Arclight (8 page)

A rush of heat floods my cheeks. Tobin’s face goes the other way, losing his tan to bleached-out ash.

“Sorry, Doc,” Mr. Pace says.

“This is a hospital, Elias. You can’t bang around like you’re on maneuvers.”

“Let’s go, Tobin. We’ll finish this later.”

But Tobin doesn’t move. Neither he nor I have blinked since the curtain was pulled away. He stands; I sit. We stare without a word—one accusing, one apologizing—until that same, stubborn piece of hair falls forward. I tuck it behind my ear, but with the connection between us severed, he wastes no time leaving.

“Tobin, wait,” I call after him. “I’m—”

He pushes past Dr. Wolff, close enough to my bed to bump it sideways.

“—sorry,” I finish, too late.

“That could have gone better,” Mr. Pace says.

I nod, scooting off the hospital bed as Dr. Wolff hands me my inhaler. The ring feels heavy and cold against my skin when I tuck it in, not comforting at all.

“If I’d known you were still here, I would have waited,” Mr. Pace says.

“S’okay,” I mumble. It’s not like he ruined a friendship; he only pushed the wedge a little wider. “Can I leave?” I ask.

“Go on,” Dr. Wolff says. “Honoria’s arranged something special for you kids at first meal. You don’t want to miss the surprise.”

Yes I do.

Unexpected variables rarely prove to be good for me. They lead to running and screaming and things that can kill me, so talk of something mysterious waiting in the Common Hall isn’t an incentive to get there any faster.

I hesitate near the door, balanced between two bad decisions. At least with the hospital, I know what kind of misery to expect. I’ve pretty much lost my appetite anyway.

“Doctor Wolff,” I begin. It isn’t easy convincing my mouth to explain my nightmares and endure whatever reactions he has to them. I anticipate a lot of needles.

“Yes?” He inclines his head, not looking at me while he sterilizes the scraper with an open flame.

My hesitation costs me the chance to answer.

The door on the far side of the room slams open. Lt. Sykes and another guard hurry in, shuffling to manage a third person between them—Anne-Marie’s brother, Trey.

Burned and bloodied.

T
REY
holds his arm against his chest. His jacket and shirt are burned through, the skin beneath them melted, as though someone roasted it over an open flame. It’s going to take more than a dab of cold blue gel to fix that.

“What happened?” Dr. Wolff asks.

“Briar bush at the burn site,” the man I don’t know says.

“It had gone black,” Lt. Sykes adds.

Lt. Sykes is young, barely older than Trey, and strangely pretty for a guy. There’s something off about him, like he’s always marching a half-step out of time with everyone else. And he certainly doesn’t act like someone who’s only recently aged out. He isn’t treated like it either.

“She burned me.” Trey gags on his own words, shaking as the others hold him up. Dr. Wolff extends Trey’s arm farther, and Trey vomits onto the floor.

I step toward him automatically, but Mr. Pace seizes my injured wrist, only loosening his grip when I yelp. He doesn’t even apologize.

“Don’t touch him.”

“But . . .”

This is Anne-Marie’s brother. How can I not help?

“Get to the Common Hall.” Mr. Pace tows me toward the exit, still by the wrist.

“Was he attacked?” I ask.

It’s barely dark. If Trey was attacked, that means the Fade have moved faster than they did last night, or that they were closer. Either way, we’re in trouble. We should be at Red-Wall.

“Is he okay?” I try to get a clear view of Trey, but Mr. Pace keeps his body in the way.

“Go!” He dismisses me, then doubles back.

I position myself in the hall outside the door where I can watch from the side. If I tell Anne-Marie I saw Trey delivered to the hospital, she’ll drive everyone crazy until she gets details. Staying to eavesdrop is a mission of mercy, really. It’s not just to satisfy my own curiosity, at all. . . .

“What were you thinking, taking him out there?” Mr. Pace snarls at Lt. Sykes—actually snarls. His face twists into something grotesque. “He hasn’t even aged out.”

“He showed up on his own, same as last night.”

“What happened to his gloves?”

“He said they made it too hard to work.”

“You let him take them off?”

“He’s about as reasonable as his old man.”

I’ve never heard Lt. Sykes speak back at Mr. Pace before.

“Stop!” Dr. Wolff splits them apart when it seems Mr. Pace is going to do more than yell. “Elias, you can exact your pound of flesh once I’m sure I won’t have to do the same with our young patient. I need details. Are you sure the bush was infested?”

“The kid tore it up before we could warn him not to,” the man I don’t know says. “Confirmed punctures. His skin started to halo around the wounds.”

“How long?’

Lt. Sykes checks his alarm for the time. “Less than three minutes.”

“What’d she use, a blowtorch?” Mr. Pace touches Trey’s abused arm with the tips of his fingers, and Trey winces.

“There was no time for neat,” Lt. Sykes says. “Honoria held his arm over the flame until it flaked.”

Honoria?

She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t harm one of the Arclight’s own—not on purpose.

“Get him downstairs,” Dr. Wolff orders. “We need him contained so I can do a proper assessment.”

But Trey goes berserk before they can go anywhere.

“Make them stop,” he cries, trying to raise his hands to cover his ears. “They won’t shut up. Make them stop.”

Trey claws at his wounded arm, jerking against the men holding him.

“Get them off! They’re everywhere! I can feel them!”

“We’re losing him,” Lt. Sykes says. He wraps his arms completely around Trey in an attempt to steady him. He and Mr. Pace pull Trey to the floor to brace his body.

“I need morphine,” Dr. Wolff says, kneeling down to press Trey’s head against the floor. He swipes his free hand toward the cabinets, and the guard I don’t know starts opening drawers. “Third, left. Orange lettering on the package.”

“Got it.”

The guard tosses a plastic wrapper. Mr. Pace catches it and holds a syringe out to Dr. Wolff, who slides the needle into Trey’s upper arm.

“Relax, son,” he says softly. “I know that’s easier for me to say than it is for you to do, but the medicine should kick in soon.”

“He won’t make the trip downstairs,” Mr. Pace says in a rough voice. “Honoria sees him like this and—”

“Get him into a bed,” Dr. Wolff says, nodding. “I’ll do what I can. Hopefully he’ll be in the clear before Honoria ever sees him.”

Mr. Pace closes the curtain between Jove’s bed and the one I had used, and once Jove’s sequestered, they deposit Trey on my bed. The short drop when they lower him down is too much for his stomach. He throws up again.

“She overdid it,” Mr. Pace says.

Trey’s out of it, thrashing with the sheets tangled around his feet. Sweat explodes from his skin as he tries to speak, but no real words come out.

“She saved his life, Elias.” Dr. Wolff becomes the voice of reason in the room. “There’s a chance to stop them before they trench in. If we’re lucky, he’ll keep his arm.”

“Don’t lecture me on that sort of luck, Doc. I’m more than familiar with the concept.”

Another few seconds pass with Mr. Pace trying to get a response from Trey, but Trey’s gone—hopefully to the morphine rather than his injuries. His eyes roll up into his head and close. Even after he’s out, he shakes so much that Lt. Sykes and the other guard have to hold him down.

Dr. Wolff cuts the sleeve away from Trey’s mangled skin before reaching for the same scraper he’d used on me. I have a feeling that the next emptied stomach will be mine if I watch, so I hide my face against the wall, grateful for Trey’s sake that he isn’t conscious.

I keep my eyes closed until I hear the scraper hit a metal bowl. Trey’s arm now sports a shallow trench in the muscle where Dr. Wolff cut deep. Flecks of black ash fall to the floor, and both of the men who carried him in back away from it. Mr. Pace sweeps it into a bin, adding Trey’s ruined shirt and the bloody bandages to the pile. Torn pieces of the green patch declaring his status as a final-year student land on top.

“Clothes,” Mr. Pace orders.

Both men shuck their jackets and remove their gloves.

“You need these, Doc?”

“They’re active.” Dr. Wolff bites the words, bitter like a sour lemon. “Use the incinerator downstairs.”

Down? The only stairs I’ve ever seen take workmen to the roof so they can replace lightbulbs. All that’s under the Arclight is dirt.

Mr. Pace sprints toward the medicine room with the bin held at arm’s length.

Dr. Wolff turns the light over Trey’s bed on so high it bounces back off his skin with a pale violet glow, then snaps a breathing mask over his nose and mouth and turns on the pump beside his bed so it fills with medical smoke.

“Portman, your hand,” Lt. Sykes says. Surprise makes the nasal whine to his voice worse. “You’re cut.”

The other man, Portman, glances down at the hand he was using to steady Trey’s arm, raising it toward the light. A scrape stretches across his palm, below the thumb. The skin’s red and irritated in the center, but nothing serious. Around the scrape, a sooty black halo traces the shape.

“You must’ve ripped a glove,” Lt. Sykes says.

“Secondary transfer,” Portman argues, trying to wipe the halo away, but the stain sticks fast. “Doc . . .”

“They’re not in the tissue, yet.” Dr. Wolff rounds Trey’s bed.

“Do something!” Portman screams, grating his skin with his fingernails.

“Don’t!” Dr. Wolff grabs his hand and holds on tight. “Speed your heart and you’ll spread them faster. I need a tourniquet.”

Lt. Sykes rips off his belt, one-handed.

“Keep your other hand clear, or we’ll end up with cross-contamination,” Dr. Wolff warns as he ties off Portman’s hand at the wrist.

They’ve completely forgotten about Trey. None of them are watching when foam starts forming under his breather and the convulsions start again.

I’m out of my hiding place and beside the bed, and I don’t even remember moving.

“Doctor Wolff!” I don’t decide to shout either, but that’s how it happens. “Trey . . . calm down.” I try patting his shoulder, but he seizes up off the bed with the slightest touch. “Trey!”

“Elias, we need you!” Dr. Wolff leaves Portman to Lt. Sykes and returns to Trey’s bedside. Mr. Pace finally reappears from the back room—he’s not happy to see me.

“You can yell at me later, Mr. Pace. Trey’s dying!”

All I can think about is how Anne-Marie will look when she finds out her brother’s dead because of me, too. She’ll hate me; I won’t have anyone left.

“He’s not dying,” Dr. Wolff argues. “The Fade carry a contagion. It was on the bush that cut him. His body’s fighting it.”

He slides his hand beneath the mattress of Trey’s bed, retrieving a cuff he uses to strap Trey’s leg down. Mr. Pace does the same on the other side. They bind Trey’s hands, careful of his forearm.

Trey’s burn begins to weep a slow-moving ooze. Dr. Wolff reaches for a metal bowl off the counter, positioning Trey’s arm over it to catch the runoff. By the time it’s done, there’s about an inch-deep puddle of murky glop mixed with blood in the tray. Dr. Wolff lights a wooden dowel on fire and tosses it into the . . . whatever it is that came out of Trey’s body. It burns quicker than paper, igniting in a brilliant emerald flash that leaves only fine black powder and the scent of decay.

“He’ll be fine,” Dr. Wolff says. “Once it’s burned out, it becomes inert.”

I turn my head back to where Lt. Sykes is still holding on to Portman’s translucent, bloodless hand. If feelings have colors, I’ve just turned chartreuse.

“Stay clear,” Dr. Wolff says to me.

While I watch, he heats a long, flat blade. When it’s glowing, Lt. Sykes and Mr. Pace hold Portman tightly by his shoulders, forcing him down into a chair. Portman wraps his feet around the chair’s legs. He bites down on the towel they put in his mouth, so when he screams, it comes out muffled. All the fingers on the hand with no tourniquet flex, bending back against their joints from the agony of being branded. His feet pound in place along the slick tile, gaining just enough traction to tip his chair. The tendons in his neck pull taut; his eyes pop. And he keeps on screaming.

Dr. Wolff watches the clock with one hand in the air, counting down, and drops it when he says, “That’s enough, let him go.”

Portman slumps, shaking, in the chair. Dr. Wolff pulls the blade away, takes the towel from Portman’s mouth, and uses it to brush new black ash from his hand into another tray.

“Only skin contact,” he says. “It didn’t go deep.”

They all relax like they didn’t just sear a man’s palm with a knife. Lt. Sykes helps Portman to a bed, fitting him with his own mask and light, while Dr. Wolff carts both bins of black ash to the back room. Mr. Pace comes for me.

“I’m sorry,” I say automatically. “I was worried about Trey. Anne-Marie—”

“Does not need to know about this.”

“But—”

“Marina, we don’t tell you not to do things and not to go places because we’re horrible. We’re trying to keep you safe, so what you saw doesn’t become a necessity for more people. If you constantly do the opposite of what you’re told, it’s harder for us to do that. Go to first meal and let us handle this. There’s no need to mention the Fade at all. It would just worry people.”

“But what about Anne-Marie and her mom?”

“I’m going to tell Dominique myself. Annie can wait, but I promise she’ll be told.”

“Thanks, Mr. Pace,” I say. “And I really
am
sorry.”

“Stop apologizing and start paying attention.” He taps my forehead with his finger. “Now get out of here before I decide to tell Honoria you were prowling around where you weren’t supposed to be, again.”

That’s all the motivation I need. One run in with Honoria’s enough for the day. I leave Trey to our teacher, and start the walk down the brown line to the Common Hall. Halfway there, I remember that Trey’s catastrophe wasn’t the only one I’d witnessed in the hospital. Not only do I have to get through first meal with Anne-Marie, but I have to face Tobin, too.