Unravel by Imogen Howson

Author:Imogen Howson [Howson, Imogen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Action & Adventure, General, Science Fiction, Family, Siblings
ISBN: 9781442446595
Google: eQB0AgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1442446587
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2014-07-07T23:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

SHE LEFT them to die.

It was late afternoon, and Elissa was alone for the first time in hours, walking down one of the shiny-white, sterilized-clean corridors of the city spaceport hospital.

The flyer had gotten them to safety at the spaceport several hours ago, but it wasn’t until now that she’d had the chance to seek out a few minutes alone with Cadan.

Sofia and Felicia had both been taken to the hospital the moment they arrived at the spaceport. Sofia had been bandaged up, given an antibiotic injection, and was resting, El waiting in a chair next to her bed.

The rest of the group were in the hospital too, although they were in the waiting rooms, not the treatment wing. Unlike normal hospitals, the spaceport hospital had been built underground, and right now was about the most secure place they could go.

Felicia’s condition had been a whole lot more serious than Sofia’s, but she, too, was recovering. Her wound was clean and stitched, she’d been given a blood transfusion and pumped full of anti-infection drugs and healing accelerants. The rest of the Phoenix crew had been allowed to see her as she lay pale and tranquil in drug-induced sleep, and everyone had told Elissa how well she—Elissa, not Felicia—had coped. Everyone, too, had told Elissa and Lin how well they’d both done, how amazing they’d been, how fantastic their linked powers were. It was the recognition, the praise Elissa had thought she’d wanted. Now, though, every time anyone said anything about it, she felt as if she were once again breathing in the dirt and dust from back in the square, feeling it sting her eyes, clog her throat, lie bitter on her tongue.

She left them to die. I asked her to help and she wouldn’t. The thought seemed to burn through her brain. She pushed through a swinging hospital door, letting it flap shut behind her, glancing up at the exit sign on the clean white wall.

As soon as they knew Felicia would be okay, Cadan had left the hospital. He’d gone in the shuttlebug with Markus and one IPL official, back to the base where they’d left the Phoenix. Commander Dacre had organized clearance, and he’d been going to fly the ship back to the spaceport. That had been several hours ago. He’d sent a message through IPL channels to say he’d gotten back safely, but Elissa hadn’t seen him. He’d stayed aboveground with the Phoenix, overseeing its preparation and refueling for the twenty-four-hour journey to Philomel.

For our evacuation.

Well, what did I expect? I should never have let her come back in the first place.

They’d known it was a risk, known they were returning to danger. But—and now Elissa couldn’t believe she’d ever been so naive—it hadn’t crossed her mind that the risk would be not to Lin’s safety, but to her humanity.

By returning to Sekoia, she’d brought Lin back to the world that had declared her nonhuman, the world that had treated her like a lab animal, that had wanted her imprisoned—and if not imprisoned, dead.

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