Page 41 of The Last Hope

“Will you ever shut up?” I retort.

Irritation flares madly in both of us, and he takes a harsher drag from the cig.

I cough into my fist, stifling a glare.

“I hate when you two fight,” Franny mutters from across the small room. She’s peering into the glass cabinets that contain medical instruments.

“Court started it,” Mykal mumbles, picking up his hunting knife and wood.

I do glare, this time at the sky port. “How long have I been in the sick bay?” I ask, hurrying to take note of our new setting. A row of seven cushioned benches, including the one I’m on, line one side of the room. Cabinetry on the other.

Dotted squiggles and calligraphy are scrawled in ink on each tawny wall. Possibly an ancient, decorative map.

“About five hours, I think,” Franny answers.

“You think?” I crane my neck over my shoulder. Behind me, a wide, silver-framed screen is hung. Much like the ones in the atrium, but instead of moving photographs, I trace the vivid blue outline of a male body that rotates slowly.

My body.

Familiar numbers flash in a column to the right of the silhouette.

118/73.Must be blood pressure. Stable.

84.Heart rate. Stable.

Though, my medical knowledge is based on a Saltarian. Not a human. I can only assume that biologically, we’re very similar. But this monitor is far more advanced than the equipment in Yamafort’s hospital. Where I once walked the halls as a physician.

“We only found a clock in the sick bay an hour ago,” Franny explains. “We didn’t want to wake you.”

Mykal snuffs out his cigarette with the heel of his boot. “You weren’t tossing or turning. You felt… at peace.”

Did I?

I unconsciously touch my chest and solidify at the sight of my clothes. What… is this? I’m wearing a short-sleeved, high-collared white cloth that ends at my thighs, my tattoos peeking out on my quads. A leather belt is tied at my waist.

“That’s a tunic apparently,” Franny explains, taking a seat on the closest bench.

“It’s odd-looking,” Mykal mentions, carving a chunk out of the wood. “But you make it look handsome.” His neck reddens, and I feel the flush ascend his face, as though the heat belongs to me.

I swallow my feelings.

“Mykal undressed you,” Franny says, catching my gaze. “He made everyone leave the room.” She smiles at that. “I only took off your socks.”

I’m appreciative. For both of them. I should say this aloud, but I find myself on a mission to loosen the leather belt.

I’ve been in insurmountable pain, and now I feel none.

Careful, I lift only a corner of the tunic up to my waist. TheLucretziacrew must not wear undergarments beneath tunics because I clearly wasn’t supplied any. Some kind of medical dressing is clinging to my hip.

“He said it’s a Band-Aid,” Mykal tells me, flaking wood. I don’t ask where he found the material to whittle. A stool near the door is missing a leg and leans askew.

I peel the sticky bandage off my hip. Stitches removed, they cauterized the cut. My golden-brown skin appears less aggravated and exponentially healthier.

Yet I slept… almost too well. “What medicine did they give me?”

“Something to rid your infection,” Franny says, “and painkillers. Stork told us that humans can die too easily from infections if we’re not careful.”

I inspect my arms for bruising, for any intravenous fluids, but I’m not covered in cords or wires. All I discover are two translucent, thin dots stuck to my wrist.