This particular ginger had eyes the color of a cloudless summer sky—the sort of sky too rarely seen in Bakersfield—set in a baby face above the aforementioned spattering of freckles. Those eyes widened as they met mine, and his song cut off in mid lyric.
“Shit!!”
I cocked an eyebrow, relieved to find that at least that didn’t hurt. “Shit?”
“You’re not supposed to be awake until I’m done.”
“Done with what? Stealing my organs? Measuring my dick? Murdering that song?”
He went beet red. Not sure if it was my justified criticism of his singing or the comment about my dick, which was, given the cold steel beneath my all-too-bare ass, very much hanging out for the world to admire and possibly measure.
“Healing you,” he finally managed. “We’re supposed to keep patients asleep until everything’s done, but that bit’s way harder than the actual healing.”
“Oh.” I let my eyes flutter closed, as my brain finally woke up enough for me to place his face. Last I’d seen him, Ishmae had been choking him unconscious. “You’re the first-year Healer. Shane something or other?”
“Shane Stevenson. Call me Balm.”
I cracked one eye back open. “What the fuck sort of Healer name is Bomb?”
“Not Bomb… Balm. There’s an l in there, and no b. Well, one b, I guess. It’s a type of ointment that soothes pain.”
I’d found a codename that made Baron Boner seem cool.
“So how come you’re working on me instead of one of the professionals?”
“One second, please.” Shane placed the palm of his right hand flat against my bare chest and concentrated. Moments later, warm spread outward from that point of contact, muffling the pain, if not killing it entirely. “This is part of my training,” he said. “After Ishmae choked me out, they brought me back to help. Besides…” He flushed again.
“Besides?”
“I’m a High-Three,” he shrugged self-consciously, “and they’re Twos. I don’t have their training yet, but in terms of raw power, I’m the only game in town. Given your condition when they carted you in, they decided to err on the side of caution.” He paused again. “I’ve never gotten to fix internal bleeding before, let alone a collapsed lung. Your heart even stopped! Would it be weird if I said thank you?”
“It’s weird that you even have to ask,” I decided, taking my first big breath since waking up. Everything still hurt, but that sharp piercing I’d felt in my side was gone, as was the whistling that had accompanied my last gasps in the pit. “How long was I out?”
“More than an hour.”
“Shit! I have class…”
“Me too,” said Shane, “but it started like forty minutes ago and Ms. Stein already knows we won’t make it to Control. Last year, only half the first-years were well enough to attend on the first day, so I guess three of us skipping is an improvement.”
I was pretty sure the little guy and his powers were part of the reason for that. A High-Three Healer and a ginger? Unicorn didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Wait… three of us?” After waking up to find Shane in my face, I’d very carefully not paid further attention to my surroundings. Or the fact that I was still fucking naked. Now, with every muscle complaining, I rolled to one side and took a careful look around.
I’d gone to the clinic when I first arrived at the Academy, but this wasn’t it. The clinic had inspirational posters, comfortable couches and magazines, not to mention individual examination rooms. This room, which I would later learn was the on-campus medical ward—because what school is complete without its own surgical center?—was all off-white paint and sterile steel accessories. Long shelves spotted the wall to my left, near a row of oversized sinks with detachable shower heads. To my right were four gurneys just like the one I was lying on. Two were empty, one was partially occupied by the still-smiling figure of Mom’s ghost, but the last held an actual patient; the mountainous, silent mass of my roommate, Jeremiah Jones.
“What happened to him?”
“Alan Jackson happened.” Shane shivered, then visibly brightened. “Broken right clavicle, and a spiral fracture to the left ulna. Pretty straightforward to heal, it turns out, but still… kind of cool.”
I flopped back down, clenching my teeth to keep the groan from slipping out. I’d been in my share of fights—and lost plenty of them, especially before puberty hit—but my match with Paladin was the first time in years I’d felt truly outclassed. It wasn’t a feeling I cared for. “So we’re all losers then? Might be the first thing my roommate and I have in common.”
“What?” Balm’s eyes widened again, and he shook his head, carrot hair flying about. “You didn’t lose.”
“You just spent an hour putting me back together. Of course I lost.”
“You don’t remember? Really?” He moved up and placed his palm on my forehead, concentrating. After a moment, he frowned. “No sign of brain damage that would suggest memory loss. Weird.”
Healer or not, ginger or not, I was a breath away from kicking Shane’s ass if he didn’t tell me what he was talking about.
“I was down here working, but I watched the whole thing on vid,” he explained. “You wouldn’t stop. Sixteen fractures, a punctured lung, at least two heart attacks… and you just kept going.”
“I thought you said my lung was collapsed.”
“It’s the same thing, medically speaking,” he said absently. “Broken rib punctured the lung, the lung collapsed. Anyway, if Matthew hadn’t surrendered—”
“He what?!?”
“Surrendered, ending the match. If he hadn’t—” Shane’s clear sky eyes were solemn. “—I think you might have died. Even with my help.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. The other Healers couldn’t believe Professor Tsarnaev let things go that far.”
My heartfelt expletive didn’t have anything to do with almost dying. Maybe it’s because I’d watched Her Majesty shred a Pyro just a few days earlier, or because
