If it's any consolation, Chapters 21 and 22 will be posted together sometime around the beginning of the first week of the new year.
When I first met Asha I would have done anything to get Nanda away from her. But now that he is gone, I am beginning to wonder whether or not it was right for him to leave. She's stopped bathing unless she is told to by Bastian or Elene, and she smiles less. It makes me feel completely inadequate. I understand that it has nothing to do with me, but it still seems wrong that the same day we begin openly dating something has to come along and do its best to break her.
“He was family,” she told me the day he left, and that is all she will say about it. I wish Seamus were here, but he is, yet again, spending time at the Capitol, working on a research project Desmond has assigned him. Asha's been spending a good deal of free time in the camps, and without Nanda or Seamus, she has no one to escort her. Despite my aversion to the loudness and the crowds, I've been going with her. When she's there, helping out, she forgets about Nanda. She smiles. I'd do anything to see signs of what I am beginning to think of as the “old” Asha.
“Asha-na!” A young girl flags us both down, and I recognize her as one of the Salazars. Asha told me she's been talking to them since they arrived. The Midbaran girl begins the conversation in Native, looks at me, and switches to Kiranese. I nod in thanks.
“I am joining the Fleet!” She smiles at us both happily.
“They accepted you?” Asha sounds pleased.
“Yes! They've been taking in everyone, really. I believe this is going to be the largest class in sixty years.”
“Your parents must be happy.”
“Father is, anyway. Mother thinks I shouldn't feel obligated to join for their sakes, but that's not why I'm doing it.”
“Why are you doing it?” I ask. She looks at me nervously, but answers my question.
“I want training. Asha has gotten so much stronger, I'm sure you know, Reid.” The fact that she knows my name already is disconcerting. “Anyway, all my friends here have joined.”
“I wonder if we will ever serve together?” Asha is still smiling.
“I hope so! I think you'd make a great boss!”
“Boss?” She blinks, and the girl and I end up laughing together.
“Asha, they're planning on putting you in charge. Didn't you know that?” I tug on her braid gently, and she swats at my hand.
“Desmond and I do not talk about it.” Her eyes unfocus, and she turns to my left, staring through the crowd and making several passers-by feel invisible. “Elene and Bastian are coming.”
Oh, good. Bastian has been even less civil than usual. He thinks I drove Nanda away purposefully, and nothing Asha says will make him believe otherwise. Elene and Asha have been doing their best to make him stay polite, but as time goes on it gets more difficult. I am sure one day soon he is going to message me and request to speak to me alone. Who knows what I'll do then.
Elene and Bastian arrive, and the Salazar girl bows out of the conversation and moves off through the crowd.
“Looking pretty today, Asha!” Bastian says by way of greeting, leaning down to give her a hug. I get a nod, which I appreciate. I'm not sure I'd enjoy a hug from Bastian, and the other alternative is a punch to the face. My cheek has finally healed over from where Nanda socked me, and I am not wanting to re-bruise it just yet.
“Reid braided my hair for me,” she says with a smile, and Bastian's falters. She's closed off from all three of us, so she can’t read what we are thinking. If she could, I doubt she would have said it. Elene slides her hand into Bastian’s and looks up at him warningly, another motion Asha misses. She’s been distracted all day, and won’t tell me why.
“How far along are you on your rounds, Asha?” Elene waves at another Midbaran they know, and I shift awkwardly from foot to foot. I really don’t feel like I belong here.
“I just started, actually.”
“Why don’t you two go ahead and work through your lists? Reid and I can catch up to you later.” Bastian gives me a level stare, and I sigh.
“Bastian,” Elene begins warningly, but I shake my head at her.
“I’ll be fine, Elene. Asha, I’ll catch up with you two later, okay?” I run my hand over her hair, and she nods up at me calmly. Clearly she trusts Bastian more than I do. Elene starts to say something, but Asha takes her firmly by the hand and half-drags her into the crowd.
“Didn’t expect that to be so easy,” he mutters, looking at me musingly.
“Figured we should get this over with.” When he’s around, I slide back into a full Newearth accent. If his stiffened spine is any indication, it annoys him as much as it does me. This does not bode well for our conversation.
“Looks like you’re sticking around,” Bastian observes, kicking at the ground.
“That’s the plan.”
“You don’t deserve her.” He says this with a glare, and I wonder if he is trying to bait me.
“I know, and I’ve told her that.”
He laughs at this, and looks at me appraisingly. “Good for you.” This must have been the right thing to say.
“So what’s on your mind, Bastian?”
He runs a hand against the back of his neck and looks at me awkwardly. “Uh.”
“Gotta be more articulate than that or we’ll be here forever.” He glares at me, and I smile in return.
“I’ll never understand why she chose an absolute prat like you over Nanda, but she has.”
“Indeed.”
“Look. Just trying to say sorry for being such a jerk to you.”
Well, that’s the last thing I ever expected to hear him say. “What?”
“You heard me. I still don’t really like you, but. You’ve been nice to Asha, and that says a lot about you. So I’m gonna try to be nice.”
I stare at him. He sighs and rolls his eyes. “Stop looking at me like I just asked you out.”
“Why Bastian, I didn’t know you cared.” Someone bumps into me, and I stumble forward gracefully. Bastian laughs.
“Serves you right.”
“Yes, you’re not vindictive at all.”
“Old habits die hard.” He gives me a significant look here, and I sigh and gaze in the direction Asha and Elene went.
“Yes, they do.” After a moment’s silence, I ask “why the change of heart?”
For a moment I think he’s not going to tell me. “Look, I love Elene, but she’s wrong about people. With me, isn’t she?” He gives a short laugh here, but when I don’t join in he keeps speaking. “Asha, though. Gah. She can see right into you, you know?”
I nod, and Bastian shivers. “Think she knows more about me than I do. Think she knows more about you than you do, too, so I’ve decided to trust her judgement. Been conflicted about you ever since you beat Keven’s face in, anyway.”
“So have I.” He laughs—he thinks I am joking.
“Figured you wouldn’t do that if you didn’t care about her.”
“That’s about what I decided, too.”
“Alright. So truce, then. But if you fuck up—“ here he gives me one of the most intense stares I have ever been faced with. “If you fuck up, I will make sure you regret it for the rest of your life.”
“How?” The word and the sarcasm escape before I quite know what I’ve said.
“I’m bigger than you, aren’t I?”
I consider him for a moment and decide now is not the time to posture. “Point taken.”
Something is nagging at the back of my mind. As soon as I focus on it, adrenaline starts pumping through my veins. Elene's emotions.
“Bastian, is Elene trying to get ahold of you?”
He blinks. “Yes, she’s—“ he stops speaking, and stares at me in surprise.
“Something’s wrong with Asha.” As soon as I’ve said the words, we’re moving.
As one, we push through the crowd. I have no idea where they are, but Bastian does, so I let him take the lead. There are people everywhere, but luckily they’re empaths, so as soon as they sense our urgency they part for us, staring in worry. A ripple of nervousness travels through the crowd behind us and some small voice in the back of my mind tells me this is bad, very bad, but all I can really think about is how I felt the night Asha collapsed in the club. I close myself off from Elene and the sensation subsides slightly.
“Bastian! Reid!” Elene calls to us, and we arrive, panting. Asha’s standing rigid beside her, eyes open and completely unfocused. Whatever has her attention is not nearby.
“Elene, what happened?” I wave my hand in front of Asha's eyes and am given no response.
“Mid-sentence. Just stopped like that.” She frowns.
I stare off in the direction she’s facing. “Elene, is the Capitol that way?”
She ponders for a moment, finding the sun’s position in the sky. “Yes, it is.”
“Seamus,” Bastian mutters.
“Have they ever done this before?” I ask, and Elene shakes her head.
“Something must be wrong.” Her voice is thick with worry. “Reid, I can’t feel her at all, I—“
Asha flinches, head swaying as though she is looking at a group of several people, but it is not us. “No! Stop!” Something seems off about her voice. It’s not her.
“Elene, close off from her.”
“But—“
“Look, whatever you’re doing is making it worse. Bastian, you too.”
“Reid, I’m not sure—“
His words are cut off by a wordless scream that leaves my eyes seeing white. It’s the scream of someone whose tendons are being torn away from their bones. It’s the scream of someone who has just been shot in the gut. It’s the scream of a thirteen-year-old boy who just learned his mother and sister were dead. Of a girl who has just been torn into by the claws of a predator. A boy who has lost the one he loves. To suicide. To someone else. For a brief moment I feel like it’s coming from inside me, and it makes me so dizzy I fall to the ground. The world is spinning and smells overwhelmingly of dirt. My stomach is spinning with it but the rest of my body remains still. I retch but I haven’t eaten today so nothing comes up but my chest hurts so badly I feel like it might tear apart and the scream won’t stop—
Silence. Too much of it. My eyes open, and I see Asha, crumpled on the ground before me, eyes wide and staring vacantly into the sky. Her mouth is open. Her scream. Her face is streaked with tears. Did I faint? I move to shove myself back into a crouching position and notice Elene, collapsed. Bastian. I turn my head slowly, and am overcome by nausea so thick it makes me retch again.
The entire camp is unconscious. As far as I can see, empath after empath is splayed on the ground in a ring about me, with Asha at the epicenter. I think again of the night at the club, of the blonde who collapsed alongside Asha, and feel a sense of dread. Before I quite know what I am doing, I’ve messaged Desmond.
“Doyle here.”
“Desmond, get every non-empath you can over to the trade camp, right now.”
“What in the hell, Reid?” His voice sounds cranky.
“Something’s wrong with Asha. They’ve collapsed.”
A pause. “How many of them?”
“All of them. Desmond!”
“Caroline and I are on our way now. She’ll message the other Teachers as we go.”
He ends the conversation there, and I begin moving about the camp, shifting everyone I can into a more comfortable position. One or two of them may have broken bones from their falls, so I roll their sleeves up so I can remember them later when help arrives. I keep myself busy to ignore the panic screaming in the back of my skull. Just like in the club. I’d let it take me over then, and that didn’t end particularly well.
“Reid, I have never seen you so upset,” Elene told me two weeks after Asha’s seeding.
“I think I would have killed him,” I said softly.
“So you do care.” She giggled, which struck me as inappropriate to the mood.
“Elene, of course I do.” This was before Desmond swooped in and ruined everything with his great, convenient ideas.
“Be careful,” she said softly, shaking her head at me. “Don’t let it get in the way.”
“What?”
“Don’t let how you feel about her get in the way of controlling a situation.”
“Why are you telling me this?” It sounded more petulant than I meant it to.
Elene sighs. “Because, Reid. We’re in the Fleet. Bad things happen. And if we end up stationed together, I want to know I can trust you to be level-headed.”
She had a point, and that’s why I am forcing myself to keep my eyes off Asha. Desmond and Caroline arrive, and I think I have never been happier to see either of them.
Desmond surveys the crowd, cursing softly in Native. “Reid, what happened?”
“Asha collapsed, and...I don’t know, I think I did too, but when I opened my eyes everyone was on the ground.” I swallow nervously and try to keep my eyes from tearing up.
Caroline puts a hand on my shoulder. “Looks like you’re doing the right thing.” Her eyes scan the crowd of unconscious bodies at our feet. “Can you tell me why some of them have sleeves rolled up?”
“I’ve—I’ve been walking around and checking them. I think those ones are hurt.”
Desmond curses again and starts messing with his wristband. “I’m telling every empath to stay away from the area. I’ve never seen anything like this.” Caroline gives him a warning look, but it is too late. My voice cracks, and I feel like a child, but I keep talking. Keep my eyes off her.
“What should I do?”
She looks at me, at the crowd, at Desmond. “I think we need to get her out of here. I’ll contact the hospital and see if we can get a wing cleared...just in case. In the meantime, Reid, keep moving them. You’re doing a very good job.”
Any other day I would have shot this compliment back at her, but this time it calms me down. I swallow and turn back to the unconscious empaths all around me. Desmond scans them and turns to me.
“Reid, there must be a hundred of them! At least!”
I nod. “If this were the main camp, not just the shops...”
He shakes his head. “Why are you still up?”
“I wasn’t...I was closed off from her.”
Desmond chuckles humourlessly. “Score one more point for you.” He moves to help me shift Bastian, who was too heavy for me to relocate on my own. “Well, his wrist is sprained. Nice system with the sleeves.”
By the time reinforcements have arrived, my back is sore. Everyone is told my sleeve system and pitches in with the rest of the empaths. We end up having to form a perimeter around the camp to keep family members out, though after one especially stubborn brother jumped it and fainted, the point got across.
“Reid,” Caroline calls, stepping over a young Midbaran boy to get to where I am standing.
“Yes?”
“Go ahead and move Asha to the hospital. We’ve got all the empaths on the south side of the campus, so you should be able to move her without, well.” She sighs and looks down at Asha’s prostrate form. “They’re waiting for you.”
I lift her up into my arms. Even after everything she and I have been through, I am still surprised at how light she is. Caroline wraps Asha’s braid around her waist and looks at me sadly.
“Let me know if she wakes up, okay?”
I nod. “I’ll come back as soon as I drop her off and keep helping.”
“You don’t have to, Reid.”
I stare at her. “Am I going to be excused from my duties if something happens to her when we’re both full-fledged soldiers?”
“Point. Come back, then.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
She smiles at me faintly, then moves off to keep working with the refugees, muttering something about nightmares. I head off toward the hospital, working as hard as I can to keep from looking at Asha. Someone has shut her eyes, but there’s something about her that seems strangely limp, more so than the last time I carried her unconscious form anywhere. Some part of me wants to shake her, to scream at her, to hurt her until she comes to, but I don’t. I keep walking.
There are three doctors waiting when I get to the building. They take her from me carefully, and I follow them to the room they have prepared for her, answering their questions. Asha looks out of place among the whiteness. They hook her up to monitors, mutter, take notes. A few minutes later, I am dismissed. Part of me wants to stay, to take Caroline’s first offer and stay here in case she wakes up. But I force myself to go back to the trade camp and help out where I am needed most. Asha can wait, and I am not sure how long I can stand the sight of the needles stuck into her arms.
By the time I get back to the camp, some of the refugees have come to, but Bastian and Elene are still out cold. Desmond sees me working my way to him and beckons me to move faster.
“I’ve gotten no fewer than thirteen compliments on your sleeve system, Reid. Good thinking. I’m going to put a glowing review on your file.”
“Thanks, sir.”
He scans the crowd and sighs, watching the collection of people moving the injured and checking out those that have come to.
“They don’t know what happened. They have no memory. Most of them didn’t even hear her scream.”
“So they don’t know what caused it?”
He shakes his head.
“I think it has something to do with Seamus.”
He nods. “Caroline thought the same thing. I tried looking into it, but I can’t get ahold of him.”
I stare at the ground and ponder this for a minute. “That’s bad, isn’t it.”
“Yes, but there’s nothing I can do about that right now.” There are stress lines around his eyes, and I feel like there is something he’s not telling me, but I know better than to press the issue. Desmond is better at keeping secrets than I will ever be.
“Reid,” he starts again, “I think I need to apologize again.”
“You’re rather fond of that, Desmond.”
Luckily, he finds this amusing. “I’ve been thinking for the past few days about why I took such an instant dislike to you.”
“Dare I ask?”
“You remind me of me when I was your age.”
I stare at him, but he’s being serious. “What.”
“I had a lot of anger issues, for one. I won’t go into the details—“
“Of course not.”
He frowns at me. “Stop that.”
“Sorry.”
“Is Asha alright?” He takes care not to look at me.
“No change.”
Desmond runs his hands through the grey streaks in his hair. They’ve grown significantly over the past year. He looks suddenly old.
“The feeds are going to be all over this. I hope we have some answers by the time they start asking the questions.”
“I’m not sure life works that way.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder, but doesn’t say a word. Beside us, another empath comes to, and I move down to help him. Luckily, he speaks Kiranese. I’m so involved in getting the empath re-oriented that I don’t realized Desmond has received a message until he terminates it.
“Reid.” There’s something in his tone I don’t like.
“Yes, sir?” I move back to stand beside him.
“Find Caroline and tell her I have to go.”
“Desmond, what’s wrong?” The lines around his eyes have deepened, and his hands are shaking, but his voice remains steady.
“Seamus has murdered a resident of the Capitol. He’s in custody, and Rayland has been named his prosecutor.”
Asha’s scream echoes again in my head, and a chill runs down my spine. In a way, I have just heard someone die.
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