Page 22 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“I didn’t.”

She doesn’t look up at him, instead staring down at the blankets. They’re a cheery sort of light pink, the color the body smiled at when they were shopping for this place.

Exhaustion does blur at her eyes, some strange mixture of pain and tiredness and a surreal sort of lack.

It’s the same surreal emptiness when she saw Korhonen killed in front of her. The same sort of lack when Gurlien shot Rastian in the head in the heat of battle.

And now, Johnsin is among those few who will never control her again. Never hurt her. Never light her nerves on fire and hold her in place in agony.

“Thank you,” she says, after a long pause of staring at the flimsy foil packaging, of listening to Gurlien tap on his phone.

He shifts, glancing up.

“I don’t think I would have gotten free without you.”

Not even waiting for his response, she tears the flimsy packaging, and there’s a frosting covered pastry inside, dry and powdery, but she eats it anyways, mechanically.

It’s not great, coating the inside of her mouth, but she forces it down all the same.

“You’re welcome,” Gurlien responds, voice fake and neutral, and if she had more energy she would absolutely poke at that, prod to see what causes him to fake his response.

But instead, she just eats the pastry, then the next when he places it in front of her, drinks the water from the cup left by the body, then lets herself clutch at the blankets until she loses consciousness once more.

The next morning,wind creaks through the motorhome, shaking the plastic siding and rattling the windows and waking up Ambra with the chill on her nose.

She blinks awake, and underneath the blanket she’s very close to comfortable. Sure, it’s cold, and her face is almost numb from being above the warmth, but her muscles aren’t clenched and her nerves are soft.

In the other room, Gurlien putters around, almost inaudible underneath the sound of the wind.

She lets herself wonder at that for probably longer than needed, then sits up, letting the blanket fall.

And immediately, the back cramps up, her spine aching, and she hisses out a breath.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Gurlien breezes in. His hair is already perfectly combed, he’s wearing the pants he stormed the base in, and somewhere he found another men’s shirt. New bandages are wrapped neatly around his arm, precise in a way that suggests a long history of medical knowledge.

Meanwhile, Ambra’s hair is tangled, sticking off to the side, and the shaved side of her scalp prickles when she raises her hand to touch it.

“How good are you with teleporting to specific places?” Gurlien asks, and she blinks at him. “Not just your safe houses, other places.”

“Perfectly good, thank you very much,” Ambra says, then makes a face, her mouth mealy.

She’s now been out of stasis for two nights, and the human body continues to be disgusting.

He watches her like a hawk, as she unsteadily steps towards the bedroom.

On the bed, two backpacks sit open, and Ambra glances inside.

A few changes of clothes for her, the notebook, some of the food, sealed water bottles, and the single change of clothes for Gurlien.

So he doesn’t intend for them to stay there.

A part of her should be offended that he thinks he’s making the decisions, but the predominant part of her is just curious.

“You’re still in pain,” he calls, cautious, from the main room.

“Obviously,” Ambra snips back. “Johnsin doesn’t make it disappear when he stops his grip.”

She turns to the rainbow closet, and again, her heart jumps in her throat, but she pulls out another soft shirt, one that hugs the body’s skin, and another red sweater over the top of it as her arms prickle with the cold.

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