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Chapter 10: Living Flames

The next few days were blurs of Lia'unnians dressed in white and her team's faces hovering above her head as she drifted through a dream-like state.

What was it with her and getting hurt? She seemed to have a sign above her head that said, 'Hey look over here! This person is a good target! Let's get her!'

Gina dreamed of being at the lake again with Ro. Except for this time Amryn was there. He was hiding behind a bush at the edge of the forest when Gina and Ro were splashing each other, and he jumped out just as both of them had turned their backs.

"Hey, guys!" Amryn called to her and Ro, coming forward on his enhanced legs with a happy look on his face.

Gina wasn't sure how she knew that he had come looking for them and stumbled upon the lake.

Ro screamed. She had no idea who it was, and all they could see was a blur of motion. Gina spun around and in a startled instinctive motion pushed out a nanogene field toward Amryn.

"Agghhhhhh!" He screamed as he flew backward in a jolt of motion when the shield reached him, falling to the ground in anguish, the nanogenes too powerful for him.

Gina recognized him a moment too late.

"No!" She yelled, pulling the nanogenes back. But it was too late. Amryn didn't move.

"No! No no no no!" She ran up the bank of the lake, without anything but her underclothes on, yelling at him. Crying for him. Desperate for him to be alive. She couldn't be a murderer.

"No no no no no. This can't be happening." Gina dropped to her knees beside him and shook him, sobbing in heaving gulps. Not her friend. She couldn't have killed her friend.

The dream switched.

Now she was back in Miss Karina's room.

"Go on, get out, you worthless runt. If you care so much about the- what did you call them again?" She sneered, "Oh yes. 'The little children who have no one', you can go and see them." She cackled in a disgusting fashion. "Go and work at the Mill."

Gina trembled in fear. The Mill was the worst place of anywhere in her world for a child. She had faced it for thirteen years day in and day out, lucky not to have lost a finger or something far worse. She watched the other children come out physically and mentally beaten.

Has my time at the Manor all been a wonderful dream? Gina wondered horrified. Have I been tricked by some cruel twist fate into believing that I left this horror behind and now been taken back here?

"I said get out!" Karina yelled at Gina, glaring with hatred in her eyes. "You need to know your place. You don't work and get something signed by the Mill man, you don't eat."

Gina's heart fell to the floor and broke into a thousand pieces. She couldn't face the Mill again.

But then it was as if it wasn't just her heart had broken into a thousand pieces. It was her entire body that ached and felt broken; lifeless.

The dream faded away.

Quill's face came into view as the world around her cleared.

Gina let out an enormous sigh of relief, causing pain to shoot up the sides of her body. She didn't care. She wasn't at the mill.

She tensed from the pain. As her vision cleared she reached out an arm to touch Quill at the side of her bed, doing it slowly enough that it didn't hurt.

"Amryn?" She questioned nervously. What if her nightmare had come true? Had she hurt him?

"Oh Gina," Quill scooped her into his arms and held her against his chest. He murmured into her hair, "I thought I lost you."