“Sure.”
“Here.” Maleshi bunched up the ripped hem of her dress, glanced around them behind the building, then let out her glinting four-inch claws from within her illusion of human hands and slashed free two wide strips of tie-dye. “Wrap up your hands. I can grab you something later to help with all the punctures. What did you say happened?”
“That tank turned itself into an acupuncture board.” Cheyenne wrapped her blood-smeared hands, grimacing at the sharp pain beneath the pressure.
“Sounds fun. We’ll patch you up in a bit.”
“I have darktongue salve in my backpack.”
Maleshi blinked, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Have you used it before?”
“More times than I can count right now.” Cheyenne tied off the temporary bandages and used the back of her wrapped hand to wipe off her forehead as much as she could. “And yes, I do prefer that short-lived agony to walking around with half-healed wounds all over me. I need my hands.”
“Huh. You know, I always wondered if that masochistic streak just inherently came with being a drow. You definitely fit the description in that way.”
“It’s not masochism.” Cheyenne snorted as they walked between the buildings and headed for the front doors of the Computer Sciences building. “It’s pragmatism. No pain, no gain, right?”
“I understand the saying, kid. Just not the fact that darktongue is your first choice.” Maleshi held the door open for Cheyenne before following her inside.
Three terrified students ran toward them down the hall and skidded to a stop when they saw ‘Professor Bergmann’s’ ripped dress and Cheyenne’s blood-smeared face and wrapped hands. “Oh, my God, are you okay?”
“All good.” Cheyenne nodded and tried to skirt past them.
“Well, what happened out there? Is anyone hurt?”
“Not that we know of.” Maleshi stopped to calm the panicked kids while the halfling slipped down the hall. “It seems like it’s settled down now, but it’s a good idea to check wherever you can to make sure no one else is hurt.”
“Yeah. Definitely.”
“We can do that.”
“Good.” The nightstalker nodded. “I don’t think there’s been any damage to buildings, but spread the word that people need to get out now, just in case.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
She nodded after them as they hurried away down the branching corridor. Then she asked Cheyenne, “Where are you going?”
“There’s a whole classroom hiding under their desks right now,” the halfling replied without turning around. “Figured I should tell them it’s time to come out.”
“Out back again in ten minutes, yeah?”
Cheyenne raised her hand and gave the nightstalker a wave of assent before turning the corner at the end of the hall toward her Advanced Programming classroom. She stopped when she reached the doorway and found chunks of plaster littering the hall. The door had fallen halfway off its frame, and her black Vans crunched across the debris when she stepped into the room.
“Holy shit. What happened to you?”
The halfling gazed around the room, where her students were crouched halfway under the rows of long tables or stood at the end of the rows where they’d braced themselves against the “earthquake.”
“Fell on some broken glass.” Cheyenne raised her bandaged hands. “All good, though. Looks a lot worse than it is.”
“Does it hurt?”
The curious kid’s friend elbowed him in the shoulder. “Dude, don’t be stupid. Of course it hurts.”
“What happened out there?”
“I thought I heard an explosion outside.”
“Is anyone else hurt?”
“What do we do?”
“All right. Slow down.” Cheyenne reached her desk and turned to face them. “I know everyone’s freaked out. The earthquake’s over. For now, it looks like everybody’s safe, but we need to evacuate the buildings and get to somewhere safer.”
“It’s not safe here?”
“I didn’t say that. This is just in case.” The halfling blinked slowly and leaned against the end of the desk. Mega energy drain. How the hell did she do this a million times?
“Hey, you look like you’re about to pass out.” The girl with the half-shaved head slid away from where she’d crouched beside her seat and took two steps toward her instructor before Cheyenne lifted a hand for her to stop.
“Just tired. I’m fine. See this, everybody?” She gestured to herself and nodded. “Calm. Collected. Not panicking. Get your stuff and head for the other side of the campus, or go off campus the other way. There was some kind of ground damage right outside this building, so if anything isn’t safe, chances are that’s right here. Go.”
Her students bustled into action, swinging backpacks and messenger bags over shoulders and filing toward the classroom door. “You’re coming, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Right behind you, as soon as I get my stuff. Hey, if you see anyone else running around inside, tell them to get out too. Buildings can collapse after something like this.” Cheyenne pretended to pack up her backpack as the room quickly cleared out. When the students’ footsteps faded down the hall toward the front of the building, she slumped into her chair and pulled out the brown glass jar of darktongue salve. “You and I are gettin’ to know each other, aren’t we?”
The lid slipped more than once beneath the rags around her hands, but she finally got the jar open and quickly unwound the bandages. She stared at the thick, gooey white salve inside and gritted her teeth. It’s gonna suck no matter how I do it. Go all in.
The second Cheyenne dipped three fingers into the jar for a giant scoop, the darktongue got to work on the tiny puncture wounds in her fingers. Growling, she pulled out the stringy goo and smeared it on her opposite palm before quickly rubbing the stuff into her hands like it was lotion.
She hissed as the searing pain of the darktongue worked its magic on her wounds. Still slathering the stuff around as much as she could, Cheyenne leaned forward and tried not to cry out at the pain burning through her hands. Somebody’s gonna think I got trapped under something.
When she couldn’t handle
