Don’t have a rutting clue what to think.
Last time I woke up with a headache like this I was on a rickety cruiser halfway to Boros with nothing but the taste of whiskey, an empty wallet, and a cargo bay full of freeze-dried termites to tell me what the gorram hell had happened.
At least that time I could move.
When I raise my head up – which is none too easy for how heavy it feels – the room starts to spin and my stomach flips over half a dozen times, and before I know it I’m flat on my back again, eyes shut tight, breathing heavily and trying not to heave.
Well ain’t that just Jing cai.
I keep my left eye shut but ease the digital one open, letting it feed me an image of the ceiling. Which also seems to be spinning, so it can’t be the eye – it’s the head.
Shiny.
I shut it again before I can be sick.
This place smells like a hospital. Too clean and metallic for anything else. The idea is not exactly my favourite ever – waking up in a hospital don’t tend to make for a pleasant morning.
My stomach settles down a bit and my head starts to clear.
There’s something funny here, besides the way everything’s spinning this way an’ that. It takes a few minutes for it to sink in before I realize: the walls are shaking. Just a little. A vibration.
Which means that there’s either an earthquake happening under my feet, or I’m somehow on a ship.
The air tastes just recycled enough for it to be a ship.
There was nothing about a ship in the plan. Culhain would have mentioned it.
Somebody would have mentioned it.
I ease open my eyes again, make sure not to move my head too fast.
So far so good. Just no quick movements and I might be fine.
In a manner of speaking.
If I’m on a ship and it wasn’t a part of the plan, then the plan went wrong and I’m likely humped one way or another.
Gao yang zhong de gu yang.
I’m looking to be in a world of trouble, and I can’t even get off the gorram table.
Hurting or not, I can’t just lie here.
So – slowly – I tilt my head to the side and let things settle. My stomach rolls, but not as much as I was afraid of.
The place is about what I expected.
Low ceiling, off-white walls, some glass cabinets filled with pill bottles, a fairly clean floor…
And that’s when I see that I’m not alone.
Somebody’s curled up down there, head resting on a bit of sacking.
I move again, wait for the room to stand still, and then I take a closer look. And all of the sudden more’n the room is spinning.
Because I know this girl.
What’s it been? Three years now?
Don’t matter none – I know her like I know the workings of the first gun I ever held. You could put me on the other side of a dark room and I’d know it was her by the way she breathed. Hell even if she weren’t breathing I’d know. I’d know.
Well hell.
That explains the hospital, but not the ship.
My neck is aching from the way it’s tilted, but I can’t seem to look away.
It ain’t like I thought about her, ‘tween then and now, but if I had I’d have remembered her hair a bit darker. A bit shorter. Shoulders are tanned now, and she’s got freckles I know weren’t there before.
Same long lashes.
Did she look this young three years ago?
I remember she blushed.
I remember a hell of a lot more than that.
My stomach’s a bit less than pleased, and I know I should close my eyes, but I don’t just yet. She could wake up, and who knows…she might be a danger, state I’m in.
Can’t remember why I left, but I must have had a damned good reason.
Could have had something to do with the way it’s real hard to breathe in here.
Could have had something to do with that blush of hers.
Or it could even have been this. The way she stirs, blinks sleepily up at me and smiles so sweetly I just about forget I’m about to hurl all over her infirmary.
I still don’t know what the rutting hell is going on, but I can’t help but give her a grin.
“Morning bao bei.” I choke out.
That sleepy smile spins off faster than a feather in a wind storm, and before I know it she’s on her feet, spitting out a string of curses a mile long and glaring like I killed her cat.
When she walks out the door it’s with that heavy stride I forgot all about. Little thing like her sure makes an awful lot of noise.
When a woman walks off like that you don’t follow her, but it’s a good thing I’m so gorram tangle-headed, cause otherwise I think I might.
Instead I shut my eyes, rest my head back down on the gurney and say her name, just to remember the taste.
Ayla.
Well hell.
She sure beats the gou shi out of freeze-dried termites.
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