Chapter 25
One Minute of Silence
(It’s silent.
It’s been silent for so long.
Death wants her to stay. It chews her ears with static and slips a gentle hand over her mouth and her nose so she never breathes again. For a while, it lays her down and Tia obliges.
You can rest here, Death says. It has no shape or form, but the darkness feels like a heavy blanket on a cold day. Tia is safe here. She can sleep forever.
But her dreams are restless, and it starts with fear and ends with panic. She did not die well.
Suddenly, light cracks the darkness, cleaves it like lightning across a night sky, and death flees with a scream.
She did not die at all.)
TIA
On my first breath, I gulp in so much air I vomit immediately.
Around me, doctors shout. Nurses yell for oxygen as I clench my fingers round the bed’s guardrail and lean out of the bed to puke on the floor.
‘Oh, shit,’ I gasp, and regret it immediately. ‘Oh, fuck.’
The world shudders on its axis, but I swipe for the cup of water by my bedside table and slam it into my lips before I drop it. My hands barely function.
‘ALFRED?’ I croak. A doctor tells me to stop speaking, but I ignore him. ‘How long was my heart out?’
‘Your heart was forcefully stopped for ten minutes, as per request. It was later restarted periodically to keep your brain oxygenated without resuscitating you. You are now in the medbay, and it is safe for you to be alive. Congratulations, Tia.’
Someone slips an IV into my arm, and I’m so numb I barely feel the pain.
A nurse checks my vitals and shines a light in both my eyes. Despite myself, I grin.
‘Did anyone really think I was dead?’ I joke. The nurse doesn’t look impressed. ‘You’re the team that took my heart out of my body and replaced it with a metal one. Don’t act all surprised now. The knife barely—’
As the medical team acclimates me back to reality, pain rushes in with a whoosh. The knife may not have hit a real heart, but it slid deep, and I feel it with every breath. My sentence breaks off with a groan.
‘Good to see you humbled,’ a doctor says dryly. She conjures a syringe. ‘We’re glad you’re alive, but we’re going to sedate you to stitch you up. See you on the other side.’
The doctor counts down from ten, and I’m out before they hit three.
I wake with the memory of Raven’s hands over my throat, body pricked cold with sweat and my lungs collapsed with panic.
A nightmare.
The world aches dully, but I feel good for someone who died for a little too long and barely made it back alive.
In the corner of the room, something beeps, and there’s a curled figure in a chair at the foot of the bed, shrouded in darkness.
Harper? I almost say, but moonlight glints softly over cropped hair and a sharp jaw.
‘Niko?’ I croak. I don’t know why I bother – they’ve always slept like the dead. ‘Niko.’
Niko jerks. As they frown and open their eyes, their gaze lands on me and widens.
‘Teacup?’
‘Hi, Nik.’
‘Oh my God, hey.’ Niko scrambles out of the chair and kneels by my bed. With shaking hands they grab my face and press their forehead to mine. ‘I thought I was going to lose you,’ they whisper. ‘Aku sangat takut dong.’
I was so scared.
‘I’m here.’ I focus on all the places Niko touches me, all my favourite pressure points on my shoulders and my head, but the world sways before it stumbles and trips. ‘What happened?’
‘The Fox threatening Raven left once you –’ they swallow – ‘were killed, and Raven and I loaded you and Kiran onto the medical heli-carrier. Kiran underwent surgery for a few hours, but he’s mostly stable now. You’ve been asleep for a day.’
Something about the account itches at the back of my mind. ‘Raven loaded me on?’ You let Raven load me on? Or did you let Harper load me on? How much do you know?
Niko shrugs, their gaze lowered to their fidgeting hands. ‘You know who I mean.’
When they finally look up, their eyes search mine, as if imploring an answer I can’t provide. It feels as if it’s been too long since the two of us have spent time together, and the new lines around Niko’s face are runes to a story I don’t know, their dark irises two pools of galaxies.
‘Can I see her?’ I whisper.
Niko’s face hardens. ‘I’ve made it clear she’s not welcome here. Not after what she’s done to Kiran and you.’
Cold shock trickles down my chest. ‘What? No, she tried to stop me. This was my choice.’ A horrible realization hits me. ‘Does she even know I’m alive?’
Niko’s face says it all. ‘I can’t find it in myself to forgive her, Teacup.’
I want to cry. ‘Are you being serious? You let her think I’m dead and you left her alone? You know her parents aren’t there for her any more. And she might be the clan leader now, if it went okay, but we’re her family. How could you—?’
Pain winces through my chest, and I stop to press a hand to my sternum. My lungs feel trapped, and every breath hurts.
Niko is standing in a second. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Hurts.’ The word slips out weakly. ‘Don’t know why.’
Niko darts to check a monitor by my bed. ‘Shit. We’ve been keeping you stable with moonstones, but we don’t have enough to keep you that long. I’ll get the doctors.’
As they call them through the intercom, the world begins to fade. I try to grasp on as much as possible, but every muscle feels so . . . weak.
Before I lose reality, before it’s too late, I reach for Niko’s hand. ‘Nik.’
They whip to me, their gaze wide and fearful. ‘Tell me how I can help.’
‘Bring Harper back.’ I squeeze their hand, but my fingers barely follow through. ‘This was part of our plan. This was the best possible outcome we could have hoped for. She’ll take care of the moonstones. She did it for us, Nik.’
She’s family.