Chapter 12
Like a Wrecking Ball
TIA
Jesus Christ. ‘Raise your hands. Turn round,’ I order. When no response comes, I advance slowly towards her. ‘Raven.’
Raven pushes off the windowsill, hands trembling upwards, her gloves and sleeves shining wet.
She turns.
My heart drops.
Crimson streaks down Raven’s face into her mask, and an expanding wetness stretches around the rip in her suit by her hip, dripping sluggishly off to join the puddle on the floor. When she takes a step towards me, it’s swaying and heavy.
What am I meant to do?
Call Niko and Kiran. With their help, I could interrogate Raven and figure out where the lunar energy plant blueprints are, but—
I’ve been keeping a secret.
The night I nearly died, the CCTV footage of Lain had revealed nothing, except for a window smashing itself in before I magically appeared, limp and bleeding, on the floor of the medbay.
Magic, Niko had groused, which was only half right.
I don’t really remember what happened when I got stabbed. I remember the knife going into me. I remember begging. I remember watching a familiar pair of boots shuffle to me, a warm body pressed to mine, an assurance in my ear.
I know she tried kill me, but I would have died without Raven.
Maybe you owe her.
Raven makes the decision for me. She lurches towards me, footprints over the marble floor, a gasping cry escaping her as she takes a stumbling step closer. Grimacing, she doubles over and fists her shirt where the blood shines darkest. ‘I . . .’
My feet move before I can think. A breath later, I’ve abandoned my blasters on the bed and I duck under Raven’s arm, hugging her to my side with a hand.
Bloody handprints smear over my pyjamas.
‘Relax. I’ve got you. I’m going to bring you to the bathtub and you’re going to sit in there before you turn my bedroom into a crime scene, okay? ’
Raven goes limp against me, chest heaving with a guttural wheeze. My fingers turn slippery with blood, and I have to tighten my grip over her side and arms to make sure she doesn’t slide out of my grasp.
A pained whimper escapes Raven as we step into my en suite, boots squeaking over the bathroom floor and marking the tiles red like a deathly autumn.
‘You need to get into the tub, and we’ll have to work together on this.’ The taste of blood stings the back of my throat as I speak, the air itself bleeding against my tongue, down into my lungs. ‘Ready?’
She grunts.
Better than nothing. Gingerly, I step in with a leg, and support Raven over the lip of the tub.
Her jaw audibly clicks, clenched in pain, but she valiantly produces no other indication of hurt.
I lower her until she’s lying down.
Raven’s not heavy, but she’s small, brittle, and with every move I hold my breath and wait for her to shatter.
Her butt finds a home in the gentle dip of the bathtub.
I slide her arm off and stand over her, surveying her sweat-and-blood-streaked neck, her chest stuttering like she’s trying not to cry. ‘What happened?’
Raven hisses as she shifts to lie down. Her eyes zero in on the blasters on the bed outside. ‘Not shooting me any more?’
‘If you thought I would, you wouldn’t have come here.’ I crouch to rummage through the bathroom cupboards for my first-aid kit. The blood on my hands smears over skincare bottles and pharmacy make-up and my shaver. Eventually, I find the kit and pull it out. ‘Why did you come here?’
Behind me, Raven’s breath rattles as she coughs. With every violent hack, blood dribbles over the fingers pressed against her wound.
‘It was a gamble,’ she says, her voice thick.
I snap the first-aid box open and unravel a stretch of bandage. It takes longer than it should with my fingers shaky, slippery. My heartbeat thuds in my ears. I need to be quick before Raven passes out, but I can barely think.
Tearing off the bandage and folding it, I shove it at Raven. ‘Hold this to your wound.’
Raven obeys, grimacing the second the bandage makes contact.
‘I’ll be right back. Keep pressure on that.’ I slip out of the bathroom to clear my head. ‘ALFRED, could you help me do a scan on someone?’
‘Of course, Tia. I will be able to access your patient’s vitals through the medical scanner in your first-aid kit.’
I close my eyes and take a deep breath of fresh air to clear my head of the smell of blood. I can do this. Of course I can.
When I get back, Raven’s lying sideways in the bathtub.
‘Paint me like one of your French girls,’ Raven drawls with a dramatic, one-handed flourish. The other hand presses obediently against a wound that won’t stop bleeding.
Her eyes snap to the scanner.
‘’S that—’ Frowning, she lifts her mask slightly and spits out a glob of blood. ‘Are you holding a gun?’
‘Yes, because obviously I’m going to kill you then dissolve your dead body with acid in my bathtub.’ I hold the scanner out as I crouch by the side of the tub. ‘Just shush and let me figure out what’s wrong with you.’
Raven rolls her eyes, weak but edged with sarcasm. ‘I have a hole in my side, genius.’
‘With no due respect, shut up.’ I press SCAN. The light sweeps Raven’s body once, twice, then . . .
Extremely low blood pressure, possible penetration wound to the thorax, chance of nicked lung and risk of hypothermia from blood loss. Moderate concussion also detected.
‘Christ, what happened to you?’ With its built-in staple gun, the medical scanner can probably seal the hole, but I’ll have to administer the staples myself. The thought alone churns my stomach. I steel myself. You’ve seen and been through worse.
I fold a towel, then reach over to tug Raven’s mask off.
A gloved hand snaps up to grab my wrist deathly tight. ‘Don’t.’
Fine. I admit that’s on me: I should have warned her first.
Slowly, calmly, I offer a towel to her and turn away. ‘I need you to bite on this behind your mask. I promise I won’t look.’
Behind me, there’s a rustle, then a grunt of pain before she clears me to turn back.
‘Okay,’ I mutter as I face her. ‘Take your hand off your wound and hold still. Ready?’
Raven nods and lifts her hand off.
I dump a bottle of iodine on the wound. The towel muffles her scream, but she reaches up to yank the fabric out. ‘What the hell do you have iodine for?’ she spits.
‘I love torturing dying Foxes in my free time,’ I say flatly as I programme the medscanner to administer staples. The banter focuses me, keeps my hands from shaking too visibly as I dig painkillers from the medical box. ‘Take these.’
Raven pushes them away. ‘I don’t take regular painkillers.’
‘You sure?’
Her gaze flicks over to meet mine, cuts away. ‘I’ve got magic just like you. You know it doesn’t work on us as well.’
Fair enough. I wrestle another blister film from the box. ‘Moonstone supplements?’
Raven accepts two.
I retrieve the staple gun. ‘I’ll start putting in the staples now, then.’
Raven hums her acknowledgement, throat flexing as she swallows the supplement dry.
When I hover the staple gun over broken flesh, my hand trembles like an addict’s.
‘You’re not used to this,’ Raven says – not a question, but a statement. When I look up, she’s scanning me carefully.
‘Yeah, obviously. I have a team when I’m injured, you know. People to rely on.’ I suck in a breath to calm myself down and reposition the gun above Raven’s skin. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I prefer to work alone.’
‘Your clan doesn’t back you up?’
Silence. I glance up to meet Raven’s dark gaze. There’s a story there, history drowned in dark irises.
I take advantage of it to pull the trigger of the gun, and Raven’s features twist, her palm slamming against the side of the bathtub as she groans.
‘You asshole,’ she gasps as she pulls the towel out of her mouth.
‘Put that back in, we have six more to go.’
Like a human through a doggy door, the process is inching, demoralizing, and I wish desperately to be anywhere but here.
‘Talk to me, we’re going to get through this,’ I say.
‘There is no “we” in this, and I’m begging you to knock me out,’ Raven gasps, throwing her head back against the lip of the bathtub with a thunk that makes me wince.
Her voice tapers into a pained squeak when she moves and the staples shift.
Tears streak clear tracks through grime, and I wince as I line the gun up for the next shot.
Raven’s weirdly quiet on the next staple. When I check, her eyelids flutter like she’s verging on unconsciousness. Sweat mats her hair to her pale skin. We’re probably a couple of minutes past needing a break.
I squeeze Raven’s forearm. ‘How’ve you been lately?’
She hums, eyes closed, brows knitted. When she speaks, it barely surpasses a whisper. ‘I’m not giving away my identity.’
‘I’m trying to keep you alive. I have no interest in sabotaging you.’ I line up the gun again. It hits me that I shouldn’t mean those words. I had full intention of sabotaging Raven. I need to sabotage her.
Just . . . not when she’s writhing in agony in my bathtub, her body unravelled with pain.
‘I know I’m safe.’ Raven cracks an eye open to look down at me. A small, smug smile crosses her face. ‘You Sentinels need a permit to do anyth—’ She hisses, cutting herself off.
‘Sorry,’ I mutter. ‘But that was the second-to-last one. Ready for the last?’
‘No.’
I shoot.
Raven’s eyes roll to the back of her head.
‘Raven?’
No response. On instinct, I lean forward and press my fingers to Raven’s neck. A slow pulse throbs against my fingers, faint but existent.
Pros: she’s still alive.
Cons: she’s still alive. Also, there’s blood everywhere.
I sigh and slump against the side of the tub.
It’s not the nauseatingly strong smell of copper that wakes me up, but the burning light of late morning seared into my temple, and the fleshy, smooth expanse of a—
Wait, what?
There’s a person in my bed.
I scream as I jerk up. Throwing the blankets off, I twist to stare at the stirring criminal nestled in my sheets.
A sleepy eye blinks up at me. ‘Tia?’
It’s Lune to you, I almost say, but, no, I’m off duty. ‘Morning, Fox.’
Raven scans the room.