The Wrong Side

Chapter 15

"I'm going to pour the hydrogen-peroxide on the count of three. Ready? One..."

"Holy shit!"

Kadiya dumps the entire bottle of disinfectant on my feet. I thought she said that this would clean out the cuts, not set them on fire.

I try to jerk my feet away from her, but she holds tight and continues to pour the lava on my wounds. I grind my teeth together and try to ignore the feeling of someone shoving a hot knife into my foot and twisting.

"I thought you said you'd pour on three!"

"Yeah, but then you'd be expecting it. Trust me, this is better. Haven't you seen a movie? This is what they always do."

"But it hurts!"

"I didn't think you'd be such a baby!" Kadiya says with an amused grin. What is she smiling about? Does she enjoy watching me in pain?

"I'm not a baby."

"Sure." Kadiya laughs and shakes her head. She finally finishes cleaning out the cuts and she starts to wrap the cuts with a bandage and gauze.

I'm sitting on the trunk of her car which is old and a dusty shade of purple. We're a few kilometres from where Kadiya and I left the unconscious Endurance soldiers. It's closer to the morning now. The sky is a shade lighter and I can see Kadiya a little more clearly. I can't distinguish what her face looks like yet, but her hair is long, thick and tied back from her face, leaving bangs to cover her forehead.

We're still in the middle of nowhere, but I feel a lot safer with Kadiya than I did in that van. I also feel... guilty. That voice which tells me to bring her and two others to where I grew up is nagging at me. I want to find out what it means. I want to know what it is but I'm scared to find out what will happen if I listen to it. I don't trust it. However, the voice did tell me about that set of keys in the van which got me out of there. It confuses me to the point where I get a headache and butterflies flying in my stomach.

"I want to have a look at your arm," says Kadiya as she puts the final touches on the bandages and stands up.

"What about it?"

"I watched that little fight with you and those soldiers. I saw you get shot in the arm."

"I got shot?" I say, a little surprised.

"Yeah. You didn't feel a bullet hit your right shoulder?"

"No."

Kadiya grabs my arm and turns me to my left so that she can get a good look at my shoulder. She's silent for a few seconds and stands still as if she's paralyzed.

"Kadiya?"

"You have a mech arm?"

"What?" I ask, turning to look at her and I see her fingering my right arm, entranced by it.

"When did you get this? What happened?"

"I-" I start, then I realize that I don't know how I lost my arm. I frown and Kadiya raises her eyebrows at me.

"Well?"

"I-I don't know. I've had it for as long as I remember."

Her nose wrinkles and an eyebrow raises sarcastically.

"You don't remember getting a prosthetic arm?" she asks. "Do you know what it's made out of?"

"Carbon, I think," I reply and I bite my lip. It feels raw and it stings a little. Did I bite it earlier or something?