top of page

Chapter 5.5 [Intermission]

Writer's picture: Paige ReganPaige Regan

Knight's stomach growled. He watched the door and fumbled with the portable TV in his hands, his patience running thin. 


There wasn't a clock in the room to tell him how long Spade had been gone, but Knight guessed it had been a couple of hours at least. He couldn't decide whether to be angry or worried. Spade was impulsive; he didn't often think things through, especially when it came to his safety. "I'm doing it for us," Spade would always say–but Knight had never asked him to in the first place.


He should have been back by now. Knight drummed his fingers against the television's screen. He hated being left behind. Even if his body wasn't in the best of shape, that didn't make him useless. He could do something–he wanted to do something–but what? 


Knight averted his attention to the tray of food nestled on the floor. He'd procured it from the closet sometime after Spade had left; after Charien's intrusion last night, the boys had forgotten it entirely. Most of the food was too spoiled now to eat–Knight had too many experiences with food poisoning to risk it–but he managed to nibble on a packet of nuts that had gone untouched. Still, the ache in his stomach told him it wasn't enough.


When was the last time Knight had a full meal? A week, at least. He'd gotten scraps here and there–trimmings Coren snuck past Belsey from the butcher's shop–but they could only tide him over for so long. His body needed sustenance.


Knight eyed the bedroom door. It was dangerous enough with Spade wandering No. X alone, but Knight couldn't outrun someone if he was spotted. Knight was good at staying quiet and getting by unseen, though–would that be enough?


His stomach growled again, deciding for him. It would have to be enough.


Gritting his teeth, Knight maneuvered himself out of bed and changed into the spare clothes draped over the bunk's ladder. It was a small change, but a refreshing one. He needed every ounce of confidence he could muster if he was about to waltz through No. X's headquarters for a sandwich.


I have to be out of my mind, he thought as he reached for the handle. The hallway was empty, but he could hear distant chatter from down one of the tunnels. It was almost impossible to tell how close they were–the echo carried sounds from all over. If he was going to leave, he had to do it now.


Summoning what little confidence he had, Knight scurried down the hall before he could change his mind. Ashe's room was near one of the main access hallways, so Knight guessed the kitchen would be nearby. He just had to grab a few things and sneak back. No one would even know he was missing.


As Knight searched the tunnel, he couldn't shake the sense of unease that smothered his chest. There was a horrible sense of wrongness here that he couldn't quite shake off. It had nothing to do with the creepy, dank tunnels–in some ways, they were actually an improvement–but with the very air itself. He found it hard to breathe as he passed some of the rooms.


His confidence wavered as he passed a series of closed doors, all of them identical and unlabeled. It was assumed if you belonged there, you would know which door to go through–but Knight didn't belong there, and each moment wasted was another chance that someone would realize that.


"--told her a thousand times. That girl doesn't listen."


Knight froze. The blood drained from his body at the sound of Charien's voice around the corner. He had only heard the man speak once, but that was enough to stop him in his tracks.


Ashe's room was too far to retreat to now. Even if he did run, his footsteps would echo through the tunnels–and Knight was certain Charien would catch him.


Knight grasped the handle to an inconspicuous-looking door instead, relieved to find it unlocked before he ducked inside. He did not bother to examine what storage room he'd wandered into–Knight pressed himself flat against the wall beside the door and waited.


He could barely hear their conversation over the rapid beating of his own heart. He heard two sets of footsteps pass by outside.


"There are rules," Charien said. "We have established them for a reason. She's your daughter, so see to it this doesn't happen again. We have to keep consistency."


His companion grunted in response. Knight got the sense the man was being talked at rather than to, but he wasn't about to save this stranger from conversation. His shoulders relaxed.


"Wait."


They stopped suddenly in front of the door and Knight's breathing hitched. His body tensed, waiting for the blow. I'm caught. 


Seconds ticked by. The door did not move. No bullet tore through his abdomen. No knife plunged itself into his back.


Reluctantly, Knight dared to peek through a crack in the door. Charien didn't face him–he was picking something off of the ground and pinning it back onto his lapel. The two men did not even glance at the door before they continued their walk.


Knight nearly collapsed from relief.


I'm going to have a heart attack, he thought, bracing himself against the stone wall. That's how I'm going to go out. A fucking heart attack.


"Are you going to stand there or introduce yourself?" 


Knight turned to find a woman standing at a metal table behind him. A pair of crooked round glasses were perched on her nose while a thick bun of gray curls frizzed at the top of her head. Her clothes were practical–slacks and a button-down shirt–with a stiff apron covering her chest and waist. Several tools and pouches hung in a belt at her waist, but Knight couldn't guess what they were for. She looked him over, her brows pinched together.


"I haven't seen you here before," she continued when Knight refused to speak. "Aroth, you're not one of Ashe's, are you?" 


"One of Ashe's". Damn it. Knight knew that girl was bad news. His throat seized up as he tried to find the right words to say. He didn't know this woman–Ashe hadn't mentioned her–and one wrong word might be his last.


"Well? Can you speak?" The woman walked around the table, her combat boots smacking noisily against the floor. 


"I–" What would Spade do in a situation like this? Aroth, there was a reason Knight was always left behind. Shame warmed his face. He wanted to handle this without his brother's help. He had to. "I think I'm in the wrong room."


The woman snorted. "I can see that, but that doesn't tell me who you are."


Knight shifted uncomfortably in place. "I'm Knight. We… Ashe let us stay here for the night."


"Hm. She did, did she?" The woman looked displeased. "Who is 'we'?"


"Me and my brother," Knight explained, the words pouring from his mouth in a rush. He didn't care if Ashe got in trouble for this–they should have never come with her in the first place. "We just needed somewhere to keep out of the storm. We had nowhere else to go."


"Where's your brother now?"


"I… don't know."


"Figures. What's that girl thinking?" She removed her glasses and rubbed her face in her hands. Knight's stomach gurgled and she looked up, her expression soft. "Well, I still have a few minutes before my lesson. Come here, bones." She walked back around the table and gestured to one of the empty stools before readjusting her glasses. "Name's Norma. Welcome to the lab."


Lab? Now that Knight got a good look at it, the room he'd entered was clearly not a storage room at all, but some kind of botanical facility. Plants of all shapes, sizes, and flora sat under heated lamps across the room while strange vials, tubes, glasses, and bottles made up most of the counter space around them. Knight admired the tools with awe.


"Here." Norma set a bowl of peeled fruit in front of him. Knight's mouth watered but he hesitated to take one. "I always keep some snacks around when I'm working. It's not poisoned."


"I didn't think it was," he said, but he had his doubts now. Pushing back his fear, Knight picked up one of the orange slices and bit into it. "It's delicious!"


"It better be; I grow them myself." Norma smiled. "Eat up. Lesson starts when my apprentice shows up. If she shows up."


Knight ate his fruit in silence as Norma bustled about the laboratory, his attention darting to every piece of equipment his eyes could devour. He'd never seen so much greenery together in all of his life, much less the tools to study it. His own knowledge was limited to the books that were donated to the orphanage before they were ceremoniously burned for heat in the winter. If it wasn't for a few books on the topic that Knight had managed to save and memorize, he wouldn't have learned, either.


"You like science?" Norma asked suddenly. Knight twisted the slice of fruit between his fingers and nodded.


"I don't know much," he said sheepishly. "Just what I've read."


"What kinds of things have you read?" 


The question took Knight by surprise. He was used to being lectured on his interests, reminded that such information isn't practical when it came to surviving in the Gate. Having someone interested… was kind of nice.


"Anything that comes through the orphanage," Knight explained. "There's a lot of math I don't understand, but I really like the stuff on plants and animals."


"Botany and biology." Norma grinned at her plant collection. "I enjoy them, too. My specialty is poisonous plants."


Knight nearly dropped his orange slice. He glanced up at the rows of plants behind her. "Are those all…?"


"Yep. The safe ones are in a separate room," she said. He looked back down at his fruit with hesitation and Norma laughed. "Trust me, those are fine. I promise."


Knight nodded and continued eating. He had no reason to trust this woman, and yet something in his gut told him to. Sometimes that was the only thing he could trust.


"So, have you done any field research?" Norma asked as she set up a few beakers on the back counter. 


"What do you mean?"


"You know, field research. Exploration. Looking at the world around you and studying it," Norma said.


Knight shook his head. "I've been to the beach a few times on my good days and I like to look at the seashells, but I usually can't stay long enough to watch the sea life."


Norma paused what she was doing to look at him. "Your 'good days'?"


Knight explained to her his complicated health history: the blood, the vomit, the pain. He could feel himself getting weaker as the blood seemed to come up from nowhere. Spade knew some of it, but he didn't know about Knight's recent nosebleeds, or his ears suddenly bleeding, or the morning he woke up horrified to find a small trickle of blood leaking from his eye like tears. Knight didn't believe in the gods anymore than his brother did, but sometimes he felt truly cursed nonetheless. Norma listened to him with a straight face, her expression torn between pity and curiosity as she asked for the specifics.


"I see," she said when he was finally finished. "Having to go through that so young… Well, we all have our challenges, don’t we?"


The laboratory door opened a short time later. A short girl with red hair and a baggy striped t-shirt snuck in. "Sorry I'm late. Had some stuff to take care of."


"That wouldn't have anything to do with the new mixer that materialized in the kitchen, would it?" Norma greeted the girl with an apron–smaller and cleaner than the one she wore–and the girl immediately tied it around her waist.


"I needed one. I was getting sick of doing everything with my arms."


"You know how Charien gets when it comes to the finances, Sav."


The girl–Sav–wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Oh, far be it from me to detract from his weekly scalp massage. It doesn't even do anything; he still looks like a used cigarette butt."


Knight could see that Norma was struggling not to smirk. She turned away and cleared her throat. "Watch what you say. The last thing you need is for him to overhear."


Sav rolled her eyes but didn't argue. Instead, her attention drifted to Knight. "Who's he?"


"A guest," Norma said quickly. Sav narrowed her eyes.


"Ashe brought me," Knight piped up, hoping that would help. Sav glared at him.


"Aroth," she cursed. "Are you for real? Does Charien know?"


"I hope not," Norma muttered. "He's here with his brother."


"Why?"


Norma threw her hands up in the air. "I don't know. That's a question you're going to have to save for Ashe. Now, get over here; you're late and I want to get this started."


Sav glowered but didn't argue, her anger simmering quietly as she joined Norma's side. They left Knight be for the most part, resuming a previous lesson that Knight had no knowledge of while he ate his orange slices. For once, he didn't mind being left out; there was something calming about this room, these people. He couldn't stop himself from reading every scrap of paper within a reasonable distance, scanning the pieces for words he knew or new information he could soak in.

They turned to Knight after he finished eating and Norma handed him an apron. "Knight, I have a proposition for you."


Knight turned the apron over in his hands with uncertainty. "That is…?"


"I want to take you on as a second apprentice," Norma said proudly. "Sav here agrees, don't you, Sav?"


Sav shrugged. "I don't know shit about you, but Norma's told me you can be our next experiment if you turn out to be a waste of time."


Knight looked to Norma for clarification, but she didn't deny it. He swallowed hard. "I don't understand. We just met."


"Sure, but how many other kids in the Gate love science?" Norma asked, gesturing broadly with her arms. Knight couldn't name even one. "You value what we do, and I get the feeling you'll study hard. We need more scientists in the world, Knight."


He wouldn't argue with her about that, but something told him that this wasn't her only motivation. "What would you get from this?"


Norma's grin sharpened. "Well, I won't deny that I have a personal interest. Have you heard of the Bloodman Curse?"


The name sounded familiar, but it was little more than a vague recollection in the back of his mind. "Maybe? I think so?"


"I believe that's what you have," Norma explained. "Not as a curse, though, but a disease. I typically work in the opposite of health and wellness, but your medical history interests me."


Knight perked up. "You know what's wrong with me?"


"Not quite, but that's what I'd like to find out," she said. "You see, your symptoms have historically been written off as the Bloodman Curse, and it's so rare that there have never been any proper studies conducted. I myself have never even heard of someone in our day and age having it, but what you just described sounds exactly right.


"I don't know about you, but I don't believe in anything that can't be explained with science. Despite popular belief, there is no such thing as a spiritual ailment… nor curses. Your condition interests me, and I would like to determine the physical causes of it. Would you allow me to observe and study you? Perhaps I can help you.” 


Hope surged in his chest. Knight did not imagine a long life for himself. He knew from an early age that his time was limited, but knowing with your head and knowing with your heart were two separate matters entirely. If he could be cured, if he could live a normal life… What would that look like?


"Will you be able to fix me?" 


Norma hesitated, and the slight frown on her lips squashed the fantasy Knight built up in his head before it could get too far. "Perhaps, perhaps not. You have to remember, I'm not a physician. But I have connections, although they don’t pick up the phone for me anymore. We will see what I can do." 


"Right." Knight wanted to kick himself. He knew better than anyone that if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was. 


"We'd still be looking into it, though," Sav cut in, surprising both of her peers. "That's better than nothing, right?"


That was true. Knight couldn't afford a doctor–this might be the best opportunity he had. 


"At the very least," Norma continued. "I can give you some medicine for the pain. If we discover more, well, we can go from there. In the meantime, you would get to work in the lab with me and Sav as my apprentice. Nobody will notice you here."


"Don’t breathe a word about Ashe around him, " Sav said. "I don't know why you'd be interested in her, but here you are, I guess."


"I'm not interested in her," Knight cut in. "My brother dragged me here. I just wanted a place to sleep for the night."


Sav seemed to relax a little at this. "Good. Maybe you're not a total idiot."


"I take it that's a yes, then?" Norma pushed.


Knight thought about it for a moment more. He'd never been allowed to work before–his body could never keep up, and Spade would throw a fit if he tried to push himself. The lab, though, was something else; he could be a part of something that would help him and his brother, and he would get to learn about his favorite subject while he did it. Knight was sick of being confined to stale rooms and musty cots for his brother's sake. He knew he was capable of more and he wanted to prove it.


"Yes." Knight held his hand out and they shook on it. "I'd love that."


4 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


background2_edited.jpg

Stay up to date with latest chapters and news

Thanks for subscribing!

CONTACT US

  • Discord
  • Tumblr
  • Instagram

For general inquiries, please get in touch

Thanks for submitting!

bottom of page