Page 28 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

Ambra’s hands shake, and she twists them in her lap to stop the motion, and Gurlien’s eyebrows raise.

“Does it matter?” Gurlien asks, instead, when she struggles to speak, and a rush of gratitude floods through her, at those three words, saving her from answering.

“It very much so does,” Axel shoots back.

“Look, just because you—” Gurlien starts, but Axel cuts him off.

“Not in front of the College plant,” he says, curt. “Thedemon can answer the question, or she can get absolutely no help from us.”

“That’s not fair, she was literally tortured—”

“And how long was the human tortured before she died?” Axel asks, lifting his chin, and Ambra can’t believe she ever thought he would be friendly. “I think that has far more weight.”

“Seven months ago,” Ambra replies, forcing the words past the lump in her throat, and even clenching her hands doesn’t stop the trembling. “She died seven months ago.”

Both the men fall silent, watching her, and Ambra picks Gurlien to stare at, the far kinder face. “We knew each other for three years, were…in this…” she gestures at the body, “for about ten months before she died.”

The sudden lack, the terror, the wrenching pain, all just as new as the day it happens, and Ambra swallows, then swallows again, trying to chase away the phantom sensations.

She’s not on an operating table in a sterile white room, she’s outside a little cafe, with food in front of her and steam still curling from the mug of coffee. The air still smells of the promise of snow, and cars rumble past on the freeway out of sight. A thin strip of magic flutters along the driveway, completely bypassing them, and if she wanted, she could jerk it towards her, detonate the table, and run away.

Axel sits back, but Ambra just stares harder at Gurlien, like he could get the conversation to end.

“And how did she feel about this,” Axel mimics Ambra’s gesture, “for the ten months?”

Ambra opens her mouth, but no words come out, her breath just as cut off as the leash had done, and her eyes water, beyond her control.

“Jesus Christ, and everyone says I’m the insensitive one,”Gurlien interjects, and Ambra forces her jaw to unclench. “This is clearly a trauma response, can you back off?”

There’s a trace of noise, someone speaking into the earpiece, and Axel listens, before nodding.

“Great,” Gurlien says sarcastically. “Thanks. So kind.”

“You’re not one to talk,” Axel says, and piece by piece, the friendly mask falls back into place, as foreign as anything Ambra’s ever encountered. “Question four, and this one comes from an expert, did they tie you in through the cardiac or nervous system?”

“Nervous,” Ambra says, and her voice is so much smaller than she wants.

Next to her, under the table, Gurlien presses his knee against hers, startling her, but she doesn’t shift away from the sudden contact.

“Spinal or cerebral?”

“Both,” Ambra says, even quieter, no matter how much she tries to project. “They said just cerebral failed.”

“Depending on your definition of failure,” Axel replies, then smiles fully back into friendly, and Ambra wants to throw the plate at him. “Good information, our Necromancer needed to know that piece for some reason.”

“You shouldn’t tell me where she is,” Ambra says, before she can stop herself, before scowling at the plate. “Are we done?”

“You should still eat some,” Gurlien says, an almost gentle reminder. “It’ll help the pain heal faster.”

“That it will,” Axel agrees, and Ambra turns the scowl onto Gurlien for saying something that Axel would back him up on. “Though recognizing hunger signals will be something you struggle with…how were you dealing with those in the seven months?”

“They kept her in stasis chambers,” Gurlien answers,relieving Ambra of the need to do so, so she takes another bite of the crispy and salty meat. “Near as I can tell, only let her out tightly controlled and for specific missions.”

Axel writes that down.

“So, you know, another form of torture,” Gurlien shoots over, more aggressively. “More torture that she had nothing to do with and you’re just digging at it like she’s the instigator of it.”

“Were you?” Axel asks mildly. “The instigator?”

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