Twenty Four Shades Darker: The Hunt

Something Other

One week on and he was still on the supplements. He watched the vitamin tablets dissolve into the water as if the fizzing bubbles were the most fascinating thing in the world. Then he pinched his nose and downed the resulting drink in one. It grated against the inside of his throat. He had to force himself to swallow it.

At the other side of the bunker his father gave him a relieved grin and turned back to the papers he was writing. His family had been absorbed neatly into the routine of District Thirteen; as someone who could read and write his father had been allocated a desk job and his mother was doing what was known as 'shift work', meaning that she alternated between menial tasks in the laundry or the canteen or just cleaning up. She was leaning against the railings of her bed, her hair frizzy with steam and her cheeks and chin starting to sag. She seemed to have aged a decade in the month since her fake arrest in Five. She was still teary, though she'd at least stopped hugging him over and over again.

"Good boy," she said, as if he was five again. "You're starting to look healthy, at least."

There were no mirrors on the walls, but he could see himself reflected in his glass of water. They'd got him a pair of hi-tech glasses that he couldn't use for anything other than seeing through, and the scratches on his face were healing thanks to the tiny pot of cream he'd been provided, but he wouldn't say he looked healthy. There was still a hunted look on his face. Inky blotches under his eyes that, in the strange half-light of Recreation Time, looked like bruises. For a moment he faltered, unsure whether he was looking at himself or the clone. His heart clenched, his body tensing and his breathing...

"It's okay, Erik." That was his father, his voice low and gravelly. "You're here now. Safe now. Breathing exercises. In. Out."

He let himself be talked through the breathing routine that the woman - Auriel - with the big poofy hair and the slightly glossy pink skin had taught them. In. Out. I'm okay. In. Out. I'm okay.

That was something, at least. A small pang of guilt went through him at the reminder that for the last few hours he'd forgotten Holly and Will and Marisa and the others, but it faded quickly. He was okay. He was with his family. The last few days had been a blur of tests and treatments, vaccinations and supplements and checks and all sorts of things that he'd been too dazed to understand at the time. At some point in it all there'd been Holly's family, two tall and stern parents who looked rather like her and an older sister who had shouted until one of the nurses had wrenched her away. He hadn't seen them since. He wasn't sure he'd be able to cope with it anyway.

But he was here. Safe now. He grabbed onto the table just to remind himself of that and for a second was startled by how solid everything around him was. The ground didn't budge under his feet. Sometimes, when he was tired but didn't dare to sleep, it seemed as though the rails of his bunk bed were waving like branches and he could almost hear the whispering of the wind through the leaves. Then the comparative silence of Thirteen would startle him alert again and he'd have to go for a walk just to convince himself that everything was alright.

"Erik, honey?"

"Ma?"

"What are you going to do with the rest of your day?"

President Splinter, who was pretty much exactly how he'd imagined her, right down to the permanent sour expression, had summoned him and Satine the day before and told them that they were hoping to integrate them into work in the next couple of days. Whatever sort of 'work' they had in mind. Erik had a sneaking feeling that it was going to be promo sort of work, with a side helping of weapons practice thrown in, just in case they were ever required as foot soldiers. That was what he would do, if he were in her situation. But for now his arm was clean and his days were empty. There wasn't much he could do except sit on his bed and think.