Page 13 of Origin (Deridia #13)

Ellion was supposed to be sleeping. They’d washed. She’d adamantly refused his suggestion he break the shower timer so she could claim a stall for longer. They’d eaten. She’d picked at it to start, but then ate with surprising speed once she’d sat long enough.

Hana was too quiet. Too reserved. He tried to coax some response from her and was only rewarded with dim smiles and sad eyes, and it was adding to his agitation. There was no outlet for what he felt. No way for the tension to ease out of him. Something told him he’d had a method before. One denied to him now.

There was the impulse to run. Was that it? He didn’t think the guards would think kindly of prisoners slipping from their beds to run about in the dark, especially if it was about the perimeter. Could it be satisfying if he was watched? If he had to confine himself to the yard between the office and the mess hall?

He flipped over on his bed.

Did it again.

It was too warm by far, and it had not even been a hot day. He dreaded to think what warmer seasons would be like.

Intolerable.

Was he used to the cold, then?

Milder than this, of that he was certain.

Or maybe it was the conditioned air Hana so missed. That would blow on him as he slept, leaving him blessedly cool beneath his blankets.

He sat up.

It wasn’t the heat. Not really.

It was her.

Was she sleeping? Or would he find her with eyes dim with exhaustion after spending a sleepless night after a stressful day?

He was going to the lavatory. That was all. And if he ran to do it, then so much the better.

He did go, simply to tell himself there was an adequate excuse if he was stopped. Then he stood in the open yard, breathing in the fresh air. Cooler in the blackness. The stars bright and shimmering. Were they the same as back home? Wherever that might be. No names came to him. No sets of patterns. Nothing to suggest he was any sort of astronomer.

Just as well. He’d never be up there again. Not unless this entire prison fell apart.

Aside from the light of the lavatory, no other buildings were illuminated. The dorms were quiet. Settled for the night. He started walking. Didn’t run, although his body insisted it was what he needed.

He trudged. With purpose.

Not to his dorm, but to hers.

He’d seen the others. The ones that did not keep to their own cupboards. Perhaps they only took partners that belonged in the same dormitory, but he doubted it. As long as all could be accounted for, even in the midst of their trysts, the guards didn’t care.

He hoped his assessment was correct as he slipped into her dorm.

She’d always left him at the doorstep. But she knew the heat that accompanied being on the upper floor. Because she’d walked it, or because she slept there?

He turned up the stairs. It was as good a place to start as any.

The shutters were open, letting in the night air. That was permitted? Why had no one done it in his building? A breeze caught. Twisted through the maze of high beds. Let in just enough moon and starlight that he could make out the figure in their beds. Men mostly. A few women. A few shoved in so close together they’d fused.

He kept going. Had accepted he’d be doing much the same downstairs when he found her.

Or, more realistically, she recognised him first. Sat up with alarm as he peered in. “Ellion, what are you doing?”

The words were hissed, which was not the reception he was aiming for. He hadn’t actually thought so far ahead. Hadn’t considered he might frighten her with his sudden appearance. He kept to the hallway rather than intrude upon the actual space of her cupboard. Stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders, trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible. “Couldn’t sleep. Can you?”

She scrambled, pulling at blankets and tucking them about her. Did she sleep nude? He hadn’t considered that. Most especially because it would be a ridiculous thing to do given their surroundings.

Another thought. Intrusive and most decidedly unwelcome.

Was she not alone?

Or... waiting for someone?

That most certainly wasn’t him.

He took a hesitant step back.

Her bed was the farthest along the wall. It had no adjoining cupboard to block the one side, but she had a window. Those shutters were open too, giving her even more of a breeze. As private as was possible in a shared room.

She took a deep breath and some of her alarm dissipated as he made no other move toward her.

A blanket fell, and she certainly was dressed, which was a relief. Or wasn’t. He didn’t know. Not that he wanted to walk in on her naked. Certainly not. Not if she didn’t want that.

He rubbed at the back of his neck, already well aware he’d bungled this up horribly.

“What are you doing here, Ellion?” she asked again, this time softer. Less alarmed and more gentle.

“I was...” he almost admitted he was worried about her. But somehow that didn’t seem the right thing to say. Would have him kicked back to his own dorm just as soon as she could get out of bed to push him out. “Today was...” he started. Shook his head. Hard? It was, and it wasn’t. It should have been harder, which is what troubled him. Should have left him reeling. He didn’t like the dark. The smoke. The lack of breeze, the confined spaces.

He was disturbed by it, but not like she was. Maybe that confirmed he was a bad person, and he didn’t much care for that. Even though he couldn’t be entirely surprised. He was in a prison, after all. Not his first, if Hana was right about the recruitment process.

Hana softened. “I know,” she agreed. “I don’t think I prepared you well enough.” Her fingers tangled in her blanket and her head ducked. She’d found a comb to her hair. The mats were gone. The remaining tangles were simply the ones that came from tossing about in her bed, because no, she hadn’t been sleeping.

He took a step forward. They needed to be quiet before they were chorused with a round of angry hushes from inmates being kept from their sleep. “You did,” he insisted, because she’d told him most of it. Asked him still to like her at the end of it, she’d wanted that too. And he wasn’t certain he’d done an adequate job of reassuring her.

Was that what kept him awake? Knowing he’d failed in his duty to her?

Another step closer. Hovering between the wall and the foot of her bed. Closing her in. Did she mind? Or did she trust his intentions?

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

Hana blinked at him. “What?”

He gestured forward. “I can’t sleep in my bunk, and you said it was important to be rested.

“So you want to use mine?” she asked, her voice tight and a little too high pitched. Not frightened, not exactly, but on edge.

He chuckled, more air than sound, and sank to the floor.

“Ellion,” she chastised, looking over the edge of the bed. He stretched out. She’d step on him if she had to use the lav, but that was good. He’d know she’d gone.

It was presumptuous. But he felt something in him relax. It wasn’t comfortable, not in the strict physical sense. The wall was beside him, and that was a different sort of comfort. Hana was at the other, and that... that was better still.

“Did you have a shift down there?” Ellion asked. “Or was it a punishment?”

She was still disgruntled by his place on the floor. He could sense it, although she kept her arguments to herself. “Who says I had one?”

He turned his head. Found that she’d laid down again. Was peering at him over the side of the bed. “Your face,” Ellion informed her. “Your eyes,” he clarified. “It’s something different when you’ve lived it, not just felt sorry for those who have.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. “Punishment,” she admitted, so softly he almost thought she hadn’t said it at all. “I didn’t deserve it, but the guards didn’t believe I hadn’t done it, so off I went. Two weeks.”

She sniffed. Rubbed at her face. “Or so they said. I don’t know if I believe them.”

“Felt like forever?” he supplied.

Heard her blow out a tight breath. “Exactly.”

He hummed.

“I volunteered after that. To be the liaison. They weren’t going to let me, since I’d so recently been in trouble, but no one else was vying for the job. So they said it’d be temporary until someone better came along.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry I accused you earlier. Of trying to push me out. I just... get scared sometimes, I think.”

He turned his head. She was looking at him with wide eyes, imploring him to forgive her. He didn’t need to—he hadn’t been angry with her for her doubts. He didn’t know himself. They were uncovering little bits of his character together, and they might find even more that worried her. “You were protecting yourself, Hana,” Ellion reminded her. “I will not fault you for that.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to do that at the expense of my friend,” she admitted. “I’m not what they think I am. I’m not a spy. I’m not a liar. I don’t want to betray anybody. Especially not you.”

He propped his head up on his elbow. “You think you’re going to have to?”

She shrugged, her eyes shimmering. “No. Maybe? I can’t say for certain, and I hate that. It’s like a weight in here, pressing down on me.” Her hand moved to her chest. A fist.

He knew that knot well. The coiling tension that felt a little too close to panic.

Her other hand shifted as she moved, escaping the careful boundary of her cot and hanging over the edge. “You’re allowed to protect yourself,” Ellion said again. “That doesn’t make you a bad person.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “It does when it comes at the expense of someone else. Or were you a professor of philosophy before? Or a cleric? Someone that can absolve me?”

Her hand abandoned its fist to cover her mouth instead. “Oh, Ellion, I’m so sorry. Please, I didn’t mean that. I’m tired and I’m cross, but... that’s no excuse.”

He should go. But he wouldn’t. He’d wheedled his way in, and a couple of misplaced words would not dissuade him. “It’s an excuse,” Ellion disagreed. “Perhaps not an adequate one, but it’s one all the same.”

Her hand fell back, and she rolled to her side, looking far more worried than she had a moment before. Which was the opposite of what he hoped to accomplish here. “Accept my apology?” she urged. “Please?”

He could have asked if she was ordering him as his boss, but he didn’t. She seemed too raw about the edges to put up with his teasing. “If you like,” he answered gently, although he thought she was overreacting just a bit.

He stared up at the ceiling, wondering how he might help her. Wondering more how he was supposed to confess to her that he was coming to suspect he was the bad one. “I’m not convinced,” Hana complained. “But I will not badger you. Then I’ll have to apologise again. Although I suppose then you’d be able to practise how to accept when someone says sorry.”

His lips curled, but he felt far too troubled to find any real humour in the situation. “Badger if you like,” Ellion shrugged. “This was an expedition to cheer you up. I don’t think I’ve succeeded yet.”

She resettled, presumably so she could look at him a little better. “What about you?” she urged. “This must have been hardest on you. Having to see all that for the first time.”

It should have been, shouldn’t it?

He didn’t answer for a bit. Waited for her to fill the silence where his answer should have been, but she left it there. Hanging between them. For him to pour out his own feelings. He wished they would be what she expected. That she could offer him comfort and feel better that she’d helped him.

“I’m as bad as you think you are,” Ellion offered when it became more than clear she was going to wait for him to speak. “I’m pretty sure, at least,” he hedged, because he couldn’t know anything, could he? Other than he knew rain. Knew what it was to be soaked in it. And that wasn’t so difficult to carry. Not like... this.

“What are you talking about?” Hana asked, a catch of laughter at the edges of her words.

He couldn’t look at her. Just stared up at the ceiling. The edges of the sky that peeked beyond the eaves of the open window. Home was out there. Somewhere. If home was a place. Somehow, he doubted there were people that cared for him. That gave a spot permanence. His friend was here, and she was hurting, and she was waiting for him to share his own burdens.

“I don’t think that was the first dead man I’ve ever seen,” Ellion answered at last. Trying to pick out the bits that felt the most real. The most certain.

“Ellion,” Hana sighed, shaking her head slightly. “There are plenty of reasons you might have seen a dead person. A street accident. Or war, if you think you were on the outer rim. A bar brawl, even. It doesn’t mean you caused it. Just that you’ve seen it.”

She waved her hand a little. The one sticking over the edge. Just her fingers moving slightly, drawing his attention. “You’re not here for murder, remember? I know that code. I don’t know yours.”

His hand drifted to the tattoo. That didn’t itch—they’d put too many healing salves on it before they’d dumped him here. But it was almost the phantom of an itch. Like his body knew it should have. That it should take longer to heal. To sink into his dermis and settle there. Bind and hold and be as permanent as his residence in this place.

“What does it say about me?” Ellion continued, knowing he should graciously accept the reasons she offered and shove down his own doubts. “That the dark and the smoke bothered me more than seeing that? Nothing good, I can tell you that much.”

Hana was quiet for a moment. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said at last. “I’ll protect myself. And I’ll do a great job of it. And maybe I’ll even keep from hating myself afterward.”

He turned his head, but only slightly. “And what’s that going to cost me?”

Hana smiled. A little sad. A little tired. “You don’t get to punish yourself for things you can’t remember doing.”

He opened his mouth to deny her, but she pressed one. “Most especially, because you can’t remember the reason you did them. If you did them.”

His throat burned. His eyes too. And he didn’t want to think about why. “You realise this is heavily weighted in your favour,” he pointed out. “Seeing as I’ve been charged with your protection as well.”

Hana laughed softly. “Fine. Then I’ll be on your side, too. Giving you the benefit of the doubt. Reminding you to do the same until you can remember to do it for yourself.”

The burn shifted to a tightening. Or maybe it was a lump. He turned his head fully so he could look at her, and maybe she had laughed, but there was a sadness in her eyes. A worry. For herself or for him, he didn’t know.

And he’d deny her nothing. Not when she asked for so little. Held herself to impossible standards.

Just wanted to take care of herself when no one else would.

He rolled over. Grasped hold of the forearm she’d extended over the cot. Felt her surprise, then the curl of her fingers as she grasped his in turn.

He meant to say something. A quip about a deal, and how he’d hold her to it, boss or not. But he found he couldn’t.

She caught his eye. Held it. Shimmering and soft, all at once. And he felt...

Broken.

But not alone. Not while she was there. Tucked away in his own bunk, he was lost. But here—on a hard floor without even a blanket because he’d been fool enough to leave without it...

“You drive a hard bargain,” he accused, the words coming with little consultation from his mind.

“As do you,” she countered, squeezing his arm. Smiling at him so gently he thought his chest might burst. But then she swallowed, and he almost thought she meant to pull away. To roll onto her back. Away from him. “Are you going back to your bed now?”

He should. Let her sleep. Rest, now that he thought himself able.

But the answer came quickly. Easily. “No.”

And her smile spread further, and there was no denying she was pleased.

He’d done that. Despite it all.

Something right.

Something important.

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