When she finally finished laughing, Cheyenne went back to her chair behind the desk and plopped into it. “A year, and they still don’t know their way around underwear.”
That made her stop short, and she thought of her tour through Rez 38, the training centers and schools in Q2, the marketplace set up only for magicals in Q3, all those houses in neat little rows in Q4, where the refugees were given a place to live safely but were otherwise left to their own devices.
The Accord and the FRoE weren’t actually helping these magicals find and make a better life. They just cataloged the whole thing—every magical and their race and maybe some of their background—before letting them out into the world with no clue what they were doing. No jobs. No tour through the closest city. No warnings about which neighborhoods were safe, where they could find other magicals, how they’d bring suspicion on themselves if they made one wrong move.
“Like letting a dog free in the woods and expecting it to survive.”
All the laughter that had been a more-than-welcome break from the rough day melted out of her when she realized how useless the FRoE’s Accord and their “assimilation” with the world on this side of the Border really were.
They don’t care about any of these people. They don’t even try to step in until things get really bad. And they think they’re doing a good thing.
She sighed and hung her head, trying to keep the image of that goblin kid’s face—glassy, dead eyes open in surprise—out of her mind. It had returned full-force, and Cheyenne wanted to punch something.
The FRoE’s system was broken, and the “Earthside Dream” was a lie. She rubbed her face, then sat up straight in the chair and smoothed her black hair away from her face. If Yadje thinks a halfling will fix it all, she’s got the wrong halfling.
It took her a moment to calm down again after realizing what a huge joke the FRoE and the reservations and the Border Accords were. Then the exhaustion from the last few hours finally caught up to her. The halfling picked herself up out of her chair, turned off the monitor, and went to her backpack to grab her cell phone from the front pocket. She tried not to look at the basket of fancy, brightly colored troll-crafted underwear as she headed to bed.
She’d stripped, climbed under the sheets, and grabbed her phone to make sure her normal alarm on the weekdays was turned off for tomorrow. Saturdays were for sleeping in.
Just when she set her phone down, the thing buzzed on the bedside table and lit up with a text from Ember.
Hey, just fyi. Looks like I get to stay at the hospital for a few more days. And they’re funneling me right into the rehab and therapy the doc suggested. I didn’t lift a finger to make this happen. Crazy, right?
Cheyenne smiled. If Ember was trying to get a confession out of the halfling, she’d have to do a lot better than that. She texted back a response that was just as vague.
Yeah, totally crazy. Glad you’re getting what you need. Let me know if you need me for anything. I’ll start shopping for badass canes.
Chapter Eighty-Six
At 9:30 the next morning, Cheyenne walked quickly down the hallway of the recovery ward at the VCU Medical Center with a bag of takeout from 821 Cafe in her arms. Apparently, sleeping in these days meant she got up on her own just after 8:00, and she wanted to start today off with something that was just for fun. Mostly.
She stopped at Room 317 and knocked quickly before opening it. Ember was sitting up in the hospital bed with an open book in her hands. The injured fae looked a heck of a lot better than Cheyenne had seen her so far. Her blonde hair was brushed and tied back in a loose ponytail. There was more color in her cheeks, and she’d finally managed to get out of that stupid hospital gown and into the light sweater Cheyenne had brought with the other clothes a couple of days before.
Ember looked up at her friend, dog-eared the page in her book, and tossed it onto the sheets beside her. “Well, hey.”
“Morning.” The halfling flashed her friend an exaggerated grin.
“Woah. You’re not gonna start growling at me, are you?”
“My smile’s that bad, huh?”
Ember laughed. “Only when you don’t actually mean it.”
“Thank God I don’t have to force myself to smile at you anymore.”
“Oh, is that what you’ve been doing all this time? What’s that?”
Cheyenne rolled the bedside table on wheels toward the foot of her friend’s bed, then dragged the crappy armchair closer and sat. “Just some surprise goodness from 821.”
Ember stared at the takeout bag on the bedside table and hummed in approval. “You know, I’ve always wanted someone to bring me breakfast in bed.”
Cheyenne snorted and opened the bag to take out the to-go boxes and put them on the table.
“This looks like the complete opposite of hospital-approved nourishment.”
“Yeah, well, I brought you microwaved pizza rolls the other day, and you seem to be doing just fine. If Dr. Andrews has a problem with it, he can take it up with me.” The halfling froze, blinked, and shook her head. “Actually, I think we’re all better off if I avoid that guy altogether.”
“Yeah, he tried to hide it, but I think he was really freaked out about the whole emergency tech-removal surgery. He asked me a lot of questions yesterday.”
“He did?” Cheyenne grabbed the box of rosemary potatoes with bacon, ham, sausage, and cheese and offered it to Ember, secretly knowing her friend would opt for the box of Nutella-stuffed French toast instead. Which she did, nodding. “What did you tell him?”
“Just your whole life’s story and all the secrets you’re trying to keep and how much trouble you’d be in if the
