Chapter 8 Veladoo – Vexar
VELADOO
VEXAR
“WHERE IS THE thread?” I ask as I work to reposition myself until I can better see the wound spanning my torso. Now that the bleeding has slowed, the depth and severity of the gash is clear, and the sight has my stomach in knots.
“Why? Are you planning on sewing yourself up?” she asks, moving closer.
“I am.” I have no desire to hand my fate over to this … vexing stranger. “Now, can you find the thread for me?”
“No.”
My eyes slowly track up her body. “Did you just tell me, ‘no’?”
“Uh, yeah.”
The absolute nerve…
“Fine,” I growl as I push myself to a sitting position and start searching for the thread.
My breath turns ragged as the pain intensifies, but I do not stop.
I can handle pain. It is nothing new. The white sheet is stained with large patches of dark red that make identifying objects harder than it should be.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She reaches for the side of the bed and scoops up a handful of small packets.
Is that the thread? Why would they put it in packets?
I reach for them, but she draws back.
“Really?” I ask, raising a brow.
“Are you a doctor?”
“No. Are you?”
She scowls, and my heart thuds wildly, as if I am enjoying her ire. But that makes no sense.
“If you sew yourself up, you’ll do a shit job and either give yourself an infection or a hernia.”
“What do you care if I give myself an infection or a hernia?” Whatever a hernia is.
“Just to be clear, you, a guy who couldn’t even control his own bleeding, wants to sew himself up? Instead of accepting help from me? Someone who knows what they’re doing?”
“Yes,” I answer.
“Right. Ok.” She tosses the packets onto my chest and folds her arms. “I can tell you have some sort of complex going on, so we’ll just do this the hard way.” She turns, walks to the far side of the cell, and sinks to the ground.
A “complex”?
With her legs crossed, she gestures towards me. “Well, go on, Nurse Vexar. You have what you need.”
The only people who have ever treated me this way are my brothers, and I am not sure how to handle it coming from someone else.
She’s obstinate and argumentative and the exact opposite of everyone I have ever met.
Half of me finds her infuriating, while the other half is intrigued.
Captivated even. I almost want to push her further and see what she does, but I resist the odd temptation.
Working to ignore her, I rip open a thread packet and am surprised to find a needle with the thread already attached.
It takes me a few tries to get a hold of the small needle, but I manage.
All the while, the nurse sits, picking dried blood off her hands and occasionally flashing me impatient glances.
“Am I boring you?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Just waiting for the interesting part.”
With the needle in hand, I grip both sides of my wound and start to sew.
Sweat beads on my brow as bolts of pain ricochet through me, but I do not stop.
Never stop. Never slow. By the time I’ve driven the needle through my flesh for the fourth time, I realize my error.
I failed to tie a knot in the first stitch, and now, with every pull and release of the thread, the wound opens and closes.
I have no idea what I am doing.
I glance over and find the nurse watching me with a quiet intensity that makes my skin tighten and neck burn.
“Have you never seen someone sew themselves up?” I ask.
She stands and approaches. “Not like this, no.” Her voice is soft and caressing—a shocking contrast to her earlier tone. She adjusts the light next to the bed and squats down, gazing up at me. “I get it, you’re a big tough warrior, but you don’t have to do this yourself. You can accept help.”
“I am fine,” I insist, not meeting her gaze.
Her hand reaches out and rests on mine. The intimacy is startling, but I do not flinch away. Wide, dark eyes bore into me with a kindness and depth that cracks the stone around my resolve, and I feel myself already giving in to her.
“Let me help. Please.”
I want to refuse, but my body moves on its own, offering her the needle before I have a chance to consider my actions. Something about her makes me want to trust her. Some urge in the back of my mind. A pull deep in my gut.
With gentle movements, she takes the needle and reaches for something on the edge of the bed. Her fingers brush my side, and I tense as my nerves fire all at the same time.
“Sorry,” she says, glancing up, “you were laying on the needle-driver.”
I hope I have not made a horrible mistake by accepting her help, but my vow is already broken, and it is too late to choose honor over survival.
Dying here would leave a power vacuum and cause irreparable damage to the empire.
Beyond that, I am quite certain of the cause of my peril, and it is a crime I cannot allow to go unpunished.
I may not be able to retain my throne, but I can still retain some semblance of order in this empire.
After a few waves of the sani-light, she picks up a pair of long tweezers in one hand and a clamp-like instrument in the other.
With an apologetic smile, she says, “I wish I had something to help with the pain, but I don’t.
So, just tell me if you need a break. And if you feel like you’re gonna pass out, tell me. ”
I nod, still uneasy about accepting her help but willing to trust my instincts. I just wish I knew what she was getting out of this. Motives are as important as actions, and hers make no sense. She risked her freedom for a stranger. Why?
She must notice my apprehension, because she pats my shoulder and says, “Don’t worry, you’re in good hands. Just don’t move, yeah?”
The needle dives into my flesh, sucking the air from my lungs.
“Are you intentionally making this painful?” I grunt.
“Surprisingly, no. But this is going to suck for a bit, and there’s not much I can do about it.”
Somehow, despite my obvious pain, she seems entirely unaffected. Calm even.
My muscles tense as I struggle to lie still, and when I look down, there is a pleased smile curling her lips.
“Are you enjoying this?”
She shrugs. “I’m just glad you finally pulled your head out of your ass. You butchering this would have been the real torture.” She pauses. “For me, that is.”
I watch her, transfixed by the relaxed contours of her familiar face. “Why are you helping me?”
“Because you need it,” she says, and I feel the truth in her words.
“I do not know your name,” I say, still unable to take my eyes off her face as she focuses on her careful dance of thread and steel.
“Amara.”
“Amara,” I repeat back, enjoying the way the sound rolls off my tongue. “I like it. Is that a common human name?”
“There aren’t any names that are common for all humanity. We’re too … separated.”
“By what?”
“Different cultures and languages and stuff.”
Of course. Her people have many languages. “How many languages do your people have?” I ask, wishing I already knew the answer.
“A lot,” she says slowly as her face scrunches like she’s just realized something. “How is it that, out of thousands of human languages, you just happen to speak English? Not French or Spanish or whatever else?”
“I do speak Spanish.”
“Of course you do,” she mutters.
“Mandarin too,” I add. “Like I said, I know many languages.”
“Let me guess, you’re also an accomplished marksman and you compose symphonies in your free time.”
“I do not understand.” I know what her words mean, but it feels like I am missing her meaning.
She shakes her head, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
“That was sarcasm, yes?” I ask.
She laughs. “Yeah, it was. So where are you from?” Her hands still, and she looks up at me with concern. “You’re not from here, right? From Calidus?”
“No one is from here.” How does she not know that? “I am from Vhorath,” I say.
“Oh, right. Forgot I knew that.”
“How did you know I am from Vhorath?” I thought she did not know anything about me.
“They told me when I was looking for your sedative—before I knew you didn’t have one.” Her hands settle on the edge of the bed. “You keep acting like I should know more about you, but then you get weirded out by the things I do know. So what’s going on? Are you a criminal or something?”
I bite back a laugh. “I am not a criminal, no.”
She resumes stitching with a hum. “Well, what’s life like on Vhorath?”
“We all speak the same language and function under the same government. We value family and community, but above all else, we value honor. Our biggest exports are weapons, wood, and produce.”
“Wood?”
“We have very large trees.”
“Huh. Alien trees.” There’s a sharp pain as she tugs on something in my side. “For some reason, I never considered what other planets would be like. Beyond this one, obviously.” She pauses and wets her lips. “What do you miss most about it? Home, I mean.”
“That is a very personal question.”
Her eyes narrow. “Uh, not really.” When I don’t respond, she adds, “There’s no one here to judge you but me. Sure, I might be a bit of an asshole, but I’m not going to be a dick about your heartfelt answer.”
“The veladoo orchards.”
“Veladoo? Is that, like, a fruit?”
I take in the color of her lips—the exact color of ripe veladoo. “Yes. My favorite fruit.”
Our conversation continues, discussing our homes and the things we miss the most. She tells me about lush, green forests and something called “moss”.
Her expression brightens as she tells me about tall mountains, covered in snow, and how humans slide down them for fun.
It sounds like a strange activity, but also very enjoyable.
The one thing she does not talk about is family or friends. I wonder if that is why she is here.
A short while later, we take a break. She perches on the table with a cup of water clutched in her small hands.
“You know, you’re different than I thought you’d be,” she says, kicking her legs in the open air.
“As you thought I would be?”
“After our conversation through the door, I made some assumptions.”
“And what assumptions were those?”
She laughs. “Honestly? I thought you’d be a bit of an idiot Casanova.”
I frown in confusion.
“Sorry. I keep forgetting about the cultural barrier—your English is really good by the way.” She pauses, glancing away in thought. “I guess I assumed you’d be a meat head— Nope, that won’t work. Uh … I thought you’d have more muscle than brain. You know?”
“What would have given you that impression?” I do not remember all of our earlier conversation, but I doubt I would give off such an impression in any state. Except this woman seems to draw out the least polished version of me at every turn.
She raises a brow. “For starters, making cocky and suggestive remarks when you’re about to die is relatively rare. For most people at least.”
What did I say to her?
Keeping my surprise from my face, I ask, “And how are you so familiar with what people are capable of when they are close to death?”
She sets down the water and moves back to the side of the bed where she kneels to resume stitching. “I was a corpsman,” she says before adding, “a combat medic in the—”
“You were in the military? In combat?”
She scoffs, and it is clear I have made an error. “You’re surprised,” she says coolly.
I can feel the trap closing around me, but I fall into it anyway.
“I am just surprised—” My words are cut short by a particularly painful jab of her needle, and when she meets my gaze again, there is a ruthless threat in her eyes that makes me swoon.
She is fire and fury in a very deceiving package.
“I am no longer surprised,” I grunt. Whoever this woman is, she defies my expectations at every turn.
She smirks, clearly satisfied with bringing me to heel, and continues.
“As I was saying, I was a medic—we call them corpsmen in the Navy… Uh, Earth Navy? Whatever. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve seen my fair share of tough-guys with serious injuries and your reaction was …
surprising.” Her eyes meet mine, and something strange happens.
For a heart-stopping moment, the cell around us melts away until the only thing that exists is her. The tug in my gut grows, and it is clear something inside me has shifted.
Words fall out of my mouth with little thought. “You are magnificent,” I say.
Her lips press together, holding back a smile. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. Let’s save the flirting for later, yeah?”