Chapter Sixteen
Kenyon
Everyone was wound up. I didn’t even have to use my skills to feel it. It wasn’t just our squad, either.
Every last person I interacted with had this stress, this tension in their voices. Those who served food in the mess hall, the security, the staff, all of them.
Normally I’d just think it was us—it wasn’t like many people liked interacting with our squad—but this was different.
It was stress.
Humans didn’t do well with waiting, and it seemed espers were no better. Everyone wanted to do something already, to stop waiting for the inevitable, but there was nothing to do.
The Pitt would open when it opened. We had a general idea of the timeline, but it could change. We’d prepared all we really could, which meant now we just had to wait.
It didn’t bother me. I saw it like a last reprieve before all hell broke loose, but Carter would say that was just because I was too stupid for anxiety.
I couldn’t much argue with that.
Still, dumb or not, the fact that I wasn’t snapping and bothered said maybe my way had some merit.
“So I’ll be able to walk again?” The woman who asked sat on the exam table asked the question with this dimmed hope, as though she refused to allow herself to think it was possible.
I had my hand on her knee, the job so easy I hardly had to think about it at all. I was used to dealing with life-threatening injuries, so a torn ligament in her knee, one that had caused her to limp for the past few weeks, was hardly even a job.
I wasn’t a regular surgeon, though, I could repair in a way no human could, no matter how skilled.
“If you’d waited another few weeks, I probably couldn’t do much, but I think I can get this back to working order.”
“Are there any side effects?” She shifted on the table, discomfort clear even if she didn’t want to voice the reason behind it.
I gave her a reassuring smile. In training I’d learned how to use my power to best heal, to do what it took to get an esper back on their feet and into the fight again. Things like long-term damage didn’t factor into the process, and they certainly never taught bedside manner.
I knew exactly what she was afraid of even without her having to ask.
“You’re not going to get hurt from my powers.”
“I heard that people exposed to it can turn into espers or guides…”
“Those are mostly rumors.”
“Mostly?”
I didn’t care for lying even if, at times like these, they’d make my job a lot easier.
“There are a few cases where it’s happened, but it’s hard to say it wouldn’t have happened anyway.
Basically, a lot of corrupted energy can trigger a change in someone who already had that predisposition.
But I’m talking a lot, not the amount that would be used for this. ”
Even with that, she didn’t immediately agree. I understood it—no one wanted their entire life to change like that.
Sure, espers had some wonderful abilities, but they were also bound to the Guild, to violence, to this way of life. Everything she knew would change if she did.
“Can you promise that it wouldn’t happen to me?”
I sighed and shook my head. “No, I can’t make that promise.
I can say that I’m good at what I do, that I can use far less energy than most healers to fix your knee, but no one can give you a hundred percent.
Even if you undergo traditional surgery, you could die on the operating table.
Nothing is ever a for-sure bet in life.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip, and I knew in that look the truth.
She’d rather risk death than risk turning into me.
And worse, I could hardly blame her for that.
“I’ll think about it,” she said and slid off the table.
I nodded and handed her the cane she’d come in with, the one meant to help her move around. She was a nurse here, one tasked with taking care of the non-espers who required treatment. I’d offered to look at her knee when I’d seen her limping around during my shift at the clinic.
She’d probably said yes before even thinking about the potential complications.
After she walked out, it left me alone in the exam room with nothing to do. I didn’t even have an official shift here, having volunteered out of boredom, mostly.
Healers were only needed when someone was actually hurt, and our skills had little use outside of that. It meant that these long days where nothing was happening left us with even less to do than the other more combat-focused espers.
A knock on the door had me calling for them to enter. A few espers had shown up with older injuries, hoping I might be able to help.
I’d done something for some, at least reducing some scar tissue or inflammation. The older the injury, the less I could do, but I tried to give at least some sense of reprieve to those who showed up.
The last person I expected to enter was Yun, however, and given the way she froze like a rat caught in the light, she hadn’t expected it either.
“Kenyon?” she asked as though she might have mistaken me for someone else.
“Are you hurt? Why are you in Medical?” Even as I asked, I surveyed her, finding nothing immediately wrong.
“I didn’t realize you were here. I can just come back another day—”
“No, it’s fine. I’m just filling in since I had nothing else to do. You didn’t come all this way just for the exercise.”
She pursed her lips, and it took me back to thinking about just how she could use those lips, how warm and tight her mouth was.
Get it together, you creep!
She closed the door behind her, her gaze on the floor. “It’s nothing important.”
“If you came all the way down here, it matters. Look, I know we make jokes about me, but I really am a good healer. If I can’t help, I can at least connect you with a doctor who can.”
That seemed to win her over, so she came closer and took a seat on the exam table. I didn’t push her, even if something inside me wanted to. I thought impatience was limited to others, but it seemed I wasn’t entirely immune to the feeling.
After a long moment, her shoulders sagged. “I’m having trouble sleeping. My anxiety is getting worse, too.”
Ah. I recalled the nightmares that kept waking her, the ones I’d woken her from before. We had all stopped mentioning them, given the shame she showed when we brought them up.
“I used to take medicine,” she whispered. “But I don’t have any.”
“Who prescribed it?”
“Kaidan would give it to me.”
I tried to keep my expression neutral, but I didn’t much care for some guide handing out medication like that. He wasn’t a healer or a doctor, so how on earth could he be sure she wasn’t having side effects? How could he make sure it didn’t hurt her?
Then I paused, looking at her. “I don’t remember you taking anything. I would have noticed if your vitals changed. Medication for sleep or anxiety slow the heart rate and cause drops in blood pressure.”
“I knew you’d catch on so I didn’t take any. I left them at the house, too, because I was afraid our things would get searched and I’d have to explain them.” She let her feet swing, making her look almost childlike.
It annoyed me that she’d kept such a secret, but thinking back to the progress that we had made since we’d arrived here to base, well, it made sense. When we’d left the house, we still hadn’t known much about her, and she sure hadn’t trusted us.
“So you came for medication?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I can’t keep losing out on sleep. Between that and guiding…”
I looked at her more carefully, and yeah…her adrenaline was high, her body on alert. The dark circles under her eyes had grown more prevalent and she appeared exhausted. I’d noticed some of that, of course, but hadn’t recognized just how bad it had gotten.
And boy didn’t that make me feel like a failure? Here I was, wasting time volunteering because I was bored while my guide suffered? It made me feel useless, like I’d failed the one task that I was supposed to take most seriously.
Worse, I had no idea how to help.
“I can fix direct problems—illnesses, injuries, defects, things like that. I can’t fix anxiety or insomnia.”
She smiled, though the edges drooped, as though to show she didn’t fully feel it. “It’s okay. I understand.”
“I could call in the regular doctor, but all he’ll be able to do is prescribe you some medicine as well, but that might take a while.
They don’t keep that sort of stuff on hand, and you’ll have to keep coming back for refills.
You could ask Kaidan”—I forced myself to say that even if I really hated the idea—“but you should really have some bloodwork done if you’re going to start up on medication like that. ”
She shook her head, the action causing her hair to fall into her face. “No. I don’t really want the Guild poking around in this, you know? With everything else going on, it’s probably not a great idea to give them any more ammunition. In fact, I don’t even know what I came here expecting.”
I clapped my hands together, ending her tirade before she really got into it. “You know what we’ll do? We’ll fix this.”
“How are we going to fix it?” She spoke the slowly, as though giving me time to realize I had no plan.
Too bad for her, I did. “I’m a healer, right? And Shear is a mentalist. If you need a good night’s sleep, we can do that.”
“You said you couldn’t do anything.”
“Not exactly. I said I couldn’t fix insomnia.
I can’t fix a problem that doesn’t physically exist. However, just like I could clear your head from the alcohol for a short while, I can stimulate certain hormones and chemicals inside of you to help you fall asleep.
Shear can make sure your nightmares don’t happen, and all of that together should give you what you need. ”
“I’m not going to ask you all to stay up just to help me sleep.”
I hardly heard her complaints, already in my own head planning it all out. “Doctor’s orders. I don’t want to hear a word about it. Go on, do what you need to for today, but I want you back at the trailer at six sharp for a bedtime extraordinaire.”
She furrowed her brows as I rushed her from the room like I was speaking a different language.
That didn’t matter though, as I made my plan. I might feel useless some of the time, but I’d be damned if I didn’t help her out with this.