Page 31 of Calico Descending

My gaze slides toward the doctor, and if my eyes could shoot forth the venom coursing through me right now, he’d be a dead man. “Don’t you?”

“Of course, not.” With a sigh, he twirls his fingers and shakes his head.

The Legion officer who’s doled out my beating for the last hour takes hold of my arms, and I flinch on contact, watching him remove my bindings. Too weak to move, I let my arms fall to either side of me, as I remain draped over the wooden barrel, feeling the blood pulse back into my fingertips.

Doctor Ericsson shuffles toward Valdys, and even sitting, the beast stands taller than him. “Perhaps you’d like to carry your female to the infirmary so they can see to her wounds.”

His female. The thought of that makes my stomach sicker than the flogging I suffered on his behalf.

Setting his palms against his thighs, Valdys pushes to his feet, prompting the four Legion guards to jolt up, as well.

Looming over the doctor, he turns toward me only briefly, before he strides past him. Out of the room, with the Legion officers following after him.

While I lie on my side, Roz strokes my hair and whispers a song, as she curls up beside me, keeping a gap between my bloodied back and her body. I know the song well. It’s one my mother sometimes sang, from the days before the Dredge when music was everywhere. Momma once told me people listened to music in their cars, and on small devices she called cellphones, which they carried around, and I imagine the air filled with all kinds of music, drifting on currents like petals caught up in the wind.

“I’m sorry this happened to you.” Roz rests her head against the back of my neck, and more tears spill down my cheeks. It was Roz who wheeled me out of recovery after the nurses sealed the deeper wounds in my back. It hurts to breathe, stretching my cuts every time I inhale.

I close my eyes, and all I see is Valdys, sitting across from me. In one strike, he could’ve taken out every one of those Legion officers, as easily as tin cups lined along the countertop. Instead, he sat impassive.

Unaffected.

Unmovable.

It takes two days for the pain to subside enough that I can get out of bed on my own. Two days of thinking. Two days of crying. Two days of wishing I would fall into deep sleep and never wake. I sit across from Doctor Ericsson, leaning slightly forward, so as not to rub my back against the chair.

He slides an object toward me, across his desk, and I stare down at a ring of multi-colored beads. “A gift from your sister.”

I frown at that, hesitating at first to accept it from him.

He jerks his head toward the bracelet. “Go on, then. Put it on.”

Careful not to disrupt my wounds, I reach forward and lift the bracelet from his desk, sliding it onto my wrist alongside the other.

“Mistress Elspeth told her about your punishment. She thought a gift from your sister might brighten your spirits a little.”

I don’t bother to look at Medusa beside me, because I know it’s a lie. Bryani probably has no idea I was whipped, and if she does, she certainly wouldn’t accept the reasoning for it. I still can’t, but I thank her for the bracelet, anyway.

“Can I see her? My sister?”

“Of course not. She’s very busy caring for patients.”

She’s fourteen. I doubt her involvement in their care is anything more than cleaning up after them and offering the occasional sponge bath. “Just a minute, or two. Nothing more.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible. And besides, we can’t go adding other variables right now. You’ve already compromised the experiment with the soldier. Or have you forgotten already?”

“No. Maybe just a video, then? Of her?”

His gaze skates to Medusa and back to me. “I’ll think about it. In the meantime, I want you to work harder on Valdys. His display of aggression was tragic, but it’s progress. He’s showing signs of jealousy, which is very promising for you.”

“Promising for me? How is any of this promising for me?”

“Need I remind you? The more he becomes attached, the less likely you’ll be punished.”

Tears fill my eyes as a weak laugh spills past my lips. “He won’t become attached. Why would he? You’ve destroyed him! You’ve destroyed whatever small bit of humanity was left in him! Did you not see the video? How easily and remorselessly he murdered that soldier?”

“For you!”

“He didn’t do it for me! He did it because he was trained to enjoy killing! By you!”

---