A Winding Road to Revenge

I'd Like a Hysterectomy

When Rowan walked into the medical room, Luke was sitting up in bed, rooting through his rucksack. The poor kid looked rough. He was sporting a rather large plaster on his cheek where the gash she'd seen earlier had been and his face was still fairly covered in mud despite Myra's efforts.

Rowan perched against the table next to the bed. He looked a little taken aback as he noticed her arrival and Rowan tried her best to appear friendly though that really wasn't one of her skills. She watched his eyes trail over her, flitting from her tight ponytail, to the black swirls on her neck, to her crisp dress shirt, to the leaves on her arm, and to the knife tucked into her belt.

His eyes widened a little at the sight of that.

"What's your name kid?" she asked, trying to distract him from the presence of her weapon. She already knew his name of course but it seemed like a good place to start the conversation.

"I already told the other woman."

"So?" Rowan snapped. Apparently, it wasn't going to be that simple.

Be nice.

Zetta's smooth voice echoed in Rowan's head and it pissed her off immensely. She held his gaze. He hesitated before finally murmuring something.

"Didn't quite get that."

"Luke. Luke Daniels," he murmured a little louder.

"I see," Rowan said, "interesting."

"What's interesting?" It was almost a snap. Rowan narrowed her eyes. She spoke to people sharply all the time but she disliked it when they returned the favour - it just felt unnecessary.

"What's interesting is that we've looked you up," she said, choosing to ignore his tone. " and from what we would gather you are the son of an incredibly high ranking man and have been living a comfortable life in the Eden Colony."

"So?"

Luke was definitely not as dumb as he was making himself out to be. Rowan assumed he was just trying to be a bit of an arse - as most children seemed to do. If it wasn't for her strict instructions of 'be nice' she may have gotten her knife out - or at the very least shouted at him.

"So," she said through slightly gritted teeth. "No one in their right mind would trade the Colony for this." She gestured to the peeling paint of the medical room. Luke just shrugged. "Not unless they had a good reason." Luke glanced up and she stared at him expectantly. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

Rowan clenched her jaw, inhaled sharply, and tried desperately to clear her head of the image of just slapping the kid across the face. Her patience was wearing extremely thin.

"I was going to ask whether you had a good reason or whether you were simply out of your mind but considering your lack of ability to hold a basic conversation I'm just going to put you down as plain stupid."

"Hey!"

Rowan just shrugged, smothering a small smile. Luke looked rather irritated and she was rather enjoying it.

"I had an argument with my dad," Luke said, finally deciding to say more than two words. "Multiple actually - we argued all the time. He didn't agree with me, I didn't agree with him."

"What did you disagree on?"

"Lots of things, but mainly..." Luke trailed off and took a moment to swallow. "He didn't like who I am, never said it outright but he didn't agree with it. Refused to use my name or pronouns, always said I looked scruffy and ridiculous - especially when I cut my hair."