Chapter 33
33
Bodie
We’re leaving. Finally. I reached for my pack and stumbled, catching myself on the windowsill in Marc and Toorin’s hospital room. I shook my head, but that did little to dislodge the fuzzy moss out of my head.
“Oi,” Lyric reached out to steady me. “What’s wrong with you?”
Toorin stopped dumping out the contents of his pack in his attempt to reorganize things and eyed me. I looked away, not needing his scrutiny. “Nothing is wrong with me. You have your stuff every-fucking-where.”
“Try again,” Juniper said, her once-over harsher than Toorin’s even though she’d been preoccupied sorting her supplies. “There’s nothing around your feet.”
“Why do you look pale?” Darwin asked.
“I’m not pale.”
“And sweaty,” Lyric said.
I glared at him until he went back to sorting supplies.
Marc opened his mouth, but the door opened, saving me from whatever bloody brilliance he would bestow upon me.
Darwin and Lyric jumped to their feet and swept the piles of supplies they’d organized to the side, making room for Dr. Hahl’s wheelchair.
I leaned against the sill, my knees starting to shake. I would have slid to the floor to avoid falling, but I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself. After two long weeks, Marc and Toorin were strong enough to leave the hospital and head back to the Lark—if it was even there. And if we could scrounge up enough chips.
It had already been one cock-up of a trip, and I refused to be the reason we couldn’t leave now.
Dr. Hahl’s eyes swept over the floor, but she didn’t comment on how we’d taken over the room. Lux came in right behind her, completely unfazed. Most of the time, when he came to check on Toorin and Marc, some or all of us had been there.
“I’d like to take one last listen,” Dr. Hahl said.
Toorin took the chair and sat in front of Dr. Hahl. She listened, checking the scar on his chest, which, with the laser, never looked better. The red had even faded to a silver white.
“Any pain?” she asked.
“No pain.”
I wondered where that laser had been when Juniper had been nursing us back to health.
The doctor listened to his heart and lungs, then sat back. “Your blood tests are better than expected. I see no reason why we can’t discharge you today.”
I hadn’t expected any different from the way his other blood work had gone, but I let out a breath. What a relief. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome, from sharing a mead with the real reaper—not the ones out stealing organs—to walking out the door. Honestly, when I’d seen Toorin lying in that bed with his blood going in and out, I never expected him to leave.
Marc took the chair next. As much grief as I’d given him, I had to admit he’d come through for Toorin, and for that, he had my greatest admiration. Toorin would live a long life if the gales or the pirates didn’t kill him first.
My quads shook, and sitting on the floor seemed the safest option. Since I awoke this morning, my body had been off . It didn’t want to listen to commands, and I hadn’t recovered from the trek up the hill to the hospital that morning. I locked my knees. As soon as the doctor left, I could sit and rest.
My mind must have wandered because the next thing I knew, Juniper threw a rag at me. “Oi? What’s wrong with you?”
She pointed at my shirt. “The doctor asked if that’s hydraulic fluid on your shirt.”
My hand went to cover the spot. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing ,” Toorin said. He turned to the doctor. “The reapers took his kidneys. He’s been leaking hydraulic fluid from the start.”
The doctor motioned me forward, and I willed my legs to behave for the five steps I needed to get to the chair.
They cooperated.
Mostly.
I collapsed onto the chair.
“Lift your shirt.” I did, and she inspected the ports. You should get these replaced. This type was declared inhospitable to human life a decade ago. It's a bad design, and it's built even worse.”
“You say that like I chose them.”
“Have you been urinating frequently?” she asked.
I’d only had to get up to piss twice during the night. Lately, it had been more frequent than that. And I was thirsty. So bloody thirsty. “I guess that depends on what you call frequent?”
She turned to Lux. “Get him some hydraulic fluid.” She felt my clammy forehead and pinched my skin. It tented and didn’t snap back immediately. Apparently, that was bad. “And an IV, he’s dehydrated.”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you wish to die in the badlands?” she asked.
“Preferably not.”
“Then listen to her,” Toorin said.
“Toorin’s right,” Marc added. That comment wasn’t as helpful as he thought it would be.
Maybe I didn’t admire him so much after all.
“It won’t take long,” the doctor said.
But everything in this place took forever. At least we had gear to organize and repack to pass the time. “Fine.”
We had the supplies packed and were doing nothing but staring at each other by the time Lux returned to the room with a rolling pole, an enormous bag of fluids, and a can of hydraulic fluid.
He topped off my kidneys through the ports in my skin and handed me the can. “You’re gonna need this.”
I stuffed the can in my pack, then he prepped a vein in my arm, taped in a catheter, and started the fluids. “I’ll be back when this is done.”
Even as exhausted as I felt, I wanted to get going before we had to wait another day to leave. “How long will that take?”
“An hour. Maybe two.”
“Moon and mars.” Could this day get any worse? Scratch that. I don’t want to know the answer. “We’re never getting out of here.”
Lux turned to leave. Over his shoulder, he said, “Late is better than dead.”
“He’s not wrong,” Lyric said.
I cut him a look, so tired of hearing people say that.
About a quarter of the bag had drained into me when shouts came down the hall. Everyone else had learned to ignore them, but they bothered me. Or maybe I was looking for an excuse for something to do. I already felt better sitting in the chair and having more liquid in my body.
“I’m going to see what that shouting is all about. Something’s not right here.”
They ignored me. Toorin and Marc were cuddling in the corner. Juniper and Lyric were snoozing in another one, and Darwin had his head tipped against the wall as he soaked up the rays of sun coming through the window.
I stood, took the pole with my fluids in hand, and left the room to follow the yelling. I came to the end of the second hall that crossed ours, and like I’d seen before, two men escorted a person down the hall, the man between them fighting the whole way.
“Why are you doing this? I’m one of you. There has to be a mistake.”
“No mistake,” one of the men said, tightening his grip when it looked like the man might wrench free.
Wait. Not any man. Ranno . One of the reapers that took Toorin’s heart and my kidneys. I should have turned away right then. I owed him nothing.
He apologized.
But that didn’t make what he’d done right.
“Ranno?”
Ranno’s head whipped around at the sound of his name. His eyes narrowed for a split second before the recognition hit. “Bodie? Help me! You gotta—”
One of the men clamped his hand over Ranno’s mouth, and I couldn’t make out the rest. I stood frozen, not knowing what to do, if anything.
“Doctor, you don’t understand,” came Lux’s voice from around the corner. From the sound of his voice, he and whoever he was with were coming toward me.
The distress in his words made my stomach knot. I stepped into a shallow alcove and flattened myself and the IV pole against the wall. I didn’t know why I didn’t want to be seen, but the hair had stood on the back of my neck, and I’d long ago learned to trust it.
They turned the corner and stopped, not more than a few steps before the alcove, if the volume of their voices meant anything.
“I don’t know why this is a problem for you,” Dr. Hahl said, “We must have done a hundred of these.”
“This is different. I know him. You know him.” He said it in that emphatic whisper-shout way people have when they don’t want anyone to hear but are having difficulty reining in their emotions.
Dr. Hahl’s tires squeaked on the floor as if she’d pivoted her chair. “I didn’t make the decision.”
“Then who did?”
“Bloody boob,” she said, the disdain coating each word. “You know who.”
Dr. Hahl rolled by with Lux on her heels. He stopped past the alcove. If he turned around, he’d see me. “This isn’t right.” This time, it didn’t seem to matter who heard him because people would have heard him two halls over. “His chart says total organ donation. It’s not like we’ll give him a replacement organ, and he’ll get up off the gurney and live his life. He won’t survive.”
“He’s been deemed a dispensable harvest,” she said, her voice fading as I assumed she rolled farther away. “We’re already running late. Either scrub in for surgery or turn in your resignation. Either way, we’re doing this.”
Lux barked out a curse, my mind reeling so fast I couldn’t catch it. I heard a loud bang and another muffled curse. A foot or a fist hitting the wall.
I waited until Lux’s footsteps receded before I stuck my head out of the alcove to see if the coast was clear. It wasn’t, but by the time I saw the lead man pulling the gurney, it was too late. I stepped out of the alcove, walking slowly and with a noticeable limp. Keeping my head bowed didn’t prevent me from seeing them cover Ranno’s face with a sheet.
He had one of those nose tube things that Dr. Hahl had, so I didn’t think he was dead. At least not yet. I rushed back to our room as fast as I could push the IV pole. I hit the door. It bounced off the wall and slammed back into me.
One second after seeing me, everyone clamored to their feet.
“Grab the packs. We have to go save Ranno.”
Bodie
Immediately, they started shouldering their packs. Toorin handed me mine, my IV line catching when I tried to put it on. I yanked the line out of my hand. A little more than a quarter of the bag was in me. At least my legs weren’t shaking. Besides, I had enough adrenaline to last me for a while. Hopefully.
Blood started draining out from where the catheter had been. I held pressure on it, not wanting to waste a drop. I needed all the blood I could get.
Juniper palmed her blade. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but I overheard Hahl and Lux. They’re harvesting Ranno’s organs. Like all of them.”
“Moon and mars, what is this place?” Marc pulled his blade out of his pack and tied it at his waist.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t have time to contemplate the bigger picture. Some might call it cosmic karma for the situation Ranno found himself in. All I knew was that no matter what Ranno and Elrin had done to me and Toorin, he didn’t deserve to die.
Especially not like this.
They scrambled out of the room and started jogging down the hall after me.
Toorin caught up and leaned in. “You’re sure you’re not thinking with your dick?”
I wasn’t sure. But that was beside the point.
“A man’s going to die if we do nothing. What would that make us?”
Toorin didn’t say anything, staying by my side. He was with me. Everyone was with me. We’d all seen too much horror and injustice in this lifetime, and if we could make it better for one person, we should.
I pointed to my right at the T-junction at the end of the hall. We all turned, and Toorin leaned in again. “If this man takes my heart again, I swear to the stars I will haunt you the rest of your life.”
“Ranno’s not like that.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Of course, he was like that. He’d proven that once already. But there was something about him when we’d confronted him and Elrin that made me think he wouldn’t do it again.
A bark of laughter tore through Toorin and echoed down the narrow hall. I couldn’t say I blamed him.
We rushed past a nurse’s station and continued through the double doors without stopping. Their protests and ‘ you can’t go in theres ’ fell on deaf, or at least, defiant ears.
They didn’t run after us. One look at Juniper’s blade would make even the rankest of warriors think twice, much less a band of unarmed nurses.
Although Toorin and Marc had that one nurse I’m pretty sure could take us all on and wipe the floor with us afterward.
Behind me, I heard our crew’s steady, loyal footsteps. No screams came from down the hall, which I found more unsettling than if there had been. In here, the disinfectant didn’t quite cover the scent of blood and hopelessness.
The first two surgery suits lay dark. We ignored them and approached the third. There was no way to tell which room would be the right one until we looked in each one.
I held up a hand, and everyone halted behind me. “Let me check if this is the right one.”
Darwin said something I didn’t catch, but I didn’t have time to have him repeat it. Ranno didn’t have time.
I pushed through the door to find the anteroom empty. A prep space, maybe. Then I went through the door on the far side of the room. A patient was on the table, with a person at the patient’s head and another with their back toward me. On the other side of the patient stood a tall, light-skinned surgeon in a surgical mask.
Our eyes locked, and we both immediately knew I wasn’t in the right place.
“Out!” he bellowed, the one word echoing around the brightly lit room.
I backed out, hoping no one would follow. From the way we blew past the double doors by the nurses’ station, we likely already had guards on the way to confront us.
“Wrong one,” I said as I exited into the hall. Toorin had waited for me. I found Marc, Darwin, Juniper, and Lyric had fanned out down the hall, going from operating room to operating room, looking for Ranno.
I didn’t know what I’d do or how I’d feel if we were too late.
“Down here.” Darwin waved us down to a door near the far end of the hall before it, too, T-ed off into another hall. When we gathered there, he said, “I think this is it. Look.”
Unlike the other doors, this one had a window and another in the inner door, giving us a line of sight into the surgery room. I couldn’t see Dr. Hahl, but I could see Lux.
“This is it.” I cracked the door, and everyone crowded around as if we were about to storm the chancellor’s residence. I blocked them with my body. “There’s not enough room for all of us in the operating room. Toorin, you’re with me. We can have backup in this first room, but we’ll need lookouts. The guards have to be coming.”
“I’ll be a lookout,” Juniper said, “I look innocent.”
“Not with that blade, you don’t,” Marc said.
Reluctantly, she handed it over and disappeared down the hall. Darwin glanced behind him. “I’ll watch the stairwell.”
I nodded, and Marc and Lyric followed Toorin and me in.
At the door of the surgery suite, Lux had his head bent over Ranno and made an incision.
Toorin threw open the door, and I stepped through. Heads popped up… except Ranno’s, of course. At least he had good anesthesia.
Bloodsucking bastards. “Stop.”
For the first time, I saw Dr. Hahl go red in the narrow space between her surgical mask and cap. She was standing, strapped into some sort of frame to keep her upright for the surgery, the ever-present oxygen tube looping over her ears and disappearing under her surgical mask.
I pushed one of the assistants aside and gripped the gurney. “He’s coming with us.”
“It’s too late,” Dr. Hahl said. “We’ve already opened him up.”
The person at Ranno’s head started to rise, and Toorin passed behind me and lifted his blade to the man. “Sit.”
The man sat. This wasn’t his fight, and we all knew it.
I waved a hand at Lux. “Close him up.”
“It’s not that simple. Besides, I’m sure the guard will be here before I finish.”
As if summoned by Lux, Juniper exploded into the room. “The guards are coming. Hurry before we’re all standing at the gallows.”
My heart had already been pounding, but now my stomach lurched and dropped to the floor. That’s what I’d asked of my friends. To risk their life for what? For who?”
“If you take him, he might die,” Hahl said as if that would deter us.
Toorin caught my eye. “But if we leave him, he certainly will.”
He waved his blade at the man at Ranno’s head. Unhook him from whatever he’s on.”
The man disconnected the machine to the breathing tube in Ranno’s throat, and Toorin pushed the man back with his blade before taking the head of the gurney.
Juniper held open the door as Lux tossed one of the drapes over Ranno’s abdomen. His chances with us were slim but not zero. Lux held onto the side of the gurney. We didn’t have time to fight him. The guard were coming.
I whipped out my blade and held it to the soft spot under his jaw. “Let go.”
Lux’s grip tightened. “Take me with you. I’m his only chance.”
“No.”
“Take him,” Juniper said between clenched teeth.
She was right, of course. And probably so was Lux.
I waved Toorin and Lux through the door with the gurney between them, my blade held at the ready so I wouldn’t get rushed, but nobody wanted trouble. And being strapped to the frame, Dr. Hahl couldn’t do much to stop us.
Once through the door, Marc slid a mop through the door handle, locking them inside.
“Take the gurney,” Lux said, “I need to get some supplies. I’ll catch up.”
Lyric held the door to the hall open, and we maneuvered Ranno through, blood spotting the drape over his abdomen, making me question what we’d done. Had we saved Ranno now, only to allow him to die in agony later? I remembered the scorching pain, the delusion fevers, the desperation before Juniper saved us.
I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy or the man who’d stolen my kidneys. But there was no going back now.
Darwin waved us toward another open door at the end of the hall, the wheels on the gurney scuttering across the floor tiles until they all turned in the right direction. Everyone’s feet slapped on the floor behind me, but under that, I felt the heavy pound of the guard’s boots as they ran after us.
Darwin had found the stairs, but there was no way we could get the gurney down them. We’d have to carry Ranno and somehow manage not to spill his guts in the process.
“Get his feet,” I said to Toorin as we yanked the gurney to a stop. Ranno didn’t groan or grumble. At least he was out and completely unaware.
Moon and mars, for his sake, I hoped he stayed that way.