Strong hands attached to a strong body, tousled gold-brown hair, perfect lips quirked into a knowing grin, blue-gold eyes dancing.
The hole in Kiva’s heart tore open, the pain enough to halt her tremors, if only for a moment. But she wasn’t in the infirmary right now. And he wasn’t with her.
Not this time.
Never again.
“Swallow these,” Cresta ordered, reclaiming Kiva’s attention. She held out a fistful of thin green bulbs, along with a mix of yellow and orange flowers, and a lump of black, charred wood.
Kiva didn’t ask how Cresta had snuck into the infirmary’s garden, nor did she dwell on how the charcoal must have been acquired from the crematorium. But as she shoved the offering into her mouth, grimacing at the texture of the chalky wood, she did say, “I didn’t mention charcoal.”
“You’re not the first person I’ve seen through withdrawal,” Cresta murmured, still cleaning Kiva’s hands. “It’ll soak up the toxins in your blood.”
Kiva wanted to ask who else Cresta had helped, but her torso spasmed with a stomach cramp, and she gasped, curling in on herself.
“You need to eat.” Cresta said. There was no warmth in her tone, no concern for Kiva’s well-being, just a statement of fact.
“I’ll just” — another spasm hit Kiva, and she gritted her teeth — “bring it back up.”
Cresta began arguing, but Kiva didn’t hear her, the cramping in her stomach turning violent enough to demand all of her attention. It would take time for the hashwillow bulbs, tilliflowers, buttercress petals, and charcoal to take effect, but even then, their relief would be limited. If Cresta truly intended to wean Kiva off the angeldust, then she was in for a rough night.
The next thing Kiva knew, there was a piece of broth-soaked bread being pressed between her lips. Sweat dotted her forehead, her skin turning hot then cold then hot all over again.
“No,” she moaned, shifting her face away.
“You’ll need energy to get through tomorrow,” Cresta said, shoving more bread into her mouth. “You can’t survive on angeldust alone.”
“Angeldust,” Kiva gasped, half choking on the food, her voice hoarse and desperate. “Please . . . I need . . . just a little.”
Through blurry eyes, Kiva saw Cresta’s face harden. “What you need is to eat, then to sleep. I’ll give you more in the morning.”
Denial had Kiva shaking her head, her teeth rattling from the tremors controlling her body. “I need it now.”
“Eat.” Cresta pushed more bread between Kiva’s lips.
Kiva gagged, but Cresta clamped a hand over her mouth, making her swallow.
“The charcoal should help you keep everything down,” Cresta said. “You’re facing a mental battle as much as a physical one. You just have to be willing to fight.”
Kiva groaned as she was force-fed more bread. Cresta was unmoved, deaf to Kiva’s pleas, unwilling to provide even the smallest dose of angeldust to see her through the night.
For hours, they waged war against each other, with Kiva wailing as her body shrieked for the slightest hint of relief.
“Would you shut ’er up? We’re tryin’ to sleep here!” grumbled the other prisoners close enough to hear her suffering.
“Go cry to your mother,” Cresta snapped back at them, ignoring their complaints — and Kiva’s, too.
But then, sometime in the middle of the night, Kiva descended so far into her madness that she screamed, loud enough to wake half the dormitory, “GIVE IT TO ME! I NEED IT! YOU HAVE TO GIVE IT TO —”
Cresta swore and slapped a hand over Kiva’s mouth, hauling her damp, shivering body off the pallet and past glaring, sleep-rumpled inmates painted in moonlight. She didn’t stop until they stumbled into the darkened bathing chamber, where she dragged Kiva beneath a showerhead and turned on the icy spray.
Gasping and spluttering, Kiva tried to escape the water, but Cresta held her in place, becoming equally drenched in the process.
“LET ME GO!” Kiva bellowed.
“I won’t,” Cresta gritted out, her grip unyielding. “Not until you calm the hell down.”
Kiva tried to fight her way free, but it was no use, her body too weak to manage the barest of attempts. All too soon she was panting and leaning against Cresta, the ex-quarrier bearing most of her weight.
“Are you done?” Cresta demanded.
Kiva could only nod, her strength gone, her spirit broken.
The water turned off, and then Kiva was sliding to the ground beside Cresta. The two of them sat against the wall of the shower block, dripping and shivering, their labored breaths echoing into the darkness.
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” Cresta grunted.
The words summoned an image of Caldon, since he’d said the same thing to Kiva — more than once. Despite her heartache, Kiva’s lips quirked, ever so slightly. Through chattering teeth, she croaked out, “You’re n-not the first person to t-tell me that.”
“I doubt I’ll be the last.”
“I’m s-sorry,” Kiva whispered. The freezing water had sobered her enough that she was appalled by her behavior, even if it had been the drugs making her act that way. “And th-thank you. For helping m-me.”
“We’re not out of this yet,” Cresta warned. “There’s a long road ahead.”
Kiva knew that. And when she was through it — if she made it through — she would find a way to thank the ex-quarrier, even if Cresta was only repaying a debt.
“You said you’ve h-helped someone else th-through withdrawal,” Kiva said, relishing the cold that was keeping her thoughts clear. “Who w-was it?”
Cresta was quiet for long enough that Kiva thought she wasn’t going to answer. But in the darkness of the shower block, she eventually said, her voice barely audible, “When I was a child, long before Zalindov, my sister found a stash of angeldust and didn’t realize what it was. She overdosed, nearly died. I didn’t leave her side until she recovered.”
“How o-old were y-you?”
“Ten,” Cresta answered. “She was eight.”
So young. “Your p-parents?”
“Things weren’t good at home,” Cresta said without emotion. “My sister had the gentlest soul of anyone I’ve ever met, but my father saw that as a weakness. He had no place for a meek child in his household, so he wiped his hands of her, caring little whether she lived or died. And my mother . . . she was too busy trying to survive my father. I was all my sister had.”
There was pain in Cresta’s voice, though Kiva could tell she was trying to hide it. Through still-chattering teeth, she asked, “What h-happened?”
“I got her through the overdose, and then through the withdrawal. She stayed far away from angeldust after that.”
“No,” Kiva said, rubbing her arms to generate heat. “What happened t-to your family?”
This time, Cresta’s silence lasted longer. “I have no family. Not anymore.”
Kiva closed her eyes against the depth of feeling in those words. Cresta had arrived at Zalindov over five years ago as a teenager — perhaps sixteen years of age. Whatever had led her there . . . however she’d lost her parents, her sister . . . there were too many missing pieces for Kiva to have any insight into the ex-quarrier’s past.