The Future Chosen [was Anti-Dynasty/Extraordinary]

Broken Chapter 7

By the third day, Lourdes began to notice the pain. It started out like a deep itch, and for a second, as if to remind her of what happened, it would go raw and sharp. She had a vague memory of the bandage on her side being wider; by now it was a narrow white strip covering just the surgery scar. The stitches weren't out yet, but it felt sometimes like they were being ripped out, one by one, every so often during the day.

"Shit me," Lourdes swore. This particular time it hit her during her afternoon walk, except they weren't walking. Andres had gotten them an electric car and was driving them across the main hospital compound to one of the pavilions by the beach.

"They lowered your dosage for the pain," Andres said. "They want you completely off it by the time you go back."

So that was what the extended break in Callemara was for. Lourdes understood enough about what happened to her to know that it wasn't that bad--no major organs hurt, no broken bones during her fall. She had gotten a wound and was stitched up--albeit in an extreme way. She wasn't paralyzed. She wasn't dead.

But she had been taking painkillers since she was brought into the emergency room, throughout her surgery, and now in recovery.

"They think I'll pull a Tomas the 3rd? Come on."

He snickered. "Do you know that for sure? You've never been this heavily medicated before."

A "Tomas the 3rd," unfortunately for his family, now meant someone having one drink too many and making a spectacle of himself. The former mayor, already known for erratic behavior and liking his alcohol, started his night at a birthday party for his seven-year-old daughter, then crashed a wedding reception in the restaurant across the street, then proceeded to climb up a parked van, yelling his plans for cleaning up the city of its trash and his enemies.

Not that he ever got the chance to do all of it; he lost his election the following year. The meltdown was well-documented.

That couldn't have been more than five years ago, but it was a pebble thrown into the river. Ripples, ripples, eventually reaching Lourdes and Andres and everyone like them, changing all their lives a little bit. Now they learned that the voting public no longer liked the macho man of action. Not being able to control your preferred substance became a liability.

So they couldn't afford that Lourdes be seen in her own home recovering from someone shooting at her, under the influence of any of kind of drug, no matter how essential or benign. They couldn't let her be seen and heard going through this either, because they didn't know yet if she would lose public sympathy if they showed her walking around wounded.

Callemara was expensive and in these cases, worth the cost.

This lifelong game they were part of was one where the rules kept changing. Andres, who was always the smart, clean, nice boy, had his potential jump considerably, just because the tide turned against the known alcoholics. It was probably why his career path was changed.

"You haven't seen me in years," she retorted. "You don't know how heavily medicated I might have been. Another time."

"Really."

"Sure. It's been all parties and strippers without you." No, it hadn't been.

Life without Andres had been mostly work, and tedious conversations with her parents, her aunts, uncles, Santiago's family.

God, Santiago.

Andres was smiling. "I'm sorry I missed it."

"You should be."

She was pouting. She was twenty-four years old and the deputy chair of the damn country's youth commission, she was the granddaughter of a revered former president, and she was pouting.

Andres fell silent, paying attention to the turn he needed to make. He hesitated for a second, then shrugged and went down a paved road, gently sloping down. Lourdes could smell the water.

"How bad does it hurt though?" he asked.

"I can manage. It's a little like my worst menstrual cramp. But double it."

"I remember those. You handled them."

"I can handle this."

"I'm not allowed to up your dosage for you," he said. "I don't like seeing you in pain, but I can't help."

"Well yeah, you're not an actual medical professional, you know."

She was kidding, because they were like this. She missed this easy way they talked to each other, the play with words you could only really have with someone you considered your equal. If she were like this with someone else they'd take offense, accuse her of lacking respect, of flaunting her privilege and status. She couldn't take someone down a peg; everyone was waiting to do it to her. With Andres he knew it was a game and would throw the ball right back at her.

But when she looked at him this time, his mood had changed.

"I'll do anything," Andres said. "I'll do anything so I won't have to see you in pain again. If you wanted a higher dosage you shouldn't ask me, because I'll find a way to do it."

"It's not the right thing to do anyway."

His lips were tense. "I know. So don't ask me. Because you know I'll do anything for you."

He would.

Lourdes nodded. "I'm fine."