“I’m perfectly fine,” I assured for the fifteenth time.
It was a lie. My head pounded, my whole body ached, and I was exhausted. Not just tired, but completely exhausted, even though I had been unconscious for three days. I’d only woken up an hour ago to the blinding white lights of the infirmary, with Devin asleep, his head against his arms where they rested on my legs.
That had shocked me so badly I had almost screamed. The gasping, choking noise that rattled out of my throat had alerted Luca where he was monitoring my vitals on the computer. It had turned into flashing lights and worried voices and that made my head feel like it was going to explode.
It had taken a long time for them to settle down. A lot of convincing on my part, trying to talk past my swollen throat. I had to appeal to Luca’s mother instincts, pretending to pass out. If he’d looked back at the computer, he would have known I was still awake. But he was a little too busy freaking out to remember that.
After half an hour of stressful nonsense from both of those idiots, I was sitting atop the steel table in Luca’s lab. He’d poked and prodded every inch of my body, taken blood three times, and hooked me up to four different machines.
“You’re not fine,” Luca said, without looking away from the readouts that constantly printed. “You have a headache, you’re achy, and you’re tired.”
I scowled at him, irritated. He’d known me for too long. His father had been my scientist before him, and his father before that. Their damn family had looked over me from the beginning, and they could read my every expression even when I thought I didn’t have one.
“Yeah, maybe. But I’ve been asleep for three days after whatever the hell that asshole did to me. If I wasn’t achy after that, that would be the problem.”
“You can’t lie to me, Eli.” Luca turned to me, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s bothering you? I can see the irritation in your eyes. There’s a puzzle piece you can’t fit in. Let me shave it down to the right size for you.”
Devin grumbled and rolled his eyes; he was always jealous in these moments, when I always turned to Luca. Mainly because Luca was my labcoat. My little labcoat with all of his inside knowledge and his sharp mind.
For once, though, I doubted he was going to know the answer. “Who’s the Grey Queen?” I asked.
Luca’s face shut down. He immediately turned his back on me and stared at the readings with single-minded concentration.
“Luca…” I stood off the table, nearly tipping over; my wings flexed, sending test tubes of my blood crashing to the floor but saving my face from the tile.
“Hey, watch it!” He spun around, which is exactly what I wanted him to do.
I crossed my arms, and my wings flexed out, raising over my head; there was barely enough room in the lab, but I cut an impressive figure. I wasn’t buff, but I had developed muscles that ran under my pale skin, and they stood out in sharp relief with my arms cross and my shirt across the room. Barefoot, wearing nothing but frayed jeans, with my hair still messy from my three days of sleep and my red eyes hard… Luca took a step back, swallowing hard.
“Luca. Who is the Grey Queen?” My voice had turned, cold and deadly. Eli the killer was making a comeback- if I had time to spare, I would have been scared by how easily he came back this time.
Luca tried to meet my eyes, but he quickly dropped his gaze. “W-well, I’m not really supposed to talk about this stuff…”
“Luca!”
He stiffened at the way I made his name a whip. “Right Okay. Just… jesus, Eli, fold down your wings and sit down. You’re lucky I’m not stuttering.”
“Luca,” I sighed his name that time, shaking my head. But I did what he asked. My wings folded against my back, a comforting warmth. The table jolted slightly as I jumped back up on it. Properly situated, I recrossed my arms and glared at him.
He sighed. All the sighing. Rolling over the metal chair that he usually laid claim to, he sat down in front of my table. His legs curled up to his chest, and he wrapped his arms around them, resting his chin on his knees. It was his favorite way to sit. I always found it completely weird- and just a little bit endearing, especially when he caught me staring and a light flush spread across his face.
“The Grey Queen is what the rebels of the Grey Blade call their leader.” Luca was always blunt when I managed to force him to tell me what he knew.
I mimicked the way he sat; my wings folded around me, leaving me face clear but cocooning the rest of my body in soft, feathery warmth. It made his eyes go soft. He was so easy to play to the tune I wanted.
“They call themselves grey because they supposedly stand between the light and dark sides of the city. According to them, the city’s officials- including you and the rest of the Vitals- are the black. You stand for everything that’s currently wrong with the world. At least in their view.”
“Alright. If we’re the black, then who’s the white?”
“Those who live outside the city, scrounging in the dirt for the simple, hard lives they can manage.” Luca’s face twisted up in a grimace of disgust.
I agreed with him wholeheartedly. Those people who lived outside the city risked death by malnutrition, disease, Soulless- all to avoid the clean, safe streets of the city. It made no sense at all. “So, death is better than a clean life in the city. That makes sense,” I said sarcastically, my wings closing tighter around me. “What does that have to do with the White King?”
Luca jerked, the chair rolling back slightly. “Where did you hear that?” His voice was a dark hiss, surprising me. It actually made me flinch a little.
“I-I… before that freak punched me. The first time we went out, they said ‘Long live the Grey Queen’. And then… the freak who used Kameron and Anaya as bait. Before he attacked me, he said ‘Long live the White King’. What the hell does that mean?”
Luca stood up, reaching past my wings to grab my arm. He yanked me forward and barely kept me from falling on my face. My feet skidded, slipping on the tiles as I tried to find purchase to stop him from dragging me to the door. Devin rolled his eyes again, and he was out the door before Luca shoved me through it.
“Hey, you didn’t answer my-”
The door slammed shut in my face. I reeled back from it, and it made my head swim, the world turning around me.
Devin caught me before I could fall. His arms went around my waist, my back against his chest. We stayed that way for a moment, and his head bowed; he drew in a deep breath, and the soft sigh that came after stirred my hair. Then the moment ended. He put my back on my feet, and when I turned to face him, he had the same blank expression he always did.
It made me glare at him. Irritated, I shoved past him. I was sick of people who hid themselves away behind closed expressions, who left my questions unanswered, who shut me out like I was the family mutt left in the rain. It was pissing me off more with each person who did it.
“I need ice cream,” I muttered to myself, furious. My stomping steps were no doubt heard through the whole house. Must have been, because they all wisely stayed away while I sat on the couch in the living area of the house, eating out of the gallon sized tub of ice cream while I watched the workmen clean my comrades’ blood out of the alley in front of new cameras.
The screen was broken seconds later, and I curled around the tub of ice cream, tears running down my face.
Why? Who were these Grey Blades that they felt the need to ruin my life? And how was I supposed to stop them when all it took was one of them to take me down?
There was no answer, and I drowned out the questions in my ice cream before I could pound them out against the wall.
Comments (3)
See all