REFUEL: MEMORY

Half in the black.

Half in the quiet.

Half in the numb, empty body. Cold room, muted beeps.

Drowning in nothing, with only the tether of a shithole tory as a chance to breathe. Constantly fighting through the dark, dead void just to catch a gasp.

And then the race. The rush. The speed pulling her to him, fully in a body. Fully on a cycle—her cycle, her sweet baby—with the rush in her hair and her heart and throbbing fire from the engine up her legs into her cock.

His. His body.

Not hers.

But still hers, at least for the fleeting seconds of the race. Beautiful, amazing seconds where she and the tory and the cycle were all working together, pushing harder and faster as they closed the inches between them and the frontrunner. Almost won it.

Then the race ended, and as they came to a stop, as the glorious speed faded away, she found herself slammed back down into the void.

Darker, harder, deeper than ever.

She clawed her way up to find, at least, her own body, muted and numb as it was.

In the distance, there was a hint of light, of heat, of motion. She pulled her way through the sickly sweet of the empty void toward it. It must be the tory, the shit that he was. Maybe he was fucking the girl who won. Or fucking Partinez again. Or getting ready to betray them all.

Asshole.

She reached out and grabbed the light and pulled herself to it.

The world exploded.

She was in the bunker, as everything shook again. The next round of bombing had started. It had been relentless. She was huddled under the table, like Mother told her, her sister cradled in her arms.

This time, she was sure, the roof would not hold.

This time, she was sure, Mother wouldn’t come back.

This time, she was sure, the soldiers would find them. Maybe the Alliance’s. Maybe the tyrant’s.

There was no knowing which one would be worse.

Mother had said the 7th Senja was now no one’s—they were fighting circle to circle, street to street, inch to inch.

All while the bombers dropped another round of fire and death.

“It’s all right, Lathéi,” she whispered to her sister, too small and young to understand. She barely understood.

The walls shook again. They certainly wouldn’t hold and Mother would never—

Nália pushed back. This wasn’t her.

She never knew her mother.

She never cared for a baby sister. She never had a baby sister.

She had been a baby during the Great Noble. Born in a purge camp. Hidden in the floorboards. Kept from the guards. In the dark as the ceiling—the floor—shook with every step.

Everything dark. The void swallowed her again.

Her body being moved.

Not hers.

His body.

In the black.

In the quiet.

Numb and empty.

And no spark of light from Wenthi Tungét, save the labyrinth of horror in his memory.

She reached for it. It was all she had in the abyss of nothing.