The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)(71)

Viggo stood as still as a statue during a long span of silence. Then he began to speak, recounting the entire incident. I listened as he told me about his conversation with Desmond, and then Ian’s attack, and felt my heart fracture further.

“He stopped moving,” Viggo said, his eyes flicking to mine, his voice hoarse. “I had my arm wrapped around his neck, cutting off his air, and he just went… still. I moved away, got off him, but…” He released a shuddering breath and ran a hand through his hair in agitation. “God, he was so still. We didn’t even know until… until Dr. Arlan told us. By then he had pulled off Ian’s mask. Owen had just realized who he was when… Arlan said it was impossible to know what exactly had caused his heart to stop. He said it could’ve been the sedative, it could have been the wrong dose or something, but I know it was me. It had to have been me. I was on top of him. It was my arm around his throat. If I could’ve just…” He trailed off.

“It was my fault,” he explained, finally meeting my gaze. His hand was still in mine, loosely, but he gently pulled it away. “If I had been faster, made a better decision, I could’ve saved him. I should’ve saved him.”

I wiped my eyes, more tears coming, and shook my head. “It’s not your fault,” I said, trying to reassure him but knowing how hollow it must have sounded. “You did everything you could.”

“It wasn’t enough,” he snapped back. “I should’ve done better.”

He pulled away, jerking his torn shirt off the wall and throwing it over his head. I watched as he stalked out, arranging the shirt over his midsection, feeling utterly incapable of helping anyone.





28





Viggo





The night had faded away into a gray, overcast dawn, the threat of rain bearing down in the form of ionized air. Everyone else had gone inside at one point or another and gotten some rest.

I hadn’t slept—I couldn’t even bring myself to try. Instead, I worked. I helped Lynne, Morgan, and Jay unload the vehicles they had packed up as a precaution. The work suited me just fine. I was in no mood to deal with human interaction, and our ceaseless labor didn’t really make talking practical.

Once that task was finished, I moved on to another job, then another. I took the jobs nobody wanted: splitting firewood, digging out areas for people to relieve themselves and marking them with strips of yellow cloth, building more targets for the firing range… I did anything and everything I could to remain alone. The latest chore was laundry duty, which was probably the most annoying task in the camp, as it required me to fetch water from the rusted-over pump on the side of the house, heat it over a fire, and then dump it into a trough and scrub at the dirty clothes and bedlinens for grueling minutes. Even with the heavy plastic gloves I wore over my bandages to keep my raw knuckles from bleeding on the clean clothes, the heat of the water felt as though it was scalding me every time I put my hands into it.

It was perfect.

News of Owen’s loss had hit the camp hard, muting the normal sounds of a waking, bustling camp of over fifty people. A somberness seemed to hang over us, just as heavy and thick as the clouds overhead. I kept my head down as I worked, making it known that I was not in a mood for conversation, and, for the most part, people left me alone.

Physical activity was a distraction, one I sorely needed to keep myself from going off the rails. I didn’t think I could ever explain my turmoil to anyone, not even Violet. It was like a poisonous sack of bile writhing under my torso. It wouldn’t do me the courtesy of letting me vomit, nor would it become less corrosive with time. It just sat there, periodically twitching, reminding me a boy had died, and I was more than likely responsible for it.

I knew Violet and Ms. Dale and… well… everyone except Owen didn’t feel like I should blame myself. But I couldn’t help it. I was the one who had fought him. I was the one who had wrapped my arm around his tiny neck and squeezed. If I had just been able to…

My gloved hand convulsively closed into a fist, and I had to swallow the urge to start hitting something again—a feeling I was growing more and more familiar with. I winced as my knuckles throbbed, almost able to feel the broken skin splitting further, and then relaxed into it, letting the pain roll over me, recognizing on some dark level that I deserved it. On an even darker level, I knew it wasn’t enough to make up for my failings.

I released my clenched fist and exhaled before plunging my hand back into the soapy water, just shy of scalding, and beginning to rub the clothes against the washboard in the tub. I was engrossed in my work, but even so, time moved at a snail’s pace.

There was a subtle clearing of a throat behind me, and my hands stopped in their vigorous scrubbing. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Violet there, her face somber. Her bruises had faded quite a bit over the past few days, but they lingered in yellow and green, almost fluorescent spots on the side of her face. I hadn’t stopped to look in a mirror, but I assumed I now had a set to match.

“It’s time?” I asked, and she nodded.

Swallowing the excess saliva that had built up in my mouth, I pulled the sheet I had been working on out of the water and dropped it into the next tub, which held cooler, clean water for rinsing. “I’ll be there in a minute,” I announced. “Just want to finish this.”