SECOND DRAFT: Hard Bank Left

45

The only thing that got Krys to release Graham's hand was the sudden and intense realization that she knew the woman standing next to Ve. It had been years since she'd seen the woman. The last time she had...

"Graham? Why is that woman waving at you? Do you recognize her?"

There was a distinct pause before his reply as he waited for the input of his other self. "Yes. She helped us remember you once."

"You do know what she is, don't you?"

"A dureri."

"And you know what that is? What they did to me?"

He looked at her in distinct confusion. "What are you getting at?"

"She was at Dustan's... while they had me there."

He continued to stare blankly at her.

"She's one of them. She knew they were torturing me and didn't bother stopping it."

"She could have been undercover," he offered. She could have been. She really could have. After all, the woman that single-handedly broke Graham was undercover when she did so. But that didn't excuse either of them, not in Krys' mind. Adrianna had been there the first night Krys had been flayed open and vivisected. She'd talked to Dustan like he was an old friend.

Krys started shaking, this time out of fear rather than cold. She wanted so badly to go over and do some serious harm to that woman... but she couldn't. She couldn't even breathe. Her body remembered so much more vividly than her mind. On instinct, Krys clutched at the strap of Little Brother, the massive railgun she had slung over her shoulder. If she had to she could swing it out, take out that diseased piece of filth.

"You doing okay?" Graham's question rang through her for a long minute before she even realized that she had heard him speak.

"Hmm?" Her voice seemed high pitched to her, tight, cut off.

"I asked if you were alright. You look shaken."

Krys shook her head. She wasn't alright, nothing about her was alright. Whatever confidence she had mustered that night, however powerful she may have felt in the sky fighting Ero, vanished the moment she realized who it was standing next to Ve. Was this really how fragile her mask had become?

"So you know her?" The question sounded truly incredulous, as though Graham believed that there was no possible way the woman he had waved at could be the same person that Krys had seen. Yet there could be no mistaking her. That woman had been seen by her very eyes the night of her first session on the table. There could be no mistaking her distinct features: an elegant blend of east Asian and Mediterranean, tall and elegant with soft features and a hooked nose. Large, dark eyes stared out at her through over the causeway, the same dark eyes that had looked her once over years prior.

Finding herself incapable of truly answering the question, Krys stiffened, her head cocked, her jaw clenched. Everything in her felt like protecting itself. In that moment it fought between playing dead and running, all the while she was consciously aware of the fact that she needed to press forward and, eventually, fight. She stepped back, feeling Little Brother press into the wall behind her. The moon felt unusually bright, like it was blowing out everything else. Making out dark shapes proved difficult. The sound of wind and moving water, silent as they were, drown out even her own thoughts. She couldn't think, couldn't concentrate. Her focus slipped away until all she was left with was shaky at best. She couldn't process, she couldn't breathe.

She felt the last dregs of her strength slip away when Graham guided her onto the causeway crossing Randolph Street. He was moving toward the object of her anxiety. What was he doing?! Did he want her to die? Was he trying to hand her over to another dureri and watch her suffer? He was no better than Dustan! He was no better than...