The Gender War (The Gender Game #4) by Bella Forrest (read novel full TXT) 📗

Violet

I tossed the bloodied bundle of bandages that the Patrian doctor, who’d been found by one of the refugees, had barked at me to dispose of into a waste bin, and I used the opportunity to slip out of the room. There wasn’t much I could do, and my hands were beginning to shake from exhaustion. Letting Viggo sleep after burying the dead the night before meant that I hadn’t, and though it was only early afternoon, it already felt like this day had gone on forever. This was too much death for a year, to say nothing of a single day.

I didn’t know if I could bear it if another person was added to the list.

Ms. Dale hadn’t left Henrik’s side since Viggo and I had seen her, and my heart was breaking watching her mood swing from optimistic to furious to despairing. This woman had been one of my staunchest supporters since I was young. I’d never seen her so upset, even in The Green, when she, Viggo, and I hadn’t known whether we could trust each other. I’d almost come to believe that she was unflappable. Seeing her in this state felt like the world was really turned upside-down.

And I felt like there was nothing I could do to help. The only thing I had really been doing in the room had been keeping pressure on the wound in Henrik’s chest and hoping that Jeff could get the doctor here quickly.

He was here now, but I wasn’t sure if Henrik was going to make it—he was so pale, even though we had been administering new blood rejuvenation patches every hour, on the hour. He was losing blood faster than we could get him to manufacture it, and if the doctor didn’t manage to stop the bleeding permanently, and soon, he would continue to lose it until his heart literally did not have enough to pump. And then he would die.

We can’t lose Henrik, I thought as I walked down the hall, rubbing my bloodstained hands against my thighs. We’ll lose Ms. Dale too. And then two of the wisest, most capable people around me would have been torn apart, whether physically or mentally, by this war.

When Ms. Dale’s emotions had turned to rage, it had been mostly aimed at herself. Some of the wardens had pressed up her staircase, and she had been forced to fall back. Henrik had heard the gunfire and stepped in to cover her, but caught a bullet instead. Ms. Dale had tried to force them back alone, covering our fallen companion, but one… one had opened fire on the room full of innocent people. Whether it was confusion on her part or just a desire to make our victory hurt all the more, I would never have any idea. All I knew was that there were twelve more bodies to add to the eight from the previous night.

My heart felt like lead in my chest—not just for the dead, but also for the effect it was having on Viggo. I had seen it in his eyes when he’d been digging last night, how he’d retreated from feeling, moving like an emotionless automaton. Today, after the refugees had been killed, I’d seen the same aching hollowness in him. And I could feel, not just sense, his hopelessness and pain, like a swollen, open wound.

It was killing me to see him like this. In some ways, I knew it was taking him back to Miriam—his wife, who had been executed for murder when she’d killed a man in self-defense. Viggo had tried to save her life, but he hadn’t been able to beat the system. I knew he’d always been a protector, and his failure to protect her had left a deep wound in him. He himself had said that wound was only beginning to heal. Now, here he was, surrounded by more people he couldn’t save. Already, the heavy cost of the war was weighing on him.

A part of me felt like I was losing him to it already, like the man I knew and loved would be dead long before this conflict was over. Not actually, physically dead—because I would never let that happen—but dead in a darker, more insidious way. He would keep on moving, keep on leading people, keep on trying to help, because that was what he did. But he would do it the same way he had moved to dig the graves. Robotic, unfeeling.

I spotted him standing near the room where the latest murders had happened, staring at the smears of blood through the doorway, and slowed down. He looked so angry. And so very, very sad.

Viggo turned, giving me a hard look, and I felt the urge to hide my bloodied hand behind my back. I wished there was a way I could offer him something, anything comforting, instead of more proof of violence. His gaze dragged back up to my eyes, and he offered me a maudlin smile that threatened to twist my heart in two.

“Hey,” he said, taking a step closer.

“Hey,” I replied, moving one step closer as well. And then another and another, because I just wanted to throw my arms around him and tell him it was going to be all right.

He spread his arms, catching me as I threw myself into them, burying my head in the space where his shoulder and neck met. We held each other for a few moments, taking comfort in the feel of one another’s vitality. “Hey,” he repeated after a moment, tearing a chuckle from me.

I pulled back slightly and gazed into his wonderful green eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” I said—knowing it for the lie it was, but saying it anyway.

His face fell, and he looked away, wincing slightly. “You can’t know that,” he whispered, and I grabbed a handful of his shirt and shook him slightly, forcing him to look at me.

“You’re right,” I said as soon as his eyes fell