4

A husky groan escapes my throat. “Oh my god,” I huff, “How much did we drink last night?”

“Nothing,” Tauren claims, cheerily.

I pry my face from the fluffy pillow, and gaze at her wearily. She’s contorted herself into some ungodly pose on a flowery yoga mat on the stone floor. “Nothing?”

“Well, besides my homemade lemonade and that mixed berry juice you got addicted to.”

“Damn,” I breathe, sitting up. The mass of different colored blankets on top of me is so comfortable, I feel like I’m trapped in a cloud. “Huh, no headache.”

“Yep,” Tauren says, pulling her leg backwards over her head. “Pretty awesome what soberness can do.”

“Doesn’t that… hurt?”

“What? This yoga pose? Oh yeah of course! But like… in a good way. Wanna try?”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Your loss.”

I slide out of bed, and pad across the stone floor to nowhere in particular. I raise my hand to shield my eyes from the gleaming morning sun. “Where’s the uh… remote thing?”

“You want to watch TV?” Tauren asks, surprised.

“Yeah. Haven’t seen the news in months,” I respond.

“Let’s eat some breakfast first, shall we?”

“Oh, that’s a fantastic idea,” I realize, making an overexaggerated gesture of patting my stomach. When was the last time I had breakfast? Like an actual one?

Tauren untangles herself, and grabs my hand, pulling me down the spiral stairs to an already laid out breakfast set up. I marvel at the jugs of juice and lemonade, piles of fruit, pastries, bacon, sausages and… “Holy shit,” I gasp.

“What?” she asks, startled.

I practically dive forwards. “Devilled eggs!” I exclaim, scooping one up to inhale the delicious aroma.

“What’s up with you and devilled eggs?”

“Aw they’re amazing!” I wolf it down. “My mom used to make them for me every Sunday for breakfast. One of the few things she was good at.” I gobble down three more. “A boiled egg sliced in half. Yolks removed and mixed with mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper, then added back to the egg. Such a simple recipe, yet so delicious.”

“Have them all,” Tauren says, genuinely happy for my happiness. “But don’t forget to eat everything else.”

The entire platter’s gone in less than five minutes, and I’m starting on the rest of the food. Croissant sandwiches with bacon, fried eggs and gouda cheese. Sausages dipped into every sauce you could think of. Smoothies that taste like fruit salad lemonades.

Tauren gazes at me with satisfaction as she crunches into an apple. “It’s not easy to make you happy, you know. I’m glad I managed.”

I let out a small chuckle. “You were always the best at it,” I say, spitting out an apricot seed.

A few minutes later, I’m lazily dragging myself back up the spiral staircase while Tauren tells me about the different movies we could watch. “What sounds more enticing, ‘Dogs Decide Dinner’ or ‘The End of Purple’.”

“Um, the dog one,” I say, flopping onto the bed.

She turns on the TV as I prop myself up on some pillows to see. The news flashes on and the headline turns my blood to ice.

“POLICE HEADQUARTERS UNDER ATTACK BY UNKNOWN ATTACKERS.”

“Holy shit.”

“Oh my god,” Tauren gasps.

The image of the all too familiar police headquarters, where Kaloaan spends nearly every waking hour of his life, comes into view, with smoke billowing from each of the windows and a brigade of fire trucks around it.

Tauren and I exchange glances.

We pull on our clothes and tear down the stairs. Her driver is waiting for her as we duck into her cobalt blue bullet proof saloon car. I fling the door open and rush to the scene. Firemen are helping coughing officers out of the smoke.

I rush to the first policeman I recognize; Heller Tash, Kaloaan’s supposed “Best Officer.” “Tash!” I call, running to him.

He spins around. “Kallix!” he exclaimed. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Where’s Kaloaan?” I demand.

“He’s fine, kid. Just a bit smoked out, that’s all. You wanna see him?”

I nod vigorously.

He points to the back of a firetruck, where Kaloaan is arguing with Grell.

“Kaloaan!” I call, running towards him. “What happened? Did you catch any of Qiara’s men.”

Kaloaan’s mouth forms a thin line. “It wasn’t Qiara.”

“What?” I ask, incredulous. “Then?”

Tauren looks anxiously between us.

“It was the Swifters,” he says, starkly.

I’m stunned. “No… no you’ve got to be mistaken.”

He nods. “I’m serious. I recognized their attack style, and I saw Zorikan himself. We’re lucky he’s got little to no tactics in his attacks.”

“Shit… shit this is bad… really goddamn bad.”

“Yeah it is,” Kaloaan agrees. “He’s sparked a three-way war, and neither of our enemies are afraid of committing war crimes.”

My spine tingles like a shark is swimming in the cement beneath my feet. I take a deep breath of smoky air.

“Kallix, is there something you need to tell me.”

I grit my teeth. “Yeah… yeah there’s actually a lot I’ve got to tell you. Do you… wanna go back to you’re house.”

Tauren nods, solemnly. “Yeah, lets do that.”

~

“That’s… a lot to take in,” Tauren exhales, rubbing her eyes as she processes everything I’ve just told her.

“All that, then Salif… it’s a lot.”

She nods solemnly. “Qiara’s the main enemy, while the Swifters and the police are your potential allies, but they’re practically at war with each other, right?”

“Yeah. I haven’t got the slightest clue what to do at this point,” I say, flopping back onto her bed. It’s true, for one of the first times in my life, I’m completely at a loss.

Tauren chews the inside of her cheek in thought. “I think you’ve got to see Sekera… that’s her name, right?”

“Sekera?”

“Yeah, the one with the hair… it seems like you guys became really close in your time with Blax, that twat. She probably needs you, and you haven’t got many others you can trust.”

“Ok… ok yeah, that’s a good idea.”

“Great! I’ll call the driver.”

“No,” I cut her off. “I’ll go alone. Every step you take outside your house is a risk not worth taking. Not having you killed because of me.”

“Kallix…”

“Seriously. Stay here.”

“But you’ll come back tonight, yeah?”

I shake my head. “Qiara’s assassins and hitmen are on the lookout for me, and if they learn that I’m staying with you, then they’ll double the concentration on your house. It’s too dangerous. I’m safer on the streets, and you’re safer as far away from me as possible.”

She looks at me with disdain. It’s a look I can’t bear, and so I leave.

Her driver’s waiting for me as I exit the front door, half expecting a bullet to whiz past my ear as I get in. Why can’t one of them ever hit me? Why can’t I just drop like half the other people in my life? Wouldn’t have to deal with all this bullshit then.

A light drizzle distorts my vision through the tinted windows. My eyes glaze over grey smear of buildings as we drive, seeing everything and taking in nothing. What am I even supposed to say to her? Should I just say hello? She’ll probably speak first, knowing her. Actually, considering my luck, she’s probably been captured by Zorikan or Qiara or someone, to be used as barter against me.

The car slows to a halt and I force the grim thoughts out of my mind. It’s a small distance to the entrance of the hospital, but my hairs already dripping by the time I enter. The eyes of all the people, waiting in metal chairs, holding paper cups of warm water and beaten up magazines, all turn to me. They look like chickens in their pens, waiting to be slaughtered.

“Hey,” I grunt to a small, dark skinned woman at the front desk.

“Hi. How can I help you?” she asks, seemingly unafraid of my haggard appearance.

“Sekera… which room is she in?”

She pauses, searching through her computer for a moment. “Room 4D, fifth floor, Flower Ward.”

I blink.

“You have got a visitor’s pass, right?”

I blink again.

She smiles back at me.

“Uhhh, yeah, of course.”

“Great! Have a nice visit!”

I nod, shuffling through the people in the lobby. Room 4D, fifth floor, flower ward. Ok, how hard can that be?

I enter the first hall I find, but it’s filled with medical examination rooms. I keep walking through until a doctor stops me. “Excuse me, where’re you headed?”

I recite the unnecessarily long address.

Thankfully, he directs me to an elevator. “Go up to the tenth floor, cross over the bridge, go down five and find the room.”

“Right,” I say, shutting the elevator door. Next to me, there’s a nurse with a man in a wheelchair who’s got nearly translucent skin, swollen veins and very clearly isn’t breathing.

I get out at the tenth floor and am hit by the dullness. The walls, the floors, the trollies, the nurses, everything is stark shades of grey blue. I wander through the halls for a while until I find the bridge, a long glass arc, packed with patients like a highway is with cars.

I’m trapped in a vessel of sickness, in a cocoon of glass, surrounded by silently pattering rain, beneath an ashy grey sky.

I see the sign, “Flower Ward” plastered in every color possible as I walk in. It’s like entering a different dimension. Everything’s either pink, blue, green, yellow or something in between. Children are racing about, tripping over each other and being shouted at by elderly nurses.

I sieve through the crowds, squashing into an elevator that’s crammed with sticky, prodding kids. I’m instantly squeamish. And of course, they press every single button possible.

“God damnit,” I sigh, slumping into the corner.

“Mommy said that’s a swear word,” says a tiny girl, why she stares at me, twirling a pigtail.

“Tell your mommy that she can shove her opinion up her ass,” I reply, expecting her to get offended and cry or something.

Instead, she asks, “What’s an ass?”

Hell am I supposed to respond to that?

The door opens to the eighth floor, and I push my way out. Don’t they have stairs anywhere here?

After fifteen minutes of wandering, I settle on the fire escape, pushing open the thick door and stepping onto the metal grate platform. Rain pelts down onto me, making the standing strands of my hair wilt and conform. I breath the cold, smoggy air and it sends a soft, chilling calm over me. I trod down the metal stairs, each so slippery that any fleeing patient would turn into an avalanche of flesh, bones and pathogens. Two floors down, I stop, leaning over the railing. It’s two more floors to the fifth one. Without thinking, I vault over the edge, freefall a few meters, then grab the sixth floor’s platform and swing into the fifth.

A spiky adrenalin gushes through my limbs, and I crack my neck, pushing through the door. I drip onto the glassy colorful floor as I walk, scanning the doors for 4D. After two lefts and a right, I reach it.

Push through?

Peak?

Knock?

I wrap my knuckles on the door. Hopefully she isn’t asleep.

“Come in!” she calls.

Her familiar passionate, reckless, slightly crazy voice hits me like a shot of opioid. I push through, walking into the cramped, stale smelling hospital room.

“Dingo!” she shrieks. She rips off the thin hospital blanket and slides out bed, grabbing a crutch and hobbling towards me.

I embrace her small form, wrapping her up in a massive bear hug.

“Oh my god I thought you’d forgotten about me!”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I laugh.

“You’re… wet? Why’re you so wet?”

“Don’t even ask.”

We recollect. She tells me stories about how horrible the hospital is, and how she’s made friends with dozens of the kids in her ward. She tells me about the plastic tasting food and the terrible physiotherapy. I commend her on her quick recovery, then being to tell the grim story of what’s happened just after I got back.

“You slept with Qiara?” she asks, giddily.

“That’s what you got out of all this?” I ask, incredulous.

“Well yeah!”

“No. I didn’t. She injected me with that shit first. The point is Amethyst.”

“Yeah… that’s messed up. So she’s working with Qiara to do what exactly?”

“Not sure, but she’s really convinced that she’d doing the right thing.”

“Damn. So… how’re we going about this?”

“Not sure. My problem right now is that I’ve got bigger worries on my plate.”

“Bigger problems than Amethyst working for Qiara?”

“Yeah. You know the Swifters I told you about?”

She nods.

“Well, they and the police force are the only people that can stop Qiara, and they can only do it if they work together, but they’re practically at war with each other as of now. I’ve got to fix that… somehow.”

“Hey,” she rests her hand on mine. “The sky falling down isn’t entirely your responsibility.”

“I know, but nobody else is doing anything,” I mutter.

“Well then I’ll do it.”

“What?”

“I’ll find Amethyst, and I’ll fix all this shit. Or at least try to. You do you’re stuff, I’ll do mine. We meet up later. Progress check and all.”

“Sekera, you’re practically a cripple.”

“Don’t call me that. I’m healing. A week or so left here. I would ask you to stay a while, but you’ve got enough on your plate as it is.”

“But I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do!” I exclaim.

“You tried talking to your brother, right? And it didn’t work.”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Well then talk to the leader of the Swifters. That Zor-something dude.”

“You want me to talk to Zorikan? Reason with a shark?”

“Have you got a choice?”

I sigh. Well shit. This next part should be interesting.