The Seven Revels

Milo's Gamble

The best thing about the ISA was the fact that they had an seemingly unlimited supply of painkillers in stock on every intercept carrier. Milo had finished delivering his report of what had occurred on the Nightjar and started toward his room. But as he walked, pain in his head made it hard to think. He hung a left and quickly found the first aid room. He pushed through the door and went straight for the cabinet with painkillers. He pulled the cupboard doors open and, not bothering to check the labels, swept an entire shelf of the painkillers into his arms.

He turned to leave and nearly ran into Griselda Devika. Her hair, short and blonde, hung in her eyes, dripping. Her eye had finally stopped swelling, though now it was turning a horrid shade of purple. She limped a little as she pushed past him and into the room.

"You look good, Devika," he said hoarsely, without pausing to think of how bad he looked. He had ugly gashes across his whole face, courtesy of Quill VanDansk. He had a brace on his wrist, a result of the fracture he had sustained during his fifth mission. His chest was covered with bruises, each a slightly different shade of green and purple. The medic said he was lucky he hadn't broken his ribs, although they'd been bruised pretty badly. His concussion, they said, would go away in about a week. Till then, he was expected to stay away from physical activity and deal with an ever present migraine that made him want to curl up and die. He'd have to spend his nights in the medic's office to ensure that nothing would happen to him while he slept.

"You got a problem with it?" Griselda asked. "You should see yourself." She opened up another cupboard and pulled an icepack from it. She cracked it in her hands and shook it before pressing it to her eye with a hiss. "Shit, that hurts. Your stupid friend hit me really hard."

"They're not my friends anymore," Milo said, glaring at the ground. "They made that pretty clear."

"So cry about it. You're just lucky you got to shoot one of them."

"That was an accident and you know that."

"Say what you want, Burgess. I'm just saying, if I'd gotten to shoot her, I wouldn't have missed."

"I didn't miss," Milo snapped. "I was aiming for her shoulder. And I'd hardly count shooting her as a privilege."

"Yeah? Well I would've, and I wouldn't have been a pussy about it."

"I could've killed her if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. I was just trying to stop her from hurting Oscar."

"Yeah, fat lot of good that did him, huh? He's just lucky he didn't die, since that black haired kid shot him."

"Who did that?" Milo gestured at her eye, which narrowed.

"Blonde chick," she said after a second. "Shorty got one good hit in before someone else managed to get her off my back. Then your other friend, tall blonde guy, hit me across the head with a... pipe or something, I don't know. Seriously, what is it with your friends and pipes? Can't they find better weapons than that?"

Milo shook his head, trying to ignore the pain that resided there. He started to move toward the door again.

"What about you?" Griselda's voice stopped him, altogether too loud for him. He winced.

"What about me?"

"Who did... all of that? I mean, I kind of expected you to get your ass kicked, but which one did it? And what's with all the painkillers? You gonna go kill yourself?"

Milo glanced down at his arms for a moment then rolled his eyes. "Just stocking up for next time," he said. "The black haired guy did it. Quill."

Griselda laughed. "You didn't stand a chance. Did you at least hit him once?"