Dead and Buryd: A Dystopian Action Adventure Novel (Out of Orbit Book 1) (21 page)

“He didn’t do anything, Lil’,” Georgianna said quietly as she returned to the bar. “Things are fine. At least, I think they are.”

“You think?” Liliah asked.

Georgianna frowned, scratching behind her ear as she tried to think of what to say. She couldn’t tell Liliah about Taye. It wouldn’t be fair to force that sort of secret on her.

“I don’t agree with him on something,” she admitted, “and I don’t know if he’s going to be upset about it.”

“Why would he be upset? After all, aren’t you two just… friends?”

“Yes, we are, but this is different.”

“Why?”

Resting her elbow against the bar, in front of all the bottles positioned neatly in their rows, she thought of how to explain without actually explaining. Liliah knew Georgianna worked down the Way whenever she could, but telling her that she was involved in the escape of a drysta was too dangerous.

“It’s about my sister’s job,” she said, making sure to pronounce every syllable correctly. “It’s not the safest job.”

Liliah stared back at her in blank confusion. Liliah knew that Georgianna didn’t have a sister, and she opened her mouth twice before the light of understanding flickered in her eyes.

“Okay,” she answered, pausing for a moment. “So why would he be upset? It’s nothing to do with him, right?”

“No, it’s not, but he’s being… I don’t know, he’s… he doesn’t want her to get hurt.”

Liliah could not stop a small squeak of laughter. Looking at Georgianna, she offered an apologetic expression that didn’t quite look sincere as the smile pressed against her lips. Georgianna looked back at her in surprise, raising an eyebrow as she tried to work out what was so amusing.

“Sounds like he’s protective, if you ask me,” she beamed.

“So?”

“So, it’s not like a man who’s ‘just having fun’ to be protective of his friend’s sister, is it?” Liliah asked. “Sounds like he’s not simply taking advantage anymore.”

“Who said he was taking advantage?”

“Isn’t he?”

“No, he’s not, Lil’. He’s not tricking me or promising me things he won’t deliver. I knew what I was getting into.”

“Short term, yes,” Liliah answered. “But long term?”

Georgianna tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear and crossed her arms. Seeing the look on Georgianna’s face, Liliah held her hands up.

“Alright, alright, forget it,” she said. “So you disagree. What’s the problem?”

Liliah shrugged as she collected up a couple of glasses from the bar and handed them over to Penn. Georgianna grabbed a cloth, absently wiping the same spot on the bar.

“I don’t want to fight with him.”

“Well, there’s your problem.”

“Where?”

“You don’t want to fight. You never do. You keep doing something while it feels good and then run away as soon as there’s a problem. Isn’t that why you stopped seeing the other guy, because you fought and you didn’t like what he said?”

Georgianna’s brow furrowed and she shrugged.

“You don’t stick around to see if something will work. You just move on to the next thing that feels good. You think Qiyan and I never fight?”

Liliah gave a sudden bitter laugh and shook her head, using the glass in her hand and gesturing with it. She moved her hand so violently that, for a moment, Georgianna thought the glass might be flung out of Liliah’s slim fingers and shatter into a thousand pieces.

“We fight all the time, but we stick at it because we love each other,” Liliah said. “Suns, we fight over this place, but he knows it brings food in.”

Georgianna wasn’t entirely sure where Liliah was going with this. If she was trying to convince Georgianna that she should talk to Keiran, even though it might make him angry, telling her how much she fought with her fiancé wasn’t the right way to go about it.

“You know what’s best about the fighting?” Liliah asked suddenly.

Georgianna frowned.

“Nothing?”

“The sex,” Liliah answered. “Angry-fight sex, or after-fight sex, it’s brilliant.”

From his place at the bar, Edtroka snorted with laughter. Both girls turned quickly to look at him, their eyes wide in surprise and embarrassment that he’d been listening to their conversation. Still chuckling, Edtroka raised one hand.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he said through a smirk.

Georgianna glared at him before turning back to Liliah, lowering her voice significantly.

“So what? You’re saying I should tell Keiran about… my sister’s job? So I can have angry sex?” she asked.

“No,” Liliah answered bluntly. “I’m saying that if you’re not willing to tell him something just because it might cause a fight, if you won’t stick around for the bad, how can you ever expect him to stick around and fight for you?”

Liliah was called away by a customer before Georgianna managed to think of a suitable response. Even as the night progressed she couldn’t find a comeback to prove Liliah wrong. The problem was, the longer it took for her to think of an argument to the brunette’s point, the more she thought that actually, Liliah might not be wrong after all.

 
21
Wrench in the Works

 
It was late by the time Georgianna finally finished at Crisco and made her way from the Rion district. It felt like stone blocks had attached themselves to her hands and feet, making the walk through the streets long and laborious. While it usually only took a short time to walk the stretch to the nearest safe tunnel entrance, Georgianna felt like she’d been walking for hours before she could finally slip down into the lit main line. Even then, down in the tunnels, in the quiet of the night, it felt like too long a time until she could make the turning unseen into the stretch of Belsa-controlled passages.

The guard recognised Georgianna before she even realised he was there, and proceeded to ramble and panic about a problem down Medics’ Way. Georgianna didn’t stop to find out what the problem was. The fact that a guard was still on post was enough to tell her the Belsa hadn’t been discovered, and despite the aching in her legs, she set off at a run down the tunnel.

Coming into Medics’ Way, Georgianna expected chaos. The way the guard had told her about it made it sound like it was a big problem. However, apart from a pained groaning echoing from one of the cars, all seemed relatively quiet. Still, Georgianna kept hurrying down towards the car, hauling herself up and dropping her bag to the side of the door.

Jaid had her back to her, her short dark hair mussed from being woken up in a rush. Georgianna moved further into the car, trying to see what was going on.

“Wrench?”

Wrench was lying on the bed before her. His dark skin was beaded with sweat, his breath, too fast for Georgianna’s liking, came in quick pants that left no space for anything else. His trousers had been left intact but his shirt, always tattered at best, was torn from neck to hem, lying open across the bed to show a large, purple and red angry welt across his barrelled chest.

“George!” Jaid cried, stepping back from Wrench’s side and reaching into a bucket, pulling out a cloth and wringing it, using it to clean an oozing wound. “Where have you been?”

“Work,” Georgianna answered, stepping closer to Wrench and placing the back of her hand across his stomach to gauge his temperature. “What happened?”

The taught skin across Wrench’s skin was searing hot, radiating out from a weeping wound of burned flesh. Georgianna didn’t even need to hear Jaid’s answer before she knew exactly what had happened.

“Copaq. He came in an hour ago, I’ve not been able to stop the sweats, and nothing will take the pain away.”

Georgianna frowned and moved to her bag. Flipping it open, she dug through it until she found a small, linen bag. She tugged it out, pulling the drawstring open and taking out a shiny, lilac pill.

The copaq didn’t injure like a normal gun. Instead of firing a metal bullet, a copaq, whether one of the small hand weapons or a larger rifle, projected a gel pellet which, though hard when shot, splattered across the skin upon contact. When the gel hit, it sent out a number of electrical charges as it reacted with the skin, slowly fading away as the chemical inside the gel was used up. Even after scraping the gel from the skin, the damage had been done. The Adveni used them mainly on capture missions because the electrical charges shooting through the body made it impossible to run. Unfortunately, healing the injuries was also made difficult, as the Veniche had little with which to counteract the chemical.

“What’s that?” Jaid asked as she dabbed the damp cloth against the welt.

Wrench let out a pained cry.

“Drugs. They’re Adveni.”

“Where did you get Adveni medicine?” Jaid asked suspiciously.

“Compound,” Georgianna explained, stepping past Jaid. “Here, Wrench, swallow this.”

“It won’t help.”

Georgianna and Jaid spun around, the wet cloth slipping from Jaid’s fingers to the floor with a wet slap. Jacob was leaning into the car, his curly hair dishevelled from sleep.

“Jacob, go back to…”

“No, wait.” Georgianna interrupted. “Jake, what won’t work?”

Jacob swung his legs up into the car with surprising agility for someone who had so many healing injuries. He came and looked down at Wrench.

“The cloth, it won’t help. Neither will your drugs. They design it that way.”

“Then what will?” Jaid snapped.

From Jacob’s time as a drysta, Georgianna wondered whether he had more experience with the wounds the weapons created. She didn’t want to think about how Jacob would know about copaq weapons.

“Something cold,” he said. “Wrapped in hyliha leaves.”

“What?”

“It can be anything cold, but the hyliha is what does it. And you should make him drink that water, not wash him with it.”

Georgianna looked at Jaid in confusion. Hyliha leaves weren’t often used for anything important, so why would they work when apparently nothing else would? Jaid didn’t seem too pleased with Jacob’s assessment, and Georgianna was sure that given the choice, she would tell him to go back to the car he currently called home. The man was only twenty-one. He had been fourteen when he was taken by the Adveni. At most, he had three years’ training, not enough to know about different medicines, even if he’d been training as a medic. With all his injuries and the things he had suffered, Georgianna had never even thought to ask him.

“I don’t have any hyliha leaves,” Jaid answered after a moment, crouching to collect the cloth from the floor.

Georgianna watched as Jaid shook off the cloth and dunked it back into the water, wringing it out and moving back to Wrench’s side. Frowning, she glanced back and forth between the three people in the train car, daring them to defy her. During her training, Georgianna had been taught that hyliha was only useful if you had nothing else. It could be used to sooth irritation and to cool the burning of heat, but there were other things that worked better. Hyliha was only used as a last resort until you could get your hands on something better.

Georgianna glanced down at the pill in her hand. She didn’t know what to think. They’d treated men with copaq wounds before and the pill always took away some of the pain. Not all of it, but at least some. Stepping to the side, Georgianna picked up a canteen and shook it. Water sloshed inside the metal, and she moved over to Wrench’s side.

“Swallow this,” she urged, dropping the pill into his open mouth and carefully moving the canteen to his lips.

Wrench swallowed, small sips at first, but within seconds he was reaching for the canteen, grasping it and tipping more water down his throat. Georgianna stared in surprise before her gaze darted to Jacob. He was watching silently, his fingers wound in the material of his shirt. He said the pills wouldn’t help, but here Wrench was, gulping down water like he was already feeling better. Georgianna’s mouth dropped open as a realisation hit her. When she had been healing copaq wounds before, it hadn’t been the pills that were helping; it was the water they used to wash it down.

She pulled the canteen away and dunked it back into the bucket.

“George, what are you…”

“He’s right!” Georgianna cried, bringing the canteen back to Wrench’s lips and letting him take hold like an infant at bottle. “The water! I… We need hyliha!”

“George, I already told him, we don’t have any!” Even Georgianna could hear the edge of desperation in her voice.

“No,” Georgianna answered, a smile on her lips. “But Lacie does!”

“What?”

“Lacie has hyliha leaves! I gave them to her for grinding practice!”

Georgianna signalled to Jacob.

“Give him as much water as he can drink.” She turned to Jaid. “I’m going to get Lacie!”

Georgianna was already slipping past them, jumping down out of the train car as Jaid’s desperate cry for her to come back followed, not fast enough to catch her and drag her back inside.

Sprinting down the tunnels, Georgianna turned through the passageways, a stitch burning in her side by the time she reached Beck’s car. She felt energised and awake, the weight in her legs dissipated in her desperation to help Wrench, and elated at a new method of treating his wounds. Leaping up into the car, Georgianna tripped and stumbled forward, straight into a pile of crates stacked against the wall.

The crash echoed and reverberated as Georgianna slid down the wall, landing with a thump against the floor. Before she could right herself, she glanced up to find a gun barrel had been levelled at her chest.

For a second, she stared down the barrel of the weapon before a relieved and admittedly frustrated sigh came from behind it.

“George?” Beck asked, rubbing his hand over his face and blinking to make sure he was right in his assessment. “What the hell you thinking, waking a man like that?”

“Lacie,” Georgianna gasped. “I need Lacie.”

“Huh? Why?”

Lacie’s bleary voice slipped from behind the canvas hanging and out into the main area of the car. Georgianna glanced over her shoulder as the hanging was pulled to the side, Lacie’s mussed hair falling over her face, a shirt large enough for a full grown man hanging down to her thighs.

“Lace!” Georgianna cried.