Hunger and the Green by R J Theodore

Author:R J Theodore
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781732525962
Publisher: Creative Jay

Ada and Frankie concoct a plan

Zhook lay on the table, her breathing shallow with pain, her muscles tensed despite the stupor that Ada had put her into. It was not sleep, not exactly, but with sigils marked in blood on the mermaid’s skin, Ada had rerouted Zhook’s energy into healing the wounds, effectively paralyzing her. The harder she tried to fight it, the less strength she would have, and the better her body would heal. It wouldn’t last forever, but for now it gave her the first moment of peace she had felt since this all began.

Ada didn’t care about the healing, whatever she told the creature. Ada would kill Zhook herself, once she had Elias back.

During the procedure, she had been alert to the presence of the Yu’Nyun crate. It stood as a monolith in the corner of her workshop. Between Frankie’s presence and the possibility presented by the simula, she had dared to hope again. It put her on the verge of tears, her hands shaking, her lip trembling unless she held it firm under her teeth.

She had no means by which to retrieve her brother’s soul, but she had the ideal vessel for it. And she had help, from a strong and clever woman. She was not alone in this anymore.

She fought to control the tremble in her fingers and put the suture needle down in the tray with the high-pitched rattle of metal. “While she rests, we should plan for our journey.”

Frankie stripped off the apron she’d been wearing to assist Ada and gave her a look that communicated a lot of unspoken judgments regarding the situation. They didn’t dare speak their minds, either of them.

Zhook was incapacitated, though not unconscious. Much of her attention was diverted to the struggle against her unresponsive muscles, but she watched Ada through eyes clouded with pain, frustration, and fury.

Ada no longer trusted in luck. Zhook had outmaneuvered every previous attempt to sedate her, but the major surgery of reconnecting her waist to her original hips finally provided the pretense to convince the mermaid to allow anesthetic. Ada took no chances, mixing a sedative five times the concentration of the last. Still, it only seemed to dull her pain. Zhook clung stubbornly to awareness.

Frankie followed Ada out of the workshop and into the kitchen, where Ada scoured the mermaid’s blood from the seams of her chitin plating under boiling water and put on a new pot of water for tea.

“We should kill her.” Frankie had crossed her ankles and her arms and was leaning against the heavy central table. Ada shushed her, splattering water as she waved her wet hands for quiet.

“No!” She lowered her voice. “Elias is still in there.”

“Do you have a plan to get him out? Because if you don’t…”

Ada looked over her shoulder, certain that Zhook would be standing in the doorway. But that was ridiculous. Even if she wasn’t drugged and warded, there was no way she would be moving about so soon after her tail reattachment.

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