Pitch Dark by Courtney Alameda

Author:Courtney Alameda
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

USS JOHN MUIR NPS-3500

LOCATION UNKNOWN

TUCK

Once the tram’s rushing forward and the griefer’s roar becomes a memory, I rush to Laura. She slouches against the tram’s back wall, sobbing. Blood and vomit smear the floor around her. Tears collect in her lashes. Her shoulder’s gashed, her big toe’s got a compound fracture, and broken glass studs the soles of her feet.

But frag me, she’s alive.

Breathing, too.

She wipes bile off the side of her mouth. Sweat sticks long pieces of her hair to her temples. A flashback of Holly grabs me by the throat. I shake it loose, shake it off, and sink to the floor beside Laura.

“Hey, you made it, you’re going to be okay.” I remove her cloak and balaclava, ball it up, and press it into her torn shoulder. I place her good hand over the makeshift compress. “Hold that there—that’s good. ’Tis just a flesh wound, am I right?” I know she doesn’t get the reference, but saying those words in a Pythonesque voice still brings a shaky smile to her face.

“How long till we get to safety?” she asks.

“Fifteen minutes,” I say. “The tram’s operating on partial power.”

“Ay, ay, ay,” she says, gulping down a big breath. Closing her eyes, she rests the back of her head against the wall. Her fingertips curl against the hollow of her throat.

“If you want painkillers—”

“It’s not the pain that’s bothering me,” she says.

Propping one of her feet in my lap, I pick slivers of glass out of her skin. “How do you say ‘liar, liar’ in Spanish?”

“It doesn’t matter what language you say it in,” she says through gritted teeth. “Trust me, I’ve had worse.”

What could be worse than this? Her feet are wrecked. A fractured bone in her big toe juts out of her skin, a white shank coated in blood. Glass hunks glitter like rubies growing out of her skin. Small tufts of insulation cling to her wounds.

If I’d been injured this bad, I would’ve pussed out back on the train.

“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a badass, Laura Cruz?” I ask, plucking a chunk of glass from her foot. I flick it under a nearby seat.

She shakes her head, lower lip trembling.

“Well, they should. I’ve never seen someone outrun a griefer. All I’ve got in this first aid kit is a mild painkiller. Do you want some?”

She nods. I drop the pills in her palm, then spend the next few minutes picking glass out of her skin, before bandaging the wounds as best I can with the first aid kit in the tram.

“You going to take those pills?” I ask her.

“Maybe with a little water.”

“Oh, duh.” I hand her my canteen.

The lights flicker overhead, glitching. Laura glances up at them as she swallows her pills, exposing her throat. In the hollow between her collarbones, something moves beneath her skin. I narrow my eyes.

That was too big to be a pill.

Gently, I place a finger on the nub in the hollow of her throat, smearing blood on her skin.

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