PART THREE
I.
When he tried to open his eyes, the brilliant light burned his retinas. Then his senses began to awaken. Rough sheets under his body, over his body. His tongue was fuzzy, and when he tried to make a sound, the back of his throat was bone-dry.
“Ren?”
A voice to his right. Wait, where was he? Why was he in bed?
“Can you hear me?”
That voice again. Renzo turned his head to the right. It felt like pushing through sand. He tried again to make a sound, any sound.
“Drink this.” Something brushed his lips, cool and plastic: a straw. Cold water flooded into his mouth.
If he opened his eyes little by little, the light didn’t hurt as badly. The white room grew clearer. Hospital room. Machines, monitors, tubes. His senses grew sharper by the second: the smell of antiseptic, his unwashed skin and his scalp. A headache pulsed through his skull. His jaw itched. Renzo touched his chin against the skin of his collarbone to feel. Decent growth, at least a week’s worth. The backs of his hands felt heavy and irritated; a series of tubes snaked across the bed and ended in the back of his right hand. He didn’t need to look at the other hand to know that it matched. One of the monitors began to beep nervously.
“Ren, it’s okay,” he heard Cohen’s voice. “You’re in the hospital. Phair’s coming.”
Phaira? His sister had been in the South for the last three months. Why was she coming? It must be serious. His head itched. Why? He could barely keep his eyes open.
“Ren?”
The light in the room had faded. Night? His mouth was dry again. The headache had subsided, replaced with a swimming, dizzy sensation. Some kind of pain medication, no doubt.
Phaira leaned over him. Her deep blue hair swung over her face, a clean-cut line from jaw to nape. She wore her military uniform, dark grey and yellow trim. She’d been in the sun; her skin was darker, her eyes even paler. There were fresh scars across her knuckles, a healing cut on her forehead.
Moistening his lips with his tongue, Renzo rasped: “Bad?”
Phaira’s fingers gripped the heavy material of her uniform sleeve. “We should wait for the doctor.”
“No,” Renzo coughed. “What.”
“Do you remember anything?”
Renzo shook his head.
“You were attacked,” Phaira said. “You’ve been in a coma for over a week.”
“Who.”
“They don’t know yet.”
“Bad?”
“They hit you in the head. Then they kept - ” Phaira faltered. “There was swelling, and internal bleeding.”
Motor skills then. Renzo went to move his right fingers. They lifted, followed by the left hand. Relief washed over him.
Then he thought about moving his toes. The left: he could feel them rubbing against the sheet fabric. The right - the right. He didn’t feel the sheet. It felt like they were moving, but -
“Ren.”
But he wouldn’t look. He couldn’t look.