Page 11 of Burn Like An Angel

Watching them disperse to search, I suddenly teeter on my own two feet. Langley’s mumbling is overcome by a loud buzzing in my head. Physical exhaustion coupled with the breakdown I’ve been holding back at all costs overwhelms me.

Lennox is badly hurt. There’s no medical help. We’re caught in a riot, surrounded by patients who hate my fucking guts, and have no idea when backup will arrive. Raine’s barely recovered and shouldn’t even be out of bed, let alone running around fending off attacks.

The odds are stacked against us.

Was this a huge mistake?

Staying here may have been the brave choice, but the violence will only escalate. People will die. Maybe we will too. And all the pain, the suffering, the sacrifice… it will all have been for nothing.

The magnitude of the past few days sucker punches me in the face. The Z wing. Lennox being tortured. Beatings. Sabre Security. Our pink-haired saviour. The bloodied corridor. Professor Craven’s broken skull.

We survived.

We escaped.

But the real battle begins now.

“No,” I choke out.

“Rip?” Raine cocks his head in my direction.

“W-We… should’ve… run.”

The sight of Raine standing nearby while the other two get to work abruptly blurs. Now he’s a pixelated jigsaw of fuzzy limbs and wobbly lines as my energy fizzles out.

“Ripley?” His voice sounds far-off, disjointed. “Ripley!”

Everything turns white. Spinning. Blurring. A hot flush of fever and dizziness sweeps me off my feet and sends me hurtling into the approaching blackness.

CHAPTER 2

LENNOX

MONSTERS – FOREIGN AIR

“I’ve donethe best I can. I’m not a doctor.”

A tired voice filters into my awakening consciousness. It sounds resigned. Perhaps a little defensive.

“Then what do we do?”

This one is flat, cold. Familiar. An iceberg carried to shore by my mind’s rolling waves.

“Hope this riot ends fast. He’s out of the woods for now.”

Their two voices overlap, a confusing tangle of sounds and worried tones that permeate my thick brain fog. I can’t drag my eyes open. Everything feels like it’s wrapped in fluffy cotton wool.

The drug-induced fog offers me a brief escape from recent horrors. But as I come around, the peace dissipates. Pain comes rushing back in to greet me like an unwelcome house guest.

“Have you seen outside?” The tired voice speaks again. “People are going wild. This isn’t ending any time soon.”

“Then I guess we’re all stuck here.”

“We don’t even have food!” This time, the second, colder voice sounds different—it’s suddenly infected with something. Roughening into a low growl, I can almost taste the underlying fear and anxiety that’s thawing the towering iceberg.

“Those patients outside will come looking soon enough.”

“Agreed.”

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