Player hadn’t realized she was close. He didn’t want her near him. Not when he wasn’t in control.
“Stay still, Player,” Steele ordered softly. “Let me take care of you.”
Player subsided. He didn’t dare go against Steele when he used his “doctor” voice. In any case, Player wasn’t altogether certain what was really happening. He stayed still and listened, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Explain why you think Player would be better off here with you instead of with me in my home,” Steele continued as if nothing had interrupted them.
“I can’t explain it any more than you can explain to me what you’re doing right now,” Zyah said. “Only that I have an absolutely strong reaction against you taking him from here.” She hesitated. “Even when I don’t want him here.” There was honesty in her voice.
Zyah seemed to hesitate again, as if she were trying to decide what to say and how to say it. Player tried to focus on her, but even that small concentration put too much strain on him and pain exploded through him. Steele all but snarled at him, and he made an effort to keep very still and allow his brain to do the same.
Zyah’s voice was decisive when she spoke. “You have a tremendous gift, Steele. I’ve never seen anything like it. I doubt if Player would have survived without you, and I know he’ll need your constant care for a while. Just the last few days have proven that. But I have a strong gift as well, and Player and I are connected in a very elemental way. Your talent works on the brain itself, repairing it. My gift works on the mind. I can only tell you that I believe with everything in me that if you take him away from me, we’ll lose him. Something terrible will happen.”
There was a long silence. Player willed Steele to say no. He couldn’t stay there and endanger Zyah, not when he couldn’t remember much beyond the caterpillar smoking and the lobsters riding the cyclones in the sea. Or the materials for making bombs laid out on the table for him to start work. He couldn’t get past the pounding in his head to pry his eyelids open. Maybe the blood had sealed them shut permanently. He allowed himself to drift on the waves of pain as they rose and fell through his head.
The next time Player woke, he knew he was alone, but he had no idea where he was. He tried to figure it out, but the pain was too brutal. What had it been this time? What had they done to him? To his body? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to. Sweat beaded from his pores. He had no idea of time passing, but he rarely did. The pounding in his head prevented movement and thought. He just let the pain take him wherever it wanted to go.
Player wasn’t like the others. They had useful talents. All of them did, whether they thought so or not. Lana didn’t think she contributed much to their unit, their family—and they’d become one, thanks to Czar. Player knew better. Lana brought them all comfort. When it was at the bleakest hour, when there was no hope, Lana brought them out of the darkness. She found a way. The rest of them all had talents that counted, that contributed to their survival. What did he do for them? He skated the edge of danger all the time. The others just weren’t aware of it as he was.
The knowledge had been growing in him ever since the unfortunate mushroom incident. That had provided endless laughter for his family. Player had laughed with them—on the outside. On the inside, he had grown very scared. He knew something was wrong with his brain, and that something was getting stronger, taking him over.
All of them had been so hungry. They were always hungry. Starving. Freezing cold and hungry. Held down in what they referred to as the dungeon, the basement of the school they all attended, they huddled together in a little pile of shivering bodies, leaking blood from open wounds and trying to stay alive. He wasn’t certain why they bothered trying most of the time, but self-preservation was strong in all of them. Absinthe took turns with his older brother Demyan, or Transporter, reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. They did the voices, and that kept their minds off the ever-present hunger.
Where had that book come from? It hadn’t been in the meager library of books they stole from. He tried to remember. Every time he did, like now, there was an explosion of pain accompanied by a memory of the long table with the pieces of the equipment laid out precisely, the way he always laid out the materials before he began building bombs. Behind him stood Sorbacov with his ever-present pocket watch, while Player hunched naked on the bench, trying to build the bomb fast to avoid the punishment—the whip tearing the flesh from his back if he didn’t beat his last time.