasn’t even because she was naïve. He had everyone fooled, and he’d made himself nigh inextricable from the program. Besca wasn’t sure she could have fired him if she tried. But his years of contact with Dahlia hadn’t changed her, and while she’d never forgive him for pushing Quinn into becoming a pilot, she also knew he wasn’t looking for forgiveness.

Quinn, however, seemed unsure.

Did...did I do the right thing?

They were stopped by the exit, and Besca found it almost impossible to meet the doubt in Quinn’s eye. Had she and Dahlia put that there? Was it their own cynicism she saw there, nascent but so ready to grow into the same world view as everyone else’s? The thought didn’t just sadden, it repulsed her. She might very well be about to lose Quinn forever.

So she took a deep breath, and Quinn’s hand. “C’mere, hun. Sit with me.” She led her to a bench by the exit, where their only company were vacant offices and an empty hallway. Still, she kept her voice quiet so that it wouldn’t carry.

“I was ten when I watched my first duel. My father wanted to keep me away from it, but I was stubborn, and just enamored with the Saviors. I’d watched them at singularities before, seen them mulch the monsters and Modir that came through. So I thought, hey, no big deal. I wanna see it. One night I snuck downstairs after he’d gone to bed, and I watched a recording of a bout between the champion of House Liedwald, Herr Raum—they called him the Warbane—and this Euseran Rookie, Dom Cade.”

She shut her eye, leaned her head back against the wall. She could almost see the TV, feel the dark around her. She’d kept the volume low so her father wouldn’t hear, and scooted so close to the screen her eyes hurt.

“Raum was a vet. Inherited his Savior from his mother, and in his first year he settled the Satsuma Dispute by putting her spear through the Savior of a Tohoken heir. Some people like to say wars averted by duels are wars won by the victory. If that was true, Raum had won three wars in ten years. Hard to say what the world would look like right now without him.

“Cade was a kid, barely Dahlia’s age. It was his first duel, and looking back I don’t think he’d been in the cockpit more than a month. The ESC was using him as a primer—fodder, basically, to wear Raum down so they could send their ringer in afterwards to finish the job. ‘Course, they didn’t tell him that, and if he knew it, it didn’t show. I mean, the rookies never care, they’re all just excited to get their shot in the cockpit. They all think they’re gonna be the next Janey Waylen, or Markus Gad, or…Dahlia St. Senn.

“I’ll give Cade that—he wasn’t scared. They caught him on his way out to the Savior and he said a few words. Said he’d do his best, he wanted to make his mom and his little brother proud.” She smirked. “I’ll admit, I had a little crush for a minute. He was cute, charming. Heroic. Everything I thought pilots were supposed to be. Seemed like the whole world knew he was gonna die out there, but me? I was so sure he was gonna win.

“He had this weapon like a ball on a chain, with spikes all over it. Cade was going for his head—bad form to try and mulch a Savior, but it’d made him famous. But Raum kept batting it aside, every strike, slap, slap, slap, like it’s nothing. Toying with him. Then four minutes in, Cade suddenly whips the thing low, and Raum blocked high. The ball took out his knee. When he went down, Cade just…he just went animal on him. Tackled Raum to the ground, took the ball in his hand and wailed on his head. Over and over. The noises that Savior made…” And she heard it, faintly, in the back of her mind. It made her shiver. “I remember the comms got leaked a few weeks later. You could hear Cade just screaming bloody fury. Roaring, cursing. Like Raum was the most evil thing on Illun.

“I didn’t sleep for two days. Spent the next morning crying my eyes out. My dad thought I was dying—I was too embarrassed to admit I was just…sad. Really, really sad. I think it was a long time before I ever saw pilots as heroes again. Cade died the next year, killed by a Tormont or a Donner, I don’t really remember. They took his Savior as recompense for Warbane’s. Don’t know what happened to it—don’t even remember what it’s name was, after.”

Besca looked down at her, smiled, but she knew it was too sad to be warm. “People are born old,” she said. “They live their whole lives and the world doesn’t change one bit. I watched every pilot I’ve ever worked with walk the same path Cade did. Even Deelie. They don’t all like it, but they all do it, ‘cause…they’re old. They’re tired. They don’t want to fight the world and themselves, so they just stop trying. And I don’t blame them.

“I was ready for you to be another Cade. I’d accepted it. I think I’d have been okay with you being another Roaki if it meant you got to live. But you didn’t cave. Maybe that’s ‘cause you don’t have a lifetime of the world’s pressure on your shoulders, maybe it’s just cause that’s who you are deep down. Maybe it’s both. I don’t care. I saw something happen that you’re supposed to stop believing when you’re still little. You made it happen.”

She put an arm around Quinn, pulled her in close and rested her chin on the top of her head. “So yeah, hun. Yeah, you did the right thing. You’re my hero.”

Amygdala Circuit

Besca watched Follen closely. He had a particular way of dealing with confrontation, depending on who it was and how much they knew. She’d never seen him faced with an accusation he couldn’t skirt, be it by lack of evidence or quality of his “character”. She’d never forget the first time she’d cornered him after Westwel. It had been right here on the Aerie, at the great window in the observatory. She’d asked him who he was, and watched his amicable façade slough away, watched his eyes go hollow, and saw for the first time that her friend was dead. He’d been indistinguishable from the void behind him.

But this was different. He wasn’t being confronted with anything more terrible than what she’d done, and he knew it. There was no need to drop the mask.

“I do know where she was, yes,” he said, meeting her accusatory tone with one that was at once innocent and repentant. “I’m afraid the orders for her arrest came down while I was mid-procedure. Besca alerted me, and I had just enough time to lock the doors to the OR so I could finish up. They would have brought her down there with her leg stapled shut, still riddled with growths.”

His eyes flicked to Besca. She grimaced but didn’t object; he was speaking the truth. It was a harsh truth, but those seemed to be his favorite. Follen thrived in the worst, most hopeless situations, but not in the way a hero would. Rather, he attended his duty with the unflinching resolve of a headsman.

Pulling a small pen-like device from his pocket, he crouched down to look up at Roaki. She turned her head away, but he held the thing up to her and she didn’t bat at it. There was a small beep. He turned it towards him, reading from a tiny screen on its length.

“The chill hasn’t done her any favors, I don’t think. We had to flush the modium out of her system, and judging by the sweating, I’m going to guess that my advice for pain medication went ignored.” He looked up at them, namely to Besca. “I don’t suppose the Board has had a sudden change of heart.”

Besca shook her head.

“Well, I can get her a bed tonight, but it’s not going to do her much good if she ends up right back down there tomorrow.”

She glanced down at Quinn, then to the slumped, quiet form of Roaki. She sighed. “You’re officially under orders to keep her here. If anyone comes to get her, you tell them to call me. I’ll handle the Board.”

“Sure, commander,” he said, a smile on his lips. “And the prosthetics?”

Again she paused, thought. Breathed. “Measurements are fine. Do it yourself, and don’t list it.”

“Yes ma’am, measurements only,” he said, and then winked at Quinn. “Though I do a bit of tinkering in my spare time. There could be some…coincidental overlap.”

Besca wasn’t sure how she felt about the idea of Roaki running around Aerie Station with high-end prosthetics. But, that was a worry for another time—hopefully a very distant time. “That’ll be all,” she said, turning to leave. “Goodnight.”

Follen rose up, nodded. “Goodnight, you two.”

Amygdala Circuit

In that brief moment during their hug, Besca heard Dahlia whisper down to Quinn: “I’m so sorry too.”

A relief, for sure. Besca was beginning to understand how well-warranted the outburst had been, but still, the last thing she wanted was to see the girls fight. Dahlia would never fight back, and Quinn would likely hate every minute of it. That the matter had been settled—or at least eased—without love lost, was more than her cynical heart was used to hoping for.

That was, she was learning, the problem.

“Can you come with me? I don't want the two of us to be alone.”

“‘Course, hun,” she said, and saw Roaki’s face twist strangely when she did. Besca frowned. It had taken until she’d stopped, until she’d really looked at her to realize the girl was…well, just that. A girl. She would have thrown Roaki’s application into the bin just as quickly as Quinn’s. And here they both were anyway.

Dahlia retrieved the slice of cake, and together the three of them walked out of holding and into the warmth of the station. They parted at the commons—Dahlia splitting one way, the three of them another—and continued on towards medical.

Suddenly, she wasn’t sure how she felt about handing Roaki off to Follen. The fact that he’d performed the amputation hadn’t sat right with her, but he was the only—and, ironically, the best—choice at the time. Of course, the order for Roaki’s imprisonment had come from on-high, and she’d gotten a stern word about wasting resources on an enemy combatant at all, but she wondered if he truly regrated sending her away. With so much modium in her system, had he the chance, he may very well have kept her in the ward, safe and sound.

As they made their way up to the higher levels, Quinn’s worries were proved true. Eyes followed them, jumping from commander to hero pilot to, finally, the girl in the chair who could only be Roaki Tormont.

The looks were not kind.

No one dared say anything out loud, not with both her and Quinn around, but the whispers were many. Phones came out, the recordings started. She knew by tomorrow there’d be all sorts of videos online, and shortly thereafter, a slew of articles. Helburkan Pilot Paraded through Aerie Station like Hero. Quinnlash Loughvein FORCED to Chauffeur for Enemy Combatant. RISC Diverts Funds, Manpower to Cater to HELBURKAN Pilots.

God, Eusero was going to have a field day.

Their turn into the ward brought them peace, for now. They proceeded down the curving hall in silence until they reached Follen’s door. Three sharp knocks, and a short moment later it opened. There the good doctor stood.

“Commander! Quinn, darling! What a pleasant surprise. What brings you—”

He looked down, to Roaki, who seemed unable or unwilling to look up at him.

“Ah. Is everything alright?”

Amygdala Circuit

Roaki listened—what else could she do? She sat and listened and every word seemed like it had been spoken in a different language. Quinn was at once the most frightful example of a human being she’d ever seen, and something completely and unrecognizably alien. Pilots didn’t think like this, no one who survived thought like this. Mercy was an insult reserved family and other contemptable rivals, and to be dolled out only when absolutely necessary.

There was nothing necessary about this. Roaki didn’t even know what the duel was fought over, no one had told her. No one ever told her, and she never asked. The needs of a fight were simple: there had to be a winner, and a loser. It ended there. She should have ended there. But she’d been spared—saved, and for what? There was hardly anything left of her to save, and what remained was of use to no one.

No home, no family, no Savior, and a ruined body. Her heart lurched as she realized that she’d been wrong. This was mercy, in its truest and purest form. Punishment of the highest caliber, torture to shame a Great House Inquisitor. A great feat, a blow that would have been felt in her family for generations—had she not been so thoroughly excised from it.

So why the fuck was she apologizing?

“S-stop. Stop s-saying that,” she hissed. “Stop saying y-you’re…s-sorry. No o-one is s-sorry. Not…me. Not y-you. Not a-anyone. Never. L-look at us. You won…I lost.”

You’re a pilot. I’m a worm.

The doors opened again. The woman and the pilot returned, the former wheeling a wheelchair in front of her. Roaki grimaced at the sight of them, looking away. She wanted to argue, but she also wanted to plead with them not to take her away. This cell was cold, and hard, and it was exactly what she deserved, but if they took her back to that place, if they took anything else…

But what right did she have to refuse, now? As a pilot she could boast and threaten and fight for the things she wanted, or against the things she didn’t. Now, by all accounts, she was a corpse-in-waiting. Corpses didn’t get to refuse. They didn’t get to speak, either; it seemed she was just as good at being a corpse as she was a pilot.

She’d had it wrong at the duel. She’d called Quinn “deadgirl”, and now here she was.

The woman—Besca, she thought she’d heard—unlocked her cage and stepped in. Roaki flinched away, and she saw hesitation in Besca’s eye, along with a strange recognition. It was like she was seeing her for the first time.

Carefully, she hoisted Roaki up and set her down in the chair. It was soft, softer than the slab and blanket, softer even than her own bed. A tension eased within her and she felt immediately too vulnerable, but kept her silence.

“I can bring her to medical if you want, hand her off to Follen, then meet you two back at the dorms, or you can take her. Your call, Quinn.”

Amygdala Circuit

Roaki’s whole body went rigid the moment Quinn seized her hand. Too slow, she was too slow, too cold to react and now she had it. A pit formed in her stomach, a rose up and choked her—spared her the indignity of screaming when her self-sworn oath was momentarily forgotten. Heart pounding in her chest, eyes wide and fixed on their hands, she felt again a memory of panic. It was as strange to her now as it was then, smaller in scale though only just lesser in strength. A feeling she knew not from personal experience, but from inflicting it upon others.

This was what prey felt like.

Her fingers twitched in Quinn’s grasp. She’s gonna take it. The thought came to her like a spear through the gut. She’s gonna take it. She’s gonna take it. She’s gonna take my hand.

But she couldn’t pull away, she wasn’t fast enough. If she tried, and failed, what would Quinn do then? That anger she’d wanted so badly to stoke out of her on the battlefield was suddenly the most terrifying thing in the world. As she sat there, shivering so hard and so deeply that she could not longer tell whether it was from the cold or the fear, she heard words in the back of her head.

A wolf doesn’t have to catch a hare, only outlast it. Their hearts are so small, the fear and the strain of a chase can kill them outright.

Roaki had always thought herself the wolf, but she was sweating through the cold now. She shut her eyes tight, and waited to die a hare’s death.

“Roaki—god—Roaki. I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, who did this to you...?”

Silence. A long, icy silence.

Roaki opened her eyes. Quinn’s voice…there was something so sincere there, so raw that it couldn’t have been faked. It was pathetic. She sounded like a scared little girl. She sounded like prey, and it was suddenly unbearably infuriating to Roaki that she was the one in the cage. Her heart slowed, and as the panic passed she realized the fear was only part of the reason she was sweating. At some point she’d begun leaning onto the stump of her lost leg, and the pain was finally beginning to reach her.

In that moment she knew that Quinn wasn’t going to hurt her. Yet. She yanked her hand away, the sweat made it easy.

“I did,” she answered. Pathetic as Quinn was, Roaki still couldn’t look at her. She supposed that made her worse. “I d-did it…to m-me. I g-got in…I’m…” her lips curled, sharp teeth scraping her dry lips bloody. “I’m a pilot. I-I’m a p-pilot. I’m a pilot!”

But the more she said it, the less true it seemed. She wasn’t. Not anymore. They’d taken that, too, and she’d have given every ounce of flesh she had left to get it back. Now she’d crawl like a worm for the rest of her life.

Something dripped from her face, dotting the floor. Sweat, she told herself. It was sweat, because she wouldn’t cry for Quinnlash. She wiped her face against her shoulder just to be safe.

“Wh…why? Why didn’t you j-just…kill me?”

Amygdala Circuit

Both the pilot and the woman recoiled at Quinn’s outburst, at first completely shocked and then, Roaki noticed with growing disdain, ashamed. At first she thought it might be the shame of someone caught doing something they shouldn’t—no real remorse, only sorry that they were being scolded. And she could see that at first, especially in the pilot; that hate in her eyes, like Roaki had tried to steal something precious from her, never snuffed, only cooled to a simmer. But gradually she saw it shift into genuine guilt. They were sorry. Roaki didn’t understand it, but she knew it right away, there was regret.

Her own shame burned as Quinn pointed at her, talking about her like some wounded dog locked in their kennel. Perhaps not as far from the truth as she’d hope.

At an order from her they both departed. The woman muttered an apology, the pilot looked about ready to cry, but nodded obediently and ran off.

Who were these people that Quinn could order them around so soundly? The one she knew would be Dragon’s pilot, though in reality she seemed so much more pitiful than expected. The older woman, she had no idea. She’d been at the Henkersmahl, but everyone had looked at her like she was someone important. Brass, maybe? But why on earth would she bend so easily to Quinn’s will? What sort of hold did she have over them?

Come to think of it, the Quinn standing before her now, angry and as cold as the air around them, was nothing at all like the frightened child from Casoban. Sure, she’d snapped at her, but everyone did that when their loved ones were threatened—that was the whole point. This was different.

Maybe the girl was more savage than she seemed. She might not have killed Roaki, but was this fate any better? She thought about the duel, about waking up to the sight of her leg submerged in modium, and the slow agony of the growths sprouting from her marrow. No. No, it wasn’t any better. It was so, so much worse.

And now, what? Why come here—to gloat? To draw out her torture as much as possible. Perhaps her fear of Quinn wasn’t so ridiculous after all.

“I’m n-not…going.” She hated the brittleness of her own voice. Hated how the quiet made her sound like a glass doll. “T-this is…where I…belong…”

Her hand curled into a fist, slammed against the metal. Just bringing her eyes up to Quinn felt like a feat of strength. Why was it so hard to look at her?

“S-should have k-killed me. Dead…a-anyway. Just l-leave me alone. Let me…die,” she muttered, shivering down to a whisper. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t scream. “D-don’t take…anything else…”

Amygdala Circuit

Roaki flinched when Quinn lunged at the bars. She hadn’t expected anyone would come down here, and she’d just about made peace with the idea of spending whatever was left of her life in silence. So, as much as Quinn’s presence surprised her, what had made her flinch wasn’t the anger in her eye, or the dull clanging of the bars—it was the look on her face. It was that, lurking beneath the rage, and the horror, was something a thousand times more terrifying.

Pity.

“…because I thought you'd like the company…and I wanted to give you a piece of cake. But this...”

She was being pitied. By Quinnlash.

“I'm getting you out of here, Roaki.” She watched Quinn’s knuckles whiten around the metal bar, speaking through a tight cage of teeth. “I know you hate me. But I'm getting you out tonight. And that's a fucking promise.”

Roaki’s jaw clenched, popped. Every muscle was tense and sore and her bones creaked at the thought of moving but she did. Hunched, slow, she pulled herself along the hard ground. The faint warmth of inaction was shaken off like dust, and fresh, new cold found her. She ignored it.

At the bars, she looked up at Quinn. She’d been short before, she was used to that, but this was different. She’d been brought this low, hers was the view of a worm, in every sense. Staring up at her, it was hard not see the one-eyed girl as a kind of hawk, or a vulture, hungry and circling. For a moment she was back in Casoban, looking over her shoulder at Ablaze, her arm pinned, burning. She felt that desperation again, the flashes of pain even in the leg she’d not had for years.

Chiefly, she felt the fear. Quinnlash Loughvein scared her, and because Roaki had spent her entire life having her face smashed into the things she was afraid of, she reacted in the way she knew best.

She got angry. She got really, really angry.

With a lurch she pushed herself up, just enough to her her hand around Quinn’s wrist. Half leveraging herself against the ground, and half letting the girl’s weight pull her, she managed to bring Quinn down and herself up enough to be at-eyes with her. She held tight, hand wrapped in the dry-bloodied gauze that ran up her sleeve, all the way up her arm and around her neck to hide all the new fades from the modium extraction. Her nails dug shallowly into Quinn’s wrist, but she wished, she wished so much, that she had the strength to snap the bone. She would.

“I…”

Her voice withered into a rasp, but she didn’t fall silent because of the strain. Rather, she didn’t know what to say. She was angry, and she hated Quinn; that should have been enough. It usually was. Of all the things Roaki had struggled with, articulating her anger—effectively if not exactly eloquent—had never been one of them.

The longer she stared silently, the worse it got. Hate her, she thought. Hate her! Tell her how much you hate her! Tell how much you want to rip her apart! Get you out of here? She put you here! She—

Ah. There it was. The realization was harsh and bold and would not be denied.

No, she didn’t. You put you here. Not an easy thing to admit, but a reality she’d been squaring herself with since she’d tumbled out of her seat in the cockpit. You lost, you fucking worm. This is your fault. You deserve this.

Shame filled her. Blessedly her face was already reddened by the cold, so it wasn’t as obvious outwardly as it was to her. Heat came to her, but it was in her eyes and she absolutely refused to entertain it. She had begged the pilot who had cut her out of the cockpit, and screamed with the doctor who had…excised her growths. She would not, under any circumstances, cry in front of Quinnlash Loughvein.

“I don’t…”

Thankfully she didn’t get the chance.

There was shouting from beyond the distant door, which flew open to reveal two familiar faces. One was an older woman who had been at the Henkersmahl, and the other…damn the luck. They both came sprinting, their expressions a mix of panic and worry and, when they saw her, burgeoning fury.

“Get away from her!” shouted the other pilot. She slammed into the bars, wrenching Roaki’s hand from Quinn’s wrist. There was murder in her eyes.

Roaki fell to the ground with a grunt, dragging herself back from the bars. The other woman pulled Quinn away, looking her over frantically. She patted her down with gentle hands, and, evidently finding proof that Roaki was as ineffectual a warrior as she suspected, sighed with relief and hugged Quinn tight.

Something within her burned to see that. She looked away.

“What happened?” the woman asked. She was breathing raggedly, her words were thin and strained. “God, Quinn, you scared the crap out of us.”

Amygdala Circuit

It was cold down here, Quinn would feel that first. The further in she went, the less ventilation there was, the less thought there’d been put to the idea that anyone would want to stay down here for any longer than they absolutely had to. Indeed, the idea of a “holding cell” on an installation like Aerie Station was almost absurd; without curated the staff was, how fine-toothed the door to entry to a program like the RISC could be, why would detaining anyone be a worry?

She had the right of it—this place had been turned to storage. The empty cells were stuffed with boxes and tarped outdated equipment that would stay here until someone remembered to ship it down for scrapping one day. Stuff didn’t complain when the air was bitter and cold, when it seemed like the only thing between you and the frigid void was a metal box and your imagination.

The light in the cell flickered as Quinn approached, as though her presence had thrown off some tenuous balance in its wiring. It returned, spitefully dimmer than before. It cast the bars into sharp shadows around her, as though she herself were imprisoned as well.

The breathing she’d followed fell quiet, and in its place was an utterly vacuous silence. When she had finally sat down, and raised her eye, it was not a pleasant sight waiting for her.

The first word would have been: “cramped.” It was a closet, ungloried for how lifeless it was. Cold, gray metal on three walls, a floor, and a ceiling broken only by a single—tempestuous—light. The bars before her were close-set and black like a Modir’s bones. Inside there was only a steel slab welded to the wall, upon which was a blanket no thicker than Quinn’s pinky, and a pillow that looked like it had been dehydrated for shipping, and never quite recovered. A toilet was tucked away in the only dark corner, a dull sink beside it.

A shape sat beside the slab, head uncomfortably leaned against its edge. It wore the thin smock of a medical gown over the short-sleeved shirt and papery pants that were the color of seafoam. One sleeve hung empty, and one pant leg was tied off just below the knee. The other was tied up much higher, almost halfway up the thigh. An avalanche of white hair draped it like a sheet, matted and unwashed and so dirty it was more gray-brown than white, now.

Quinn would recall dun silver eyes on a ghost-scarred face. They seemed somehow duller now for how sunken they were, and unabashedly red. The ghostly scars had expanded on the left side, almost like an entirely different layer of skin, just as dirty as her hair and broken only by now-dried tear streaks.

It took several moments to even tell if the girl had heard her. Her head turned slow, creaking—shivering. Her knee was pulled in close to the chest, but she had to let go to lean off the wall. It looked like she could hardly sit upright on her own.

Dry, crack lips parted, took in a chilled breath. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, sick. It sounded like she hadn’t spoken in days.

“What the fuck do you want?”