Page 170 of Bonds of Starfall

The dark, gleaming prosthetic limb rested on a metal cart beside the examination table where he lay.

It didn’t look natural—not a normal prosthetic. Something about it was sharper, harsher, under the fluorescents. Wires crossed over the joints of the elbow, hollow and thrumming with blue liquid.

The doctors began to prepare him. He struggled against them, but they easily kept him down, pushing him flat to the bed. Straps were fit over his chest, keeping him secure. Trapping him.

He bucked and thrashed, eyes wild. Dread gripped him tightly and made it hard to breathe.

"No, no!" Kit yelled. The buckles on the straps clinked, and the bed shook as he strained against his bindings.

He couldn’t think past his panic.

He just knew this couldn’t happen.

He would ratherdie.

"Sedate him!" one of the doctors barked.

"Get your fucking hands—off me," Kit snarled.

Cold, gloved hands gripped his hair, yanking his head back against the bed. He saw the gleam of a silver syringe, felt a prick of pain on his neck, then…

Nothing.

When Kit woke up, it was to a dull pain in the flesh of his upper arm, where the sleek metal of the prosthetic had been surgically fused to his flesh. And something else?—

Because the sensations running through him were different. Abnormal.

He imagined curling the fingers of his right arm, and the prosthetic’s fingers moved. He imagined raising his arm, and it did that too.

That night, staring at the white wall of his hellish prison, he made a fist and punched his pillow, feeling the angry line of where the prosthetic was fused to his flesh ignite with pain from the strain on his healing body.

He was left alone to recover for a few days, then taken to physical therapy. He was allowed to walk now and didn’t need the wheelchair. But he still had to walk slowly. The blast on the ship had torn muscles and tissue in his hip and upper thigh. Kit only saw glimpses of thick staples when he showered, unable to inspect his body fully because he wasalwaysmonitored.

The physical therapist was an older man, greying hair and beady eyes that Kit wanted to gouge out with his fingernails.

"I’m sure you have picked up on this by now, but that’s no cosmetic prosthetic. State-of-the-art mechanical components. Wires run from the joints of the prosthetic." The physical therapist’s fingers skimmed over the elbow of the prosthetic down across the forearm to the fingers.

Kit had been forced to remove his shirt, and he shivered in the cold room. The place where his skin met the sleek prosthetic was even more gruesome in the harsh lighting. Bandages still crossed over parts of his chest, and a small patch had been placed on the side of his neck. The area was tender when he moved his head too suddenly.

The physical therapist continued, "The surgeons fused the ends of the receptors just here." He touched the side of Kit’sneck, right over the bandage there. "They ran them from the end of the prosthetic under your skin. It connects to the nerves of your brain. So with practice, you’ll be able to use it just like a normal arm. Only better. The strength is tenfold that of a normal human man."

Only better,the words scraped through his mind. If his strength was tenfold, then how much of him was still human?

Time was hazy.The window in the small, colorless lounge area was almost always the same. Kit was more lucid now. He knew it wasn’t a window.

He still watched it, though, sitting on the plain white couch, imagining the sun’s warmth against his cheeks and the rustle of wind in his hair.

He stared at the prosthetic, resting palm-up on his thigh, and curled his fingers. It was as easy as breathing now, after countless physical therapy sessions.

He’d figured out long ago that in the myriad of pills they forced down his throat, somewhere in there was a Stella suppressor. He couldn’t use his Stella.

He tried not taking the pills once, but they stuck a tube down his throat and poured them straight into his stomach. For a few days following that, even drinking water hurt.

Curling his other hand into a fist, he raised them both, staring at the difference in skin and bone of his left compared to the sleekness of his right.

If only he had his Stella, he could do something. If he couldn’t escape, he sure as hell could take them down with him. Make them hurt like they’ve hurt him.

Somewhere during his time being trapped and prodded like a rat in a lab, Kit’s apathy had turned to sick, hot rage.