SETH

 

The smell in the brig was unbearable. Usually with a stink, you could get used to it, but not this one. The cells were all empty, except maybe for a few in the back, and the brig looked clean to the eye. But a rank, putrid smell invaded every square inch of the air.

And his hand … the pain was so total it erased everything else. All he could do was concentrate on breathing, in and out. Stay alive and breathe, he told himself. Don’t think about your hand.

He had gangrene. He could feel it in the way his blood scalded the insides of his veins. His head buzzed, his chest felt weak and loose, and his heart was fluttery. He knew he had a high fever, but what he felt was horrible, bitter cold that overtook his body in spasm after spasm.

“They’re going to let me die.” He said the words to himself, under his breath, moving his tongue behind his teeth to form the word. Die. Die. Die. He was trying to get used to the idea.

He’d always assumed he’d end up a skinny old man like his father, though he’d hoped for a better life. He’d even thought he might try being a dad himself and treat his kids with the kindness he’d never had. Some abused kids went on to be good parents, didn’t they? But he’d wanted more than just a family. He wanted to be the best deck officer there was. He’d be so good that his dislike of Captain Jones wouldn’t stop him from someday piloting the ship. He’d make himself someone his kids could be proud of.

That was the future Seth had imagined before everything started.

Then, after the attack, Kieran had taken over the Empyrean and proceeded to endanger everyone on board. Watching Kieran’s mistakes and miscalculations had brought out Seth’s own brutal nature, and he’d turned into a worse brute than his father had been. That’s when Seth had seen how unrealistic his dreams of having a family were. He was too angry to be a loving father, or even a decent deck officer. Seth’s internal darkness would always engulf him; he’d always be unlikable and vicious.

So he’d landed himself in the brig on the Empyrean. His months there taught him to let go of his dreams, to accept a far humbler future, to disappear into a lab or a field somewhere. No woman in her right mind would want to raise a family with him, he’d thought; he’d just be grateful for his freedom, even if he was alone forever. He’d do his humble work, and live a solitary life. That seemed to be all he was good for.

Then Waverly came back to the Empyrean. And they talked. And hope came back. Maybe he could have his dreams after all …

Through all those imagined versions of the future, through all those compromises, he’d never considered he might not have a future at all.

Footsteps.

Footsteps were coming up the corridor, falling like feathers on the hard metal. A short, skinny woman with brown hair knotted at the nape of her neck peeked around the wall at Seth.

“Oh God,” she said under her breath. She was dressed in the gray-green scrubs of a nurse.

“Huh-huh-help,” Seth croaked through his cracked throat.

“I need access to this cell now!” she screamed down the corridor at someone.

“You don’t have to yell,” called a man irritably.

“How could you let him suffer like this?” she snarled at someone who was coming up the hallway, his heavy footfalls sounding like the beat of a drum. “Anyone could tell he’s seriously ill!”

“I’ve got other things on my plate, Nan,” the man said, but when he turned to look at Seth, his fat face fell. “Oh boy,” he said.

“Yeah,” she snapped at him. “Open the door!”

The guard rattled through his key chain, the woman shaking her head furiously as he fumbled. When finally the door slid open, she ran to Seth.

“I’m a nurse. My name’s Nan,” she said as she pressed fingertips against his wrist. “Can you speak?”

Seth nodded, tried to say “Yes,” but all he could get out was “Yuh Yuh Yuh Yuh…” The tremors from his fever shook him into silence.

“I can’t help him here,” Nan said to the guard. “He needs the infirmary.”

The guard shook his head. “Strict orders from the Pastor he’s to be kept in solitary.”

“She doesn’t know how sick he is!” the woman yelled. “Call her! Tell her I’m down here. Tell her it’s an emergency!”

The guard shook his head again but took a walkie-talkie from the belt around his sagging middle. “Central Command,” he said into it, and waited.

“Go ahead, brig,” said a woman’s voice.

“I’ve got a request to speak with the Pastor. Nan McGovern says it’s an emergency.”

“Wait,” the voice responded.

The woman pulled a long needle from her case along with a vial of clear liquid. “Are you in pain?” she asked Seth.

The simple, compassionate question nearly made him weep, and he nodded.

“This is going to fight your fever,” she said as she wiped a cotton swab on Seth’s inner elbow. The smell of alcohol stung his nose. “Hold still.” She waited for a pause in Seth’s spasms before she pierced his skin and injected the medicine into his bloodstream. Then she unwrapped his hurt hand and turned it over, keeping her expression neutral and businesslike. Seth thought for a moment that the nurse’s face was glowing with an orange light, but he blinked and she looked normal again. Now the orange light seemed to come from the guard, near his swollen belly. Seth stared at it until it faded away.

“Nan,” came Anne Mather’s voice. She sounded so smooth, so kind, so understanding.

“Yes, Pastor,” Nan said. She spoke the title with deference, as though she’d always dreamed of having a private word with her hero and was finally getting her chance. “I’ve got a young prisoner here who needs emergency medical attention.”

“Who gave you access to him?” the Pastor asked, lilting.

“Jared Carver escorted me here. He’s waiting outside.”

There was a long pause before Mather spoke again. “Nan, that boy is dangerous. We thought it best to keep him in isolation.”

“Pastor, I’m telling you. He’s not dangerous to anyone. He’s at death’s door.”

Another pause.

Nan rushed to speak. “I only say so because I know you wouldn’t want a young man to die, even if he did make mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance, isn’t that so? Isn’t that what you say in your sermons?” Nan bit her lip, and Seth felt sorry for her. She wanted to believe in Anne Mather. She needed to.

“All right,” the Pastor finally said. “You’re absolutely right, Nan. If you think he’s in danger, we must help him. Mustn’t we?”

“I think so,” Nan said. “Shall I call the infirmary?”

“I will,” Mather said. Her voice was comforting, motherly, and Nan let out a long sigh, as though she’d been afraid that good was bad and up was down. “Sit tight, Nan. Try to make him comfortable.”

Nan took a wad of gauze from her bag and held it under the tap, soaking it with water. When she held it to Seth’s forehead, he started to cry.

“Hush, now,” Nan whispered. She smoothed the hair out of his face and wiped his brow, then pressed the cool cloth to his cheeks and his neck.

Soon two men dressed in white came with a gurney, and Nan helped them lift Seth onto it. As they wheeled him down the corridor, he was struck with a wave of horrible dizziness, and he had to close his eyes or he might fall off.

His next thought was that the brig was too bright. Someone pulled on his wrist while a middle-aged woman shined a penlight into his eyes. Her breath smelled like garlic, and a small speck of tomato sauce clung to the corner of her mouth.

“Can you speak?” she asked Seth. She moved slowly and deliberately, as though she were incapable of panic.

“Yes,” Seth managed to whisper.

“How long ago did you hurt your hand?” the doctor asked him.

He couldn’t form words to answer her.

The doctor nodded. “Doesn’t matter. Looks like broken fingers to me?”

Seth nodded.

“Okay, buddy,” the doctor said, sitting down in a chair right next to Seth’s head. He trusted her absolutely—was it real, or only because he needed to trust her? “Here’s the deal,” she said. “You can have your arm, or you can have your life. You can’t have both.”

Tears squeezed from under Seth’s eyelids, and he bit his lip.

“Are you a brave lad?” She kept her eyes on his. Green eyes, unwavering.

Seth could only look at her.

“Will you let me help you? I have your permission to do what I need to do?”

Seth looked down at his hand. The smell from the brig had followed him here.

Of course, it hadn’t been the brig that stank.

Seth nodded at the doctor, who patted his shoulder.

“Good man. Good decision.” She nodded to someone who stood at Seth’s head, and a mask was fitted over his nose and mouth. “Breathe in deep, okay?” the doctor said.

“Okay,” Seth said into the mask. His own voice sounded as though it were coming from the bottom of a tin can, a nice, comforting, small tin can where he fit perfectly. One day I’ll go back to that tin can, Seth thought. I’ll bring Waverly to show her … if she isn’t with that creep. Her and me in a tin can.

He shook his head to clear it, but the hand with the mask stayed firm on him.

That’s crazy was the last thing he thought.

He woke up to a dark room, immensely relieved to feel his right hand searing with pain. They hadn’t amputated after all! He lifted his hand to look at it, but it was invisible. He could feel it, he ought to be looking right at it, but … He was suddenly attacked by intense vertigo and a horrible pain in his upper arm that nauseated him.

He took deep breaths, holding perfectly still, until the nausea subsided.

Then, with a sinking feeling, he felt with his good hand along the side of his body.

He didn’t have a right hand anymore.

He didn’t have an elbow.

He didn’t have an arm.

He still had a shoulder.

“He’s awake,” he heard a soft female voice say from the shadows. He felt woozy, and he blinked. He was lying in a pool of light surrounded by darkness. The light had a strange hazy quality, as though a thin smoke were lingering in the air, but there was no smell of smoke. It was his vision that was smoky, he guessed. He should tell someone. He opened his mouth to speak but found it difficult to breathe.

“Don’t,” someone said. He got a whiff of some kind of flower, and he turned to see a bouquet of lilacs being set down by his bed on a little table. “Stay still.”

“I can’t—” he gasped.

“You still have a high fever,” said that soft voice from the darkness. Seth blinked as a thin oval face moved into the light next to him. Suddenly everything hurt a little less.

“Waverly,” he whispered. All his jealousy and doubts melted away.

She kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his mouth. She nuzzled her nose against his neck. He tried to put his arms around her and felt almost as though he could. He knew his right arm was gone, but he felt it so clearly.

“Don’t move. You’re weak,” she said. She was crying, and she draped her body over his, holding his good arm down with the weight of her torso. “Just rest.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“Shush.” She placed cool fingers over his lips, then kissed him again, warm, soft. Oh, he loved her. She put her head on his chest and lay there a long time, crying softly. Her tears soaked through his bedclothes and the thin gown he wore. He kissed her hair again and again.

When she’d cried herself out, she lifted her head and smiled at him, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was a brave smile. She swallowed, preparing to tell him something hard.

“I know my arm…,” he began and lost his breath.

“Okay,” she said and covered his mouth with her fingers. He loved that. He kissed them. “Seth, your infection … it’s bad.”

He nodded. He could feel it, like tiny bugs jiggling all through his body, from his veins to his muscles to his skin.

He couldn’t see her face. She hid it behind her hair, a thick curtain of mahogany waves.

“They said you were missing,” Seth whispered. “Where you been?”

A shadow passed over her face. “Looking for you.”

“How did you find me?”

“I had help,” Waverly said with a glance at the doorway. Seth could see a dark male shape standing just outside the infirmary. “As soon as I was able to, I came to the brig for you. While you were in surgery, I checked on my mom and came right back.”

“Who is that guy?” Seth asked, his jealously gone. She’s mine, he knew. We belong together.

“I used to think he was my friend but…” She chewed on her lip as she looked at the man. “I saw pictures of me in the corridors. They said truth. Was that you?”

He smiled weakly.

“Thank you.”

He thought over what she’d just told him about his infection and worked up the courage to ask, “Am I dying?”

She looked at him sharply. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Waverly,” he said.

“They’re throwing everything they have at it.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t,” she shrieked. The room, the darkness outside their pool of light, was jarred by her voice.

Seth heard a chair being pushed across the floor, someone getting up, soft footsteps, and then the nurse who’d saved his life came into the light. She frowned at Waverly. “You need to keep it down. There are other people here.”

“I’m sorry,” Waverly cried, panicked and trembling. “Please don’t send me away.”

Before Seth’s eyes, Waverly fell apart, no more composed than if she were made of loose powder. Her hands caught in her hair, pulling at it in handfuls. Something was wrong with her. Really wrong.

The nurse softened a little, but her words were hard. “Now you know what it’s like to be a hostage.”

“I recognize you,” Waverly said tearfully. “You were on the medical team we took hostage. I know I scared you. I just wanted my mom back.”

“You almost killed Anthony.”

“I never wanted to hurt him.” Waverly pulled on the woman’s shirt like a little girl begging. “Please. Let me stay.”

“I will if you let me give you a mild sedative. You’re hysterical and you’re disturbing the other patients.”

“I know.” Waverly nodded, her eyes dancing over the floor as though she were remembering something, or trying not to.

“Wavey,” Seth whispered. He’d meant to say her full name, had faltered with his tongue. “What did she mean … hostage?”

Instantly she was calm. “How do you know to call me that?”

He crinkled his eyebrows in question as he panted. He was sweaty. His sheets were soaked, and he was overtaken by a sudden falling sensation, as though his bed were being lowered by increments.

“My daddy used to call me that,” Waverly said, smiling through her tears. “I’d forgotten.”

“What happened to you?” he managed to ask just as his bed fell again.

Her face crumpled. “I’ll tell you sometime. But right now, just don’t talk about dying. Okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered. He motioned her over with his right hand, with what should have been his right hand. He felt it moving, beckoning her. The movement made a horrible pain in his shoulder. Oh God, stop moving my hand. Stop moving it, he told himself, but he couldn’t stop. That ghost hand kept beckoning to Waverly, over and over and over.

As though she’d seen the missing gesture, she climbed onto his bed, her body tucked along the length of his. She didn’t move a millimeter when the nurse plunged a needle into her shoulder.

He put his arms around her, the real arm and the missing one, and he held her as long as his strength let him. It wasn’t long, but it was enough for now.

They slept like that a long time.