Legacy

Chapter 8: Strangers Old and Strangers New

The good news was that they didn't use the tranquilizer on me. It always gave me a bitch of a head-ache afterwards so I was somewhat relieved they skipped that pain. The bad news was that as I sat outside the security office, awaiting my punishment for another infraction, I heard the words 'attitude re-adjustment' and 'shock therapy' cast out into the discussion. 

Out in the cold hallway, there was brief flashes of heat as the incinerator was used frequently. A coupling or score of people would pass down every so often, their talk evaporating as they saw me like good intentions in the midst of battle. A hand would flick out, waste would slice through the air and then settle into the incinerator. 

Crimson sparks, fleeting heat and it was gone. Scraps of food, high-security tablets even a clunky bag that I swore was stained with blood. It might have been a splash of paint, a swathe of awkwardly placed material inside - or even light reflecting off the cloth oddly. 

I liked to pretend it was blood though. Blood always had better histories. It could have been an accident with a sharp knife, a masochistic offering to Sol in hopes for good luck or maybe, it was an angry slice across someone's skin, a desperate need for scarlet sights - a scream that stayed in a killer's mind long after the blood on the bag had dried.

I shouldn't have been surprised they were bandying around the idea of shock therapy.

Footsteps sounded around the corner, slowly echoing to where I was sitting. I wondered if the fire would lay waste to more abandoned things. There was always a story and I was bored enough that all I could do was try and unravel them with pieces and shots of people that I didn't know and shards of pasts that were probably, in the end, nothing.

"Does every scene in your life always have to feature you in the centre," a voice addressed me. The chair next to me creaked slightly as a weight pressed down upon it. "Or has it all just been an... interesting coincidence?"

Interesting. Even the word sounded as interesting as it detailed. The way the s was curled out like the crack of a whip and then the sharp ending, grouped with the s: the sting, the syllable that sounded so sarcastic so every time someone spoke the word interesting to you, the sting made you think that it wasn't interesting after all.

"An interesting and happy coincidence," I replied, angling my head to see Stellaire. Even as he sat in the chair, he was hard planes and height, his legs reaching out farther than mine. He seemed mild for the moment, but the kind of calmness bordered by sharpness that seemed unique to him. "But wait. Someone I barely knew once told me I was an entitled bitch. Maybe I'm just egotistical." 

"Well, maybe I was wrong," Ryder said, showing more teeth than smile. "Maybe you're just a bitch." 

"I feel like you're stripping away my personality. Now the fact I'm bitchy is the only thing I can hold onto. I better not be nice for a couple more months or there'll be nothing left." He stayed silent for a moment as another two people rounded the corner. Both guys: one short, one average, both ridiculously loud. One tossed something crumpled and silver into the incinerator absent-mindedly. All I saw was the tint of silver and then it was lost. 

"Why do they call you a soldier?" Ryder asked me. 

"And I thought we were sharing a deep moment." I laughed: sharp, high, and completely unsurprised. Stellaire wasn't the type you wanted to get to know anyway. "I guess they call me that because I punch harder than any of them. That, and I broke their bones a few times over. Turns out people actually get pissed off about that stuff." 

"How'd you learn?" he questioned me. His directness made me wary. It wasn't technically illegal for those born into certain characteristics to not be allowed to dabble in other behaviours. But it had been Alaysa who'd taught me and I wasn't gambling with her. I didn't like Stellaire and I definitely didn't trust him. Being the Sol's Light's daughter heightened every risk and he could be dangerous with just words.