Neodymium Betrayal by Jen Finelli

Author:Jen Finelli [M.D., Jen Finelli,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WordFire Press

Jei

In the early morning, surrounded by dew on the cold metal, I awoke again, this time to Mera’s soft sniffling. She wasn’t really either asleep or awake—she seemed caught in some in-between trance, curled motionless in the fetal position beside me as tears pooled underneath her face. I didn’t want to scare her by shaking her shoulder, but bloodseas, I couldn’t just leave her stuck in that.

I nudged her with her backpack. “Hey, Mera, wake up, okay?” She didn’t wake up.

“Shyte,” I grumbled. “Don’t make a hypocrite out of me. I won’t touch you.”

I nudged her with the backpack again, a little harder. She continued to weep in silence.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Hey, wake up!”

I gripped the metal underneath me for the stability of its sea of electrons, and channeled an em-pull through it that jerked her flat on her back against the floor. With the thud, her eyelids fluttered open.

Tears still rolled down her cheeks as she stared blankly at the sky. I got up to crouch beside her, feeling immensely guilty for the rough awakening.

“Hey,” I said in a softer voice, leaning over her. “Are you okay?”

She blinked, as if seeing through me for a moment, and then her pupils constricted as she focused on my face. She shook her head.

I offered her a hand. She flopped her palm into it and dropped her other arm across her face; her lower lip quivered, and she let out a trembling sigh.

“While I appreciate the high five, I was going to help you up,” I said to her.

Her snuffle told me she’d found that a little funny. But when I pulled her arm gently, she let herself hang limp.

“I’m so stupid. I’m sorry for crying,” said her muffled voice, through the arm across her face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “Now if we were in battle, and you started doing this, I might have words for you. But everyone’s got some terrible shyte in their heads these days.”

“Not like mine.” The muffled voice grew cold. Mera took back her hand and wiped off her face as if she was mad at her eyes. A glowering gaze stared into the sunrise.

“No one’s is like yours,” I agreed. “No one’s is like mine, either. Everyone’s got their own coals to walk.”

Mera kept her eyes fixed on the orange and pink light creeping into the blue above us. Unlike the north continent, with its onyx sky, Alpino’s more equatorial areas had brilliant, multicolored mornings and evenings. Mera’s chest heaved, then deflated in a large sigh as she blew out her breath.

“I shouldn’t be such a baby. I let it happen,” she muttered.

“What someone did to you, or even what you think you let someone do to you, isn’t who you are,” I growled. I stood, then, to give her some space, and shake off the sudden anger that came over me. I wasn’t going to argue with her or prod, and while I had guesses, I didn’t really know what she was talking about—I figured if she wanted to say more, she would.

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