The Right to Die | ✓ Amby Winner 2023

16. Science and Heart

M'yu hurried along, forced to keep double-time by Aevryn's long legs and body blocking the way behind. Aevryn waved the hover open with his linkcard, and M'yu ducked in.

Aevryn closed the hover and darkened the glass. "This had better never happen again. Do you hear me?"

M'yu stared blankly at the black walls, tired of saying 'yes, sir.'

"You threw a sword," Aevryn's voice rose, "across the gymnasium? What in the world were you thinking?"

"Does it matter?" M'yu snapped back. "I just want to go home."

"Fantastic, because that's absolutely not where you're going. You interrupted me at work, so now you're going to come sit in my office and do absolutely nothing for the next three hours. How does that sound?"

M'yu dragged a hand down his face. "Great, if nothing includes sleeping."

Aevryn snatched M'yu's wrist. "This is not a game," he growled. "When are you going to wake up and realize that actions have consequences?"

M'yu threw his free hand to the side. "You think I don't know that?" he shouted. "You think I wake up every day and go, 'Oh, man, I wonder how I can waltz through life today in my gilded clothes and cushy hover and roll up and do whatever I want because no one cares if I screw up, I'm rotting rich!"

Aevryn went still, his face an icy sculpture. M'yu yanked his hand out of the man's grasp and looked away.

Across the hover, Aevryn shook his head, muttering. "What am I going to do with you?"

M'yu's gaze snapped to him. "What do you mean, 'do with me'?"

"M'yu, you don't listen to a word I say. You distrust every single move I make. And then you cause nothing but trouble on top of trouble. All you had to do today was toe the line—I told you this morning, 'don't get into trouble'. And when I'm on my first halfway decent lead in months, to my surprise, what do I hear? My apprentice has been expelled for the day. Yesterday, you mentioned flunking; I hadn't realized you were serious." Aevryn flopped back into the leather seat. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

M'yu had a million things to say for himself, and they all lodged in his throat.

Aevryn shook his head. "I don't understand you, boy. I tell you that I'm on your side, that I need your help, and what—you self destruct? How is that going to help your people? How is any of this helping your people?"

M'yu drew his legs up into the seat, pressing his pounding head into his knees.

"I'm trying to have a conversation with you."

M'yu's breaths came fast and shaky. He felt wrung out, like he was a piece of cloth someone had left to dry too long over the fire. It didn't matter what he did; it didn't matter what Aevryn did. He had Ruslan's card now. He'd figure some way out to save everything. Some way.

"I still need you, M'yu. But I can't use you if I can't trust you."

M'yu should have argued—need him for what, use him for what? That threat was always there under all their conversations; Aevryn had some bid he was going to buy using M'yu's life. M'yu just didn't know what it was, and now, right now, might be the best time to ask. Instead, his forehead just rested against his knees, and he closed his eyes, taking comfort in the rocking of the hover.

Aevryn sighed. "Alright then." He tapped out something on the console, and the hover changed direction.

M'yu's stomach sank. This was it. The end of the free meals, the warm bed, the pretend life. The end of the perfect chance. The end of... He listened to the steady clicking from the console and the creak of the leather as Aevryn leaned back. He swallowed. The end of someone looking out for him. Even if it was fake. "Can I at least get my beanie back?"