Moving Mela was tricky. The near mechanical manner in which the drones carried out their every order didn't really help. Before they could do anything correctly, they needed to understand what Amelia wanted, and Amelia was a bit too frustrated and worried at first to get her intentions across clearly.

We also had a distinct lack of gurneys available to us, which meant the drones were awkwardly trying to lift Mela in concert on their arms. Any normal human being would have complained or outright failed because of the positions they had to twist themselves into for that, but… again, near-mechanical drone behavior.

I, meanwhile, was forbidden to help.

That was fair. I'd frozen up. I'd floundered. And not because of the blood or the death or the trauma or whatever. It was the helplessness, the lack of resources, the fact this was Mela I was expected to treat coolly and calmly.

I'd been able to help her way back during the final attack on the Kittens, but that was different. She hadn't been hurt nearly as badly then. I'd had some resources available that could actually help. And I hadn't been convinced she was dead already.

My brain was just about to replay the moment she went down when a cold voice intruded on my misery.

"Fetch the bags, please. I'm gonna need those cybernetics."

My eyes briefly strayed from the slow huddle of Mela-transporting drones to Amelia, but she wasn't even looking at me. She was hovering next to the procession, collected and in control once again, her eyes keen and focused as she watched her patient.

I obeyed. The two dusty bags seemed so much heavier than before, somehow. Like they were now carrying all my stupidity and recklessness in them. Still, I dragged them into the back of our designated truck, just beating Amelia and her procession of medical transport drones.

They set Mela down on the truck's floor as carefully as they could and stabilized her according to Amelia's directions. Then Amelia lifted Mela's shirt and began rooting around inside the other woman's stomach, her arms buried up to the elbow in flesh.

Finally, she pulled away. She ordered the drones not currently holding Mela in place to get out and start driving back to the HQ.

Only then did she meet my eyes.

"I've got her stabilized a bit better now. All the holes she had in her have been patched up, and I even managed to encourage her body to produce blood a little faster. I think I actually felt some Essence in her, from the exercises I had her start doing as prep for the cybernetics. That might be helping, too."

She looked at me like she was expecting some kind of comment. Approval? Anger?

No…

"I'm sorry," I whispered, then winced away from the flash of anger in her eyes.

"And what, exactly, are you sorry for?"

"For making you angry? And for being an idiot, obviously. I should've… I have fucking Clairvoyance, for fuck's sake, and I let this happen! I let you put yourself in danger, too, and —"

"Adrian, I am not pissed off because you put me in danger or whatever else you just listed."

I stared at her. "You're not?"

"No. I am pissed off at the fact that you're blaming yourself. None of this is your fault!"

I just kept staring. "Isn't it?"

"You didn't even want to come here, remember? We talked you into it. Or, more accurately, we ignored your opinion and forced the issue."

"It's not like you needed to force me to come," I reminded her. "I wanted to see the condition of the slums myself. This whole thing was just so fucking stupid."

"It was. It really was. Of all the things that could have happened —" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "Doesn't matter. What matters is that it's not your fault."

I didn't say anything, letting my eyes fall on Mela and the four drones acting as bookends for the former ganger. It was almost funny how they sat there, motionless and mindless, hands supporting her limbs and bodies pressed close to hers to stop her from jostling.

Then I let myself take her in properly, and any humor fell away.

She looked so… small. Fragile. Wrong.

Mela was never still. Mela moved. She complained. She bullied people in that friendly way that always stopped just short of 'insulting' and came across as harmless jest.

But this Mela wasn't moving. This Mela looked even more unrecognizable than the one I had found living as a prisoner in Mak's apartment, and that terrified me.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

I very pointedly refused to look at her legs. One of them had fallen off entirely during the attempt to move her, like a bit of rotten sausage. Amelia had apparently planned for that eventuality, because she'd closed the wound and cut off blood flow to the lost portion of the leg even before the incident, but all my attempts to scrub it from my memory were failing.

A little growl made me look up just in time for my vision to get filled by Amelia, and then my lips were getting assaulted in the best of ways. All thoughts of trauma, regret, and worry fell away.

"There. That's better," Amelia whispered when she finally pulled back. Her eyes had filled with a gentle warmth that made me all tingly. "I'm sorry for being so snappy before. I didn't mean to make you think I was blaming you for anything. I went into ripper mode. It keeps me from being a mess and helps me stay functional, even when horrible things happen unexpectedly."

That actually did help a little to hear. The way cold had crept into her voice and robbed it of all emotion had… worried me.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Suddenly, I felt a lot more capable of holding a normal conversation.

"Thank you. I hated seeing you do it, but thank you for jumping in like that. Mela is… It's complicated and weird, but she feels like family. I never got to have a sister, or a sibling at all, but she just took me under her wing and decided I was her problem the second I got involved with the Kittens."

"Oh, I know." A teasing note I'd sorely missed slipped into Amelia's voice. "And now I don't need to tiptoe around her anymore! It's all going according to my evil plan. She can't play the disapproving older sister if I save her ass, see?"

I snickered, feeling ever more settled as negative emotions continued to drain out of me slowly. "I don't think you needed to tiptoe around her to begin with. It was kind of adorable, though."

"Was not! I am, ehh, cool and sexy?"

"Are you telling me that or asking me?"

"Telling you!"

"Hrm. I've got a few witty responses ready, but I really don't want to sleep on the couch for a month."

"Smart boy." She patted my cheek lightly, though her smile was chased by a sigh. "Now, pass me those bags, will you? I need to do a rough check on the cybernetics. I have no idea what the subpar storage method's done to them."

I did, and she quickly became busy examining our loot and muttering about it under her breath.

"These or… these? Would you say Mela's more a speedy, crafty-combat type, or an all-or-nothing kind of gal?" She grimaced. "Actually, I retract that question in light of recent events."

Eventually, she emerged from her rummaging with a pair of legs in her hands. To call them red would be the same as saying the sun is white or yellow: technically correct if you squinted at it right, but fundamentally lacking. Scarlet came closer, but it didn't quite do them justice either.

It didn't help that they gleamed just like freshly spilled blood, all glistening and reflective and hypnotizing in a uniquely disturbing way.

"What are those?" I asked, my voice completely confident and not at all worried, thank you very much.

"Behemoth cybernetics. We do actually have a pair of matching arms, but… uhhh, I'm not sure how someone would react to having so much of their body replaced by eldritch cybernetics? Could do nothing. Could, urm, have some unwanted side-effects."

"Like insanity, warping into a monster, and killing a bunch of people?"

"Exactly. Besides, her arms are fine. They'll heal right up, especially with my help. Her legs, however…"

Eyeing the stump that ended just above Mela's knee, I couldn't hold back a shudder. Or the need to wiggle my own toes, just to make sure they were all there and accounted for.

"Yeah. That checks out." I forced my gaze back to Amelia. "Are you sure it's safe?"

My lover shrugged, pairing it with a smile that didn't reassure as much as she probably thought it did. "Should be. I'll do some more testing, but I'm a lot better now at things like cybernetic installations. If she doesn't have a great compatibility with these, we can try the other pair. Just need to get to the clinic. Maybe read up on my father's data on the way, to refresh me on the relevant knowledge."

"Is it safe to leave Mela like this while you do that?"

"Yep. As safe as we can be in a moving truck with eldritch abilities involved in the treatment."

"Joy. You're making me feel so much better. Now, come here. If you're just going to read, you can do it while we cuddle."

She submitted to my tyranny with very little struggle, though I still I caught the short end of the stick. She managed to perch herself on my lap in a way that was guaranteed to cut off all blood circulation, making me wish I was the one getting leg replacements, but I heroically endured. Obviously. Because she was warm, and soft, and I needed that at the moment.

The rest of the ride was remarkably boring. I kept waiting for something to go wrong. For Mela's condition to worsen. For someone to attack us. Maybe even for drones to fuck up somehow and find a way to turn on us.

We did get stopped briefly just as we were passing the inner districts entry checkpoint. Tension and doubt flooded through me, but the stop wasn't actually unexpected. Technically, this was the moment when we were supposed to open up our trucks for a brief inspection. It was part of the normal procedure for taking massive ass trucks into a high security part of the city.

Of course, I knew that what was actually happening was an exchange of credits. Patch really had done everything he could to ensure the success of his horrid operation, and bribes to the relevant authorities had been step one of his evil master plan.

Well, we were benefiting from it now, even if it was a little annoying to pay the suspicious corruption tax. Really, if it wasn't for the situation with Mela, or our own sensitive identities, I'd have let them inspect us rather than lining their pockets.

As it was, we were let through with no fuss. The trucks pulled into the parking lot of the merc HQ remarkably soon after that. Drones were once more summoned to provide transportation, though since we managed to rustle up a gurney from the clinic, their role was confined to getting Mela from the truck onto the medical transport platform.

What happened next, though, caught me completely by surprise.

Amelia's hand found its way to my chest. "I don't think you should come with me."

"What?"

That one word was all I could manage.

"I'll be operating on Mela now, and I don't think you need to see that. Just… stay here for a bit, then go to our home? I'll meet you there as soon as I can."

"I can —"

"You can probably get through this, yes, but do you really have to? Do you really want to see me cutting her up and attaching those legs to her?"

I froze. Then I took a deep breath and turned away. "No."

I felt her briefly press against me in a hug. A kiss landed on the back of my neck. But then she was gone, leaving me with nothing but worry. And a quiet, swelling anger at the universe at large.

I blinked, and then I grinned.

I'd suddenly remembered that I had a perfectly valid target for that anger.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.