Imprisoned Read online

  After a moment, Ari realized she had no choice but to do the same. But she could feel the eyes of every prisoner in the Mess Hall on her and Lathe as they moved.

  Though she felt safer from the rest of the inmates, she felt more uncertain than ever about the big Kindred.

  “That was quite a display you put on up there, Medic,” Xolox burbled, waving his tentacles as Lathe and Ari seated themselves at table 13.

  “It wasn’t by choice,” Lathe growled. The front of his neck was bleeding and his throat hurt from the sawing of the cut-cord—Hexer had been a strong little son-of-a-bitch, he would give the male that.

  But it wasn’t just his throat that hurt—his heart ached too. He had killed again. And worse, Hexer had been one of his patients—one that Lathe had worked closely with in the past.

  Fuck, how could he? I saved his arm after that accident with the link-saw in the work-house. And then he used the arm I saved to try to kill me.

  The huge muscular appendage had been nearly severed and Lathe had managed to reattach it—a feat he was well aware that not many physicians could have pulled off, especially considering the limited facilities BleakHall offered. He had monitored Hexer every day—even going to his cell to check on the little male and change his dressings. The day the bandages had come off, Hexer had given Lathe a hug and thanked him with tears in his eyes.

  And now this.

  I wonder what Tapper paid him to try it, Lathe wondered sourly. A full pack of nico-sticks? A 3-D porn mag—what? What is my life worth in this fucking hellhole?

  Whatever it was, it had been enough to overcome any feelings of friendship or gratitude the little man had towards Lathe. Enough to make him try to kill him.

  It was a damn good thing Ari shouted when he did, Lathe thought, stirring his blunt plasti-utensil idly through the re-structured protein mush which was what BleakHall served most mornings for First Meal. If he hadn’t warned me, I never would have gotten my hands up in time.

  But he hadn’t thought he needed to worry about having Hexer in line behind him. He’d even felt a measure of safety knowing that his old patient was at his back as they moved through the chow line.

  How stupid I was, Lathe thought angrily. Tapper probably picked Hexer on purpose, knowing I would trust him—knowing I would be off my guard.

  But the truth was, he couldn’t trust anybody anymore. This hellhole of a prison was filled with nothing but murderers and thugs—rapists and thieves and traitors. And liars, all of them liars.

  “I hate liars,” he muttered savagely, stirring his mush again.

  “What’s that you say, Medic?” Xolox burbled. Beside him, Gumper’s green face showed a slow kind of sympathy.

  “Hexer. You saved…his arm,” he said simply.

  “Yes.” Lathe looked away. “I did.”

  “And he betrayed you,” Xolox remarked mournfully. “Ah, there is no honor among thieves. Everywhere liars…betrayers…colluders…”

  Drumph, his orange skin sagging in the overhead lights, his straw-like hair pasted to his head, tapped on his toy com-link and shouted, “Liars! Sad! No Collusion—Sad!”

  “Oh!” Ari jumped, apparently startled by the sudden exclamation.

  “Don’t pay any attention to Drumph,” Lathe told the boy, making an effort to get over the black mood the assassination attempt had brought on. “He’s clinically insane—doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  “I see.” Ari edged a little further from Drumph’s hunched figure and picked at his protein mush. “Do…do you feel all right?” he asked Lathe.

  “Except for a sore throat, I’ll be fine.” He tried to keep his tone light but it wasn’t easy. “Hurry and eat. After First Meal all new prisoners get their job assignments—we don’t want to be late to the assignment line or who knows what you’ll get.”

  “All right.” But though the boy continued to pick at the yellow protein mush, he still seemed deeply troubled.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” Lathe told him, seeing the look of fear in those big dark eyes again. “No one else will try anything for a while. You’ll be safe now that everyone knows you’re under my protection.”

  “Thank you,” Ari murmured but his eyes darted away and wouldn’t meet Lathe’s. Was he really still so frightened?

  Suppose I’ll have to give him some time, Lathe told himself. Nearly getting murdered might be almost commonplace in BleakHall but it was still a traumatic experience—especially for someone as innocent as Ari. Sighing, he went back to his own mush.

  There was nothing else he could do.

  Sixteen

  “Number 117—prizon laundry,” the Horvath guard announced in his buzzing, guttural voice.

  “Laundry?” Lathe protested, from his spot behind Ari, who was standing in a long row of new prisoners, most of whom had already gotten their work assignments. “I specifically requested him in the Infirmary. There are over a thousand prisoners at BleakHall and only one of me—I need an assistant.”

  “Mukluk sayzz you’ll get an azziztant when you zztart treating all the prizonerz again,” the guard told him. “He heard your announzement that you would no longer treat The Rabzz.”

  “That’s a matter of self-defense,” Lathe protested. “I have to have something to hold over the other inmates’ heads or I’ll be dead by sundown.”

  “Neverthelezz, Mukluk’s word izz law. Take it up with him. Number 117—laundry,” the guard remarked imperturbably.

  Lathe gave a frustrated growl under his breath that made the short hairs at the back of Ari’s neck prickle. She kept thinking about those fangs right behind her—long and curving and filled with deadly poison. She didn’t think the big Kindred would bite her but she hadn’t even known him twenty-four solar hours yet. And any atrocity seemed horribly possible at BleakHall.

  “Fine, but I need to see Ari—number 117—in the Infirmary before he starts his shift. I need to X-ray that cheek of his,” Lathe said.

  The guard appeared to think about it for a moment, then nodded.

  “But not too long. A zzhort examinazion,” he said.

  “Fine. Come on, Ari,” Lathe growled, jerking his head.

  “Report to the Laundry when finizhed,” the guard said to her and then she had no choice but to follow Lathe out of the Mess Hall and through the double doors that led towards the Infirmary.

  “It’s worse than I thought—you have an orbital fracture.” Lathe couldn’t keep the grimness out of his voice as he studied the digital picture generated by the X-ray scanner. The machine was supposed to be used only for making certain new prisoners weren’t bringing in knives or blasters or any other metal weapons. But Lathe had learned to collimate its beam and adjust the intensity in order to take much smaller and more detailed radiographs for diagnostic purposes.

  And he wasn’t liking what he saw on the one he had taken of Ari one bit.

  “What does that mean?” Ari was sitting on the battered exam table, looking at him with that frightened uncertainty he’d had since the altercation in the Mess Hall.

  Right—altercation, sneered a little voice in Lathe’s head. Call it what it is, why don’t you, Lathe—an assassination attempt and a killing. A killing in self-defense but a killing nonetheless. The boy saw you kill Hexer and if you’d died, he would have been next. Of course he’s still a little spooked.

  Lathe hated to give Ari such bad news after what he’d so recently endured but as a doctor, there was nothing else he could do.

  “The bones in your eye socked are cracked,” he said, as gently as he could. “What’s more, it’s the bones at the floor of your orbit that are most affected. You have what we call a trapdoor fracture.”

  “Meaning what? That the bones could give way and my eye will fall down into my cheek?” the boy scoffed, apparently trying to make light of the situation. Using sarcasm to deflect fear was a normal reaction that Lathe had seen often as a physician. Unfortunately, a trapdoor orbital fracture was nothing to make light of.

&
nbsp; “It could fall down into your maxillary sinus, yes,” he said seriously. “I’m afraid that’s a real possibility.”

  “What?” Ari clutched at his bruised and swelling eye, his voice going high with fear. “But that’s…that sounds really bad.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not good.” Lathe sighed and folded his arms across his chest. He wanted to take the boy in his arms and comfort him—which was a completely unprofessional impulse. Lathe restrained it—he sensed that Ari wouldn’t be receptive to such comfort even if it had been proper.

  “But what…what can you do? Some kind of surgery? Here?” Ari gestured expressively around the sparse confines of the prison infirmary. He had a point—BleakHall didn’t even have things like tongue depressors or gauze—let alone expensive surgical instruments for delicate orbital surgery. Lathe considered himself lucky to have access to disinfectant and a rough suture kit.

  “No, I couldn’t do that kind of surgery here,” he admitted. “But…” He hesitated, wondering how much to say. “But there is a way to heal you—to knit your bones together and make certain no further injury occurs,” he said at last.

  “How?” Ari demanded. “I don’t want my eye to fall down inside my skull—what can you do?”

  This was the tricky part. Lathe took a deep breath, trying to think how to explain.

  “The inmates here call me ‘Kill-All’,” he told Ari. “But my own people have a different name for me. The call me ‘Cure-All.’”

  The boy shook his head.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I have the power to cure as well as to kill within my fangs,” Lathe told him. “Most Blood Kindred—which is the type of warrior I am—have only the ability to heal their mates with their bite. I am able to heal anyone, male or female, of almost any illness or injury. In this way I am unique.”

  But it was clear Ari hadn’t heard a thing past the word, ‘fangs.’ His eyes were wide with fear and his entire slender body was tensed for flight.

  “You…you want to bite me? The same way you bit that man in the Mess Hall?” His voice was so tight and high he almost sounded female.

  “No, not like that at all,” Lathe tried to reassure him. “I can control which kind of essence comes from my fangs—that which heals or that which kills. In the Mess Hall I had no choice—I had to kill.”

  “I…I can’t…” Fear seemed to choke the boy to silence and Ari only shook his head, his hands fisted at his sides on the cracked and dirty plasti-cover of the exam table.

  “Ari…” Lathe did his best to make his voice gentle and soothing. “Little one, I would never hurt you,” he murmured, taking a step closer and putting one hand on the boy’s thin, trembling shoulder.

  “No!” At his touch, Ari was off the table and across the room like a shot. “No biting,” he gasped, his back pressed against the wall, his eyes wide and wild with fear. “I don’t want that—I don’t want you to bite me!”

  “All right…all right…” Lathe held up his hands in a gesture of peace. He wished he could go to the boy and reassure him but it was clear that Ari didn’t trust him. Goddess damn it—he’d put his own life on the line to protect the lad—what else could he do to earn his trust?

  Maybe nothing, whispered the little voice in his head. After everything he went through yesterday, he may be beyond trust, at least for a little while. You have to be patient, Lathe.

  “I won’t bite you,” he said again, staying where he was though he wanted badly to go to the boy. “But you have to promise you’ll tell me if you start having headaches or nausea or double vision. Also, if you notice any enophthalmos—meaning your eye sinking down into your socket,” he said, seeing the look of incomprehension on the boy’s face. “If you notice any of those symptoms come and tell me immediately.”

  “Why, so you can bite me?” Ari demanded.

  Lathe finally lost his patience.

  “Would you rather lose your eye?” he growled.

  “But that man—when you bit him…he…he…” Ari shook his head, apparently unable to continue. “You said that every nerve was on fire before the end,” he whispered at last. “And the look of agony on his face…”

  “It’s true that I cannot give you pleasure with my healing bite since you’re not a female,” Lathe said roughly. “But I can heal your fracture. Think about it, Ari—have I offered you any harm since the moment you came to BleakHall?”

  “No,” the boy whispered but his gaze was on Lathe’s fangs, not his eyes, and the look of fear on his face twisted Lathe’s heart.

  “Never mind,” he said, turning away. “I’ve taken you into my cell and defended you with my life. I don’t know what else I can do to earn your trust. If you want to lose your eye, be my guest.”

  “I’m sorry…” Ari’s voice was paper-thin. “I just…I’ve never…your fangs look so…so sharp.”

  “Of course they’re sharp—what would be the point of blunt fangs?” Lathe snapped. “Just know this, Ari—I can cure you now or even if your symptoms get worse. But if the floor of your orbit gives way entirely and you experience complete enophthalmos, then it’s too late—there’s not a damn thing I can do at that point.”

  Which was what made him so angry, he tried to tell himself. Ari was just another patient refusing treatment that would do him good—that would save him permanent injury and pain. It would frustrate any physician in Lathe’s place to have a patient willfully refuse healing that could save them. That was why he was being so harsh—so abrupt.

  But the fearful look on the boy’s face was like a slap to his own and he knew it wasn’t true.

  As he and Ari stood staring at each other across the room, there was a knock at the Infirmary door and a cracked and cheery voice cried, “Well now, Medic, it’s old Wheezer—may I come in?”

  “Come,” Lathe said brusquely. He didn’t know why he was allowing Ari’s fear to get to him this way. The boy has a right to be frightened of my fangs after seeing Hexer die of my bite, he told himself. And anyway, I only met him yesterday—why should I care what he thinks of me?

  But he couldn’t deny that the lad’s distrust wounded him to the core. Which made him angry and terse. When Wheezer stepped through the door, he didn’t even try to muster a smile for the old inmate.

  “Well, well, seems the two of you must be finished with the exam?” Wheezer asked uncertainty, looking from one to the other of them. “If you are, old Wheezer is here to show the lad to the laundry. For it’s my work assignment too, so it is,” he said to Ari, who was still pressed against the far wall looking white and shaken. “And I thought you might like me to keep an eye on the lad,” he added to Lathe.

  “Do as you like,” Lathe growled. “Ari is finished with his exam. He can go to work.”

  “Very well, Medic.” Wheezer coughed. “And I thought you might like to know, the word is spreading about Hexer, yes it is. Already the Grand Jiho of the Serpents has renounced his claim on Ari’s life and the rest of the gang leaders are said to be telling their members they’ll be risking their own lives if they try to take yours or the lad’s. Nobody wants to lose their access to the Infirmary, no they don’t.”

  “That’s good to hear.” Despite his irritation at the lad, Lathe felt a loosening around his heart. At least he could be fairly certain that Ari was safe when he was away from his side. Well, except for… “What about Tapper and his gang?” he asked Wheezer.

  “Ah, well…there’s the rub, so it is.” Wheezer took off his cracked oculars and polished them on the sleeve of his neatly pressed prison uniform. “Tapper’s still out for blood. But I think as long as you and the lad stay clear of his territory, you should be all right—for a time.”

  Lathe knew what he meant—doubtless Tapper would try again. But probably not for a while. He would want Lathe to be off his guard.

  Which isn’t going to happen, Lathe told himself.

  “For a time,” he echoed, agreeing with Wheezer. “Well, the two of you had better go before
the Horvaths come looking.”

  “As you say, Medic.” Wheezer bobbed his gray head and nodded at Ari. “Come lad—it’s none so bad a job. Course, ‘twould be better if the main clothes-press wasn’t broken but we make do…we make do.”

  Ari nodded but didn’t move. Instead he stood there staring at Lathe. His large, dark eyes seemed full of some emotion he couldn’t communicate. Maybe something he wanted to say?

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Lathe asked irritably. “Go. You don’t want to get on the wrong end of a Horvath’s pain-prod.”

  “Yes, Lathe. I…I’ll see you later.” With one last, white-faced look, Ari slipped past him and followed Wheezer out of the Infirmary.

  Seventeen

  “No, the Laundry isn’t nearly the worst place to work in BleakHall,” Wheezer said as he took Ari down the long metal hallway that led deeper into the bowels of the prison.

  “It’s not?” Ari asked, though to be honest she was just talking to get her mind off what had happened with Lathe.

  He wants to bite me—to bite me, whispered a panicked little voice in her brain. She couldn’t get the image of the inmate who had jumped Lathe in the Mess Hall out of her mind—the bowed back… the face a rictus of agony…the thin black foam seeping from between his clenched teeth as his body shriveled to a dry stick…

  But he said his bite doesn’t always kill—he claims to heal with it too. Could that be true? Well, why would he lie? It’s not like he enjoys killing.

  Ari was fairly certain that was true. She’d seen the look on the big Kindred’s face as they sat at the table, eating breakfast, after that scary, blank expression had passed. Though he’d been doing his best to look stoic and calm, she’d been able to read the emotion in those vivid turquoise eyes—killing the other inmate had bothered him—bothered him a lot.

  So if he didn’t want to kill her, did it mean he really did want to heal her? But even if that was true, could she stand to have those long, shining fangs driven into her face, right by her eye?