Skin Rebellion by Tania Hutley

Author:Tania Hutley [Hutley, Tania]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Tori eventually passes out at the table. Cale carries her to one of the beds and pulls a blanket over her. Keren and Spade are almost as drunk as Tori, but they manage to stumble to bed under their own steam.

Cale switches off the main light, leaving a small glowing bulb on so the room’s not pitch black. He sits next to me on my bed, careful to choose my uninjured side. “How are you feeling?” He whispers the question, though Tori’s already snoring, and the other two won’t be far behind.

I consider how to answer. My shoulder still throbs, and so does my head. My throat’s sore and my arm feels like a squad of stompers have been jumping on it.

Worse is the tightness in my chest when I try to figure out how I can keep both my promise to Ma and my promise to Tori. The Meat Locker is full of pods. Once I start waking the soldiers and they realize what I’m doing, they’ll attack me for sure. How will I wipe all their chips and get William away?

But I’m too exhausted to tell Cale all that. My head is fuzzy. Maybe in the morning I’ll be able to come up with a solution.

Instead, when I open my mouth, a question comes out that I’ve wanted to ask since I saw how worried he was that I’d been shot. “Have you forgiven me?”

Cale’s just a dark silhouette on the bed beside me, so I can’t see his expression. He lets out a long breath that sounds surprised. “Milla, you saved my life. The only reason you got shot is because you dived on top of me.”

“Is that a yes?”

I hear him move before I feel his warm fingers slide over my hand. “Tell me you won’t lie to me again.”

My heart speeds up at his touch. “Only the truth from now on. I promise.”

Maybe it’s because sitting in darkness feels like a kind of privacy, and I’m wrung-out and exhausted, but it feels easier to say what I’m thinking than it ever has. Or maybe it’s because having to watch your friends die makes everything else seem trivial, and secrets are pointless. Whatever the reason, I feel like I can share anything with him.

“I told you about how I’m stronger now,” I add. “Even though I was afraid you’d think I was a freak.”

“A freak? Are you kidding? I was jealous.” He sighs. “Having super powers would make my life so much easier.”

“It’s helped, for sure. Without the extra strength, I’d have been carved up in the director’s lab. But I don’t want to think too hard about it, in case it disappears. Nobody seems to know why my Skin affected me like that in the first place. I could just as easily go back to normal.”

“I’m glad it did affect you like that. And thank you for saving my life today.”

I shiver at the reminder of how close he came to being shot. “The only reason I needed to save it was because I put it in danger.

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