Chapter 15: White and Gold
1750 Words
The first thing I remembered was the ceiling.
Not Lucy.
Not Moira.
Not even my name.
The ceiling.
White panels crossed by thin strips of metal.
One light flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then stayed on.
I knew that light.
My stomach dropped before I understood why.
Something tightened around my wrist.
I pulled.
Metal answered.
“No.”
A figure moved beside me.
White coat.
Gloves.
A face behind clear protective glass.
“Temperature?”
“Forty-one point three.”
“Still climbing.”
“Again.”
Something cold touched my arm.
I twisted.
The restraint bit into my wrist.
“Wait.”
A hand closed around my shoulder.
“Hold him.”
“Wait—”
The needle went in.
And I remembered.
Not what they were doing.
What came next.
Pain.
I screamed before it started.
---
I woke sitting upright.
Darkness.
My breath came too fast.
Then moonlight found the shutters.
The chair.
My shirt.
The c***k in the ceiling I'd been meaning to ask Lucy about.
Moira.
I pressed both hands against my face.
“Okay.”
My voice shook.
“Okay.”
Nothing held me.
I moved my wrists anyway.
Left.
Right.
Free.
No footsteps.
Good.
Lucy was asleep.
The last nightmare had kept her on the sofa until morning. She'd pretended that wasn't what happened.
I'd pretended to believe her.
We were getting very good at that.
I swung my legs over the bed.
Water.
Kitchen.
Easy.
I stood.
The room disappeared.
---
White.
My wrists hurt.
“Again.”
“No.”
My own voice.
Not now.
Then.
“Please.”
The word stopped me.
I didn't sound like myself.
Maybe I did.
I didn't know what myself sounded like before Moira.
Fear swallowed the thought.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
I knew these people.
Or I knew what they did.
“Please don't.”
A man's voice answered near my feet.
“You know this is easier when you cooperate.”
I hated him.
The certainty was immediate.
Old.
“Go to hell.”
That sounded more like me.
Apparently t*****e hadn't improved my manners.
Someone sighed.
“Again.”
The needle entered my arm.
Fire tore through me.
Blue.
Gold.
The restraints began to glow.
Someone shouted—
And the world moved.
Not metaphorically.
The entire room lurched sideways.
Metal screamed beyond the walls.
The light went out.
For one impossible second, silence.
Then an alarm began.
---
My shoulder struck the bedroom wall.
I caught myself.
“Marco?”
Damn it.
Lucy's door opened.
She appeared seconds later, hair tied back badly, loose strands around her face.
Her eyes went immediately to my hands.
Wrists.
Face.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
She looked at me.
Right.
We'd discussed lying.
“Memory.”
She approached.
Not too close.
“Now?”
I nodded.
“Do you want to sit?”
“No.”
Too sharp.
Lucy stopped.
“Okay.”
“Sorry.”
“You don't have to apologize.”
“I keep waking you.”
“You're allowed to exist after midnight.”
A laugh escaped me.
Barely.
But enough.
“Water.”
She nodded toward the kitchen.
“Come on.”
---
No tea this time.
Apparently even Lucy had limits.
She slid a glass across the table.
Outside, insects buzzed beyond the shutters. The refrigerator hummed.
Normal noises.
Useful noises.
Lucy sat opposite me.
No notebook.
I noticed.
I wished I hadn't.
“What did you remember?”
“More.”
“Restraints?”
“Yeah.”
“The same room?”
“I think so.”
“White?”
“Yes.”
I stared at my hands.
“They were measuring my temperature.”
“How high?”
“Forty-one point three.”
Something moved across her face.
I pointed.
“That.”
“What?”
“That thing.”
“I didn't do anything.”
“You did.”
“What?”
“I don't know. Your eyebrows.”
“My eyebrows.”
“Very suspicious.”
“Marco.”
“I'm trying.”
Her expression softened.
“I know.”
The joke left.
“I asked them to stop.”
Lucy went still.
I wished I hadn't said it.
Not because I didn't want her to know.
Because I didn't want to hear myself say it again.
“I knew what was coming. Before they did it.”
She didn't offer comfort I hadn't asked for.
That made it easier to continue.
“There was a needle.”
“The same as before?”
“I think so.”
“And then the fire?”
“Yes.”
“Blue?”
“And gold.”
Her fingers tightened around her mug.
An empty mug.
She'd brought it anyway.
Habit.
“There was something else.”
“What?”
“The room moved.”
Her gaze sharpened.
“Moved?”
“Like…”
The sensation returned through my feet.
The violent sideways pull.
“Like we were hit.”
“An alarm started?”
“Yes.”
“Could you hear anything?”
“Metal.”
“An engine?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
Bad idea.
Metal screaming.
Alarms.
Footsteps.
A voice outside.
Then something so deep I felt it before I heard it.
My eyes opened.
“I think we were on a ship.”
Lucy's hand stopped.
I stared at her.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You thought it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The fragment from Cala Verde.”
Right.
“You said you didn't know what it was.”
“I don't.”
“But you thought ship.”
“I thought several things.”
“That's becoming one of my least favorite sentences.”
“I know.”
I stood.
Not angry.
I just needed movement.
Lucy let me have it.
At the window, the sea was hidden behind houses and trees.
“Don't lie to me.”
Quieter than I intended.
Behind me, Lucy didn't move.
“I won't.”
I believed her.
That was the problem.
---
I slept again eventually.
Or the memory waited until I closed my eyes.
This time there was no ceiling.
There was a hole in the wall.
Beyond it—
Night.
Sea.
Wind tore through the opening, dragging smoke sideways.
Alarms screamed.
I was still restrained.
One wrist had come loose.
The other hadn't.
Blood ran down my arm.
“Get him out!”
“There's no time.”
“We need the specimen—”
Another impact.
The floor jumped.
A cabinet tore from the wall.
I was looking through the hole.
At the ship.
Not ours.
The other one.
It sat beyond the smoke.
Enormous.
Dark.
For one strange second, I thought it looked old.
Not damaged.
Old.
Its silhouette belonged in a painting.
Heavy hull.
Tall superstructure.
Something built when ships were expected to look like war.
Then gold appeared along its side.
Lines.
No.
Channels.
Light waking beneath metal.
My breath stopped.
Behind me—
“Oh God.”
Not prayer.
Recognition.
Fear.
“What is that?”
No one answered me.
The gold brightened.
Night turned white.
Then blue.
Something inside my chest answered.
Heat exploded beneath my ribs.
My skin lit from underneath.
Blue.
Gold.
The person nearest me backed away.
“What the hell—”
The other ship fired.
---
I woke on the kitchen floor.
Sunlight covered half the room.
Morning.
My hand curled against my chest.
Blue light slipped between my fingers.
Gold threaded through it.
The flame didn't burn.
It breathed.
Once.
Twice.
Then disappeared beneath my skin.
“Marco?”
Lucy stood in the hallway.
She looked at my hand.
Neither of us spoke.
“I remembered.”
She came closer.
This time I didn't ask her to stop.
She crouched in front of me.
“What?”
“A ship.”
“Your ship?”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“Another one.”
Outside, a motorbike passed.
A rooster started screaming several hours too late.
The absurdity almost made me laugh.
“It attacked us.”
“Did you recognize it?”
“No.”
“Any markings?”
“I couldn't see.”
“Shape?”
“Big.”
“Marco.”
“Very big.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Old.”
That got her attention.
“How old?”
“I don't know. It looked… wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“Like it shouldn't have been there.”
Lucy said nothing.
“It had lights.”
“What kind?”
“Gold.”
Her gaze dropped.
Not to my hand.
Away.
I noticed.
“Lucy.”
“What?”
“You know something.”
“I know there are vessels capable of carrying magical weapons.”
“That's not what I said.”
“No.”
“Do you know the ship?”
Her eyes met mine.
“No.”
Truth.
I could tell.
Maybe I was simply learning her.
That thought was unexpectedly worse.
“They were afraid of it.”
“The people holding you?”
“Yes.”
“How afraid?”
I remembered the man's voice.
Oh God.
“Enough.”
Lucy sat on the floor opposite me.
Neither of us seemed interested in chairs.
“Maybe it was trying to help.”
The possibility occurred only as I said it.
“If it attacked the people who had me…”
I let the thought finish itself.
Something loosened inside my chest.
Small.
Fragile.
Hope was embarrassing like that.
Lucy didn't crush it.
She didn't agree either.
“You don't know yet.”
“No.”
“I don't either.”
I looked toward the window.
Morning sunlight turned the leaves painfully green.
A normal day.
Again.
“White room,” I said.
Lucy waited.
“White light. Then gold.”
I looked at my hand.
“And blue.”
The colors had followed me all the way to Moira.
I didn't know whether they belonged to the people who hurt me, the ship that attacked them, or me.
Maybe all three.
But for the first time, the memory didn't end with me falling into darkness.
There had been something before the water.
Something had found the people who held me.
I didn't know what.
I didn't know why.
But somewhere inside the life I couldn't remember, an ancient-looking warship had appeared in the night.
And everyone except me had known to be afraid.
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