The next morning, Gwen arose feeling hopeful.
Finally, she was making a difference.
Rather than heading to the mess hall for breakfast, she walked to the performers’ dormitory wing. Her eye and legs still ached, but she didn’t let that slow her strides to Rora’s room. Nervousness swirled in her stomach as she knocked on the door. When no one answered, she knocked again. Still nothing.
Akio appeared in the hallway, and Gwen turned to him. “Have you seen Rora this morning? I was hoping to talk with her.”
She hadn’t expected to tell Rora she loved her last night, nor had she expected Rora to say it in return. But she couldn’t deny the sting of the unspoken words. More than that, she hadn’t expected Rora to be so vehemently against their plan.
He gave Gwen a knowing look. “If by talking, you mean ‘screw each other’s brains out,’ then no. I haven’t seen her. I’m pretty sure she’s still in her room.”
Gwen smirked. “Thanks.”
I really should talk to her. To clear the air, if nothing else.
Slowly, she turned, about to head downstairs. Hesitating, she turned back and knocked on the door again, louder this time. Maybe Rora was bathing and hadn’t heard her.
“Rora?” Gwen reached for the door handle.
It was unlocked. How strange.
Slowly, she opened the door, keeping her eyes on the floor in case Rora wasn’t dressed. “It’s me. I was hoping I could walk you down to breakfast.”
Rather than the sounds of Rora in the washroom, the room was utterly quiet.
Slowly, Gwen looked up and screamed.
Rora lay as though her body had been tossed carelessly onto the floor. Her hair was in disarray, and her arms and legs were splayed. Had she passed out?
But, no.
The closer she got to Rora, she could see dried blood on her forehead. Had Rora hit her head falling down? And were those bruises on her neck?
“What is it?” Akio stormed into the room. “Oh, fuck. What happened?”
“Go find Bastian and the healer now,” she said before closing the door and running over to Rora.
She knew she’d already drawn too much attention to herself and Rora by screaming. And stars, she didn’t want the watchmen or show management team intervening. It would only make things worse.
Holy fucking stars. Did my tinkering kill her?
Swallowing back bile and her panic, Gwen rolled Rora fully onto her back before checking her vitals. Then she sighed with relief.
She still had a pulse.
“Rora!” Gwen held her face between her hands, tapping her cheek gently. “Rora, wake up!”
Nothing.
Slowly, she examined Rora’s implant. Everything seemed to be in order, but she wouldn’t know until she had her tool kit. And she wouldn’t leave Rora until help came.
Not knowing what else to do, Gwen picked Rora up and placed her gently on the bed.
A few minutes later, Akio appeared with Bastian and Barbosa in tow, closing the door behind them.
With a nod to Gwen, Barbosa took her place at Rora’s side. He removed a number of things from his healer’s bag before examining her.
Bolting from the room, she ran down the hallways with the watchmen on her heels. But she didn’t care. She grabbed her full tool kit from her room before hurrying back to Rora’s room.
When she returned, Barbosa was shaking his head as he examined Rora.
Gwen fell to her knees beside the bed.
If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought Rora was resting peacefully with her dark hair splayed prettily out over the pillow and her lips the bright red of life and youth, not the graying color of imminent death.
“What did you find?” Tears slid down Gwen’s cheeks as she held Rora’s cyborg hand.
“Nothing is physically wrong with her besides a few cuts on her head,” Barbosa said. “I can’t explain it. I was hoping you might know. It’s as if her entire implant system is shutting down, and her body with it.”
Akio stood in the corner of the room, his cheeks covered in silent tears.
“She’s not responding to treatment?” Bastian asked.
The healer shook his head. “There’s nothing actually wrong with her. Her heart is healthy, and there’s no fluid in her lungs… It’s like what happened to Marzanna. Her body is rejecting the implant.”
For a moment, the entire world slowed to a stop. It was as though the planets within the Crescent Star System had stopped orbiting.
Her hand slipped from Rora’s as she stood. Body shaking violently as though from cold, her heart plummeted into her bowels. She took a step, surprised the ground tilted beneath her, before promptly passing out.
When she awoke, Bastian cradled her in his arms. Had he caught her?
Barbosa hovered, trying to examine her, but she pushed him off and stood.
“It’s my fault.” Words tumbled from her lips. “I did this. I installed her new hand even when I knew doing it could kill her. She insisted I do it anyway, but I should have refused. And now she’ll die just like Marzanna.”
“They’re not dead.” Bastian’s voice sounded strangely distant.
“If Rora and Marzanna don’t wake up in the next four days, they will be disqualified from the competition,” the healer said. “They will be selected for contract termination.”
“Not now,” Bastian growled.
Slowly, the ringleader approached her, raising his hands as though to calm a spooked horse. “There’s still time. We can still try to save them both.”
“I couldn’t save Marzanna,” she sobbed. “I tried for days, but her implant is fine. There’s nothing to fix…”
“Look at Rora’s hand. See what you can do,” he pressed. “Maybe we learned something new from… our research. Something that would help.”
After several long moments, she nodded, wiped her tears with the back of her jacket sleeve, and rose to her feet. Barbosa passed her a cleaning solution and cloth, with which she cleaned her hands in silence. She opened her tool kit and got to work examining Rora’s hand.
As she opened Rora’s panel and examined the implant, she heard Bastian speak.
“Not a word of this is to be spoken to anyone.” There was a hint of menace in Bastian’s voice—a hint of the beast she had seen when she first joined the circus. It was a whispered threat, promising violence.
“Of c-course,” Barbosa stammered. “I w-wouldn’t say anything.”
“I appreciate your discretion.”
Gwen worked like she’d never worked before, using every ounce of knowledge she’d gleaned from her research in the library. She checked the wiring, the mainframe, the connection points, the battery. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“It’s the same fucking thing,” she snapped. “Only, with Marzanna’s foot, I knew I had installed the improper wires. Now… There’s nothing wrong! Not even a wire is out of place.”
Everyone stood in tense silence.
“What’s that?” Bastian’s voice held a strange note to it, and she looked up sharply.
He walked to the edge of Rora’s bed and picked something off the ground. It was a small slip of parchment. As he studied it, his brows drew together. Looking up, he eyed Gwen before his eyes skirted back down.
“What is it?” she barked. “Spit it out, damn it.”
With a sigh, he read it aloud.
This little bird told us a pretty tale before she passed out. Think carefully before you cross us. There will be consequences if you do.
Bastian shook his head, disbelief written all over his face. “Rora betrayed us?”
“She seemed upset last night when we walked back to our rooms,” Akio said, his voice small. “She told me she couldn’t live with herself if she cheated, that she had to do something. But I never thought she would tell them.”
“Are we sure these people didn’t hurt Rora?” Barbosa said. “Could they have been the reason for whatever is happening to her?”
“No,” Gwen said, her voice hollow. “If she’s rejecting her implant just like Marzanna, I know full fucking well who’s to blame.”
Shaking his head, Bastian’s eyes widened with disappointment. “I knew she was ruthless. Because only ruthless people cut off their hand to become a cyborg, which is exactly what she did when the circus came to town and she asked to join us. But this? I would never have taken her for a rat.”
For a long moment, Gwen didn’t register his words.
She did what?
The Rora who never cursed, who always followed the rules, the Rora who didn’t want to cheat in the third competition—that Rora cut off her own fucking hand?
Clearly, she didn’t know Rora at all.
More than that, she’d been played. If what Bastian said was true, Rora was more than ruthless—she was calculating. And Gwen had been played like a fucking fool.
That explained everything. It was why Rora didn’t say she loved Gwen back—because she never did. She loved performing above all else.
Mouth hanging open, Gwen clutched her stomach, feeling like she was going to retch. “I can’t do this anymore.” She rose to her feet. “I won’t kill anyone else. And I won’t fight for people who don’t want my help to begin with.”
She pushed past Bastian and out of the room. The others stood in silence as the door slammed shut. She had been trying to help them. But they had never wanted her help.
Everything she’d done, everything she’d been fighting for was a lie.
All she could do was hurt people—people who never wanted her to begin with. She’d outstayed her welcome.
On bruised legs, she hurried back to her room. She wouldn’t stay in Apparatus a moment longer.