Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [34]
‘Sometimes,’ said Zaniwe, ‘I wake up in the middle of the night, terrified that Jenny is dead. Sometimes I even roll over and check whether she’s breathing.’
Benny nodded, her eyes squeezed shut. ‘We look after each other. We depend on each other. Sometimes that scares the hell out of me.’
‘That you depend on them?’
‘That they depend on me.’
‘All right. All right.’ Forrester slammed Chris into his seat. ‘We are going to have a little talk.’
Cwej glanced around the common area. It was empty —
nearly everyone was outside, helping to clean up the rubbish from the fire. He piled his armour onto a table. It had cooled enough for him to put it back on.
‘Firstly, you walk out of here in the middle of a fight you could have prevented,’ said Roz. ‘One of those men is in the infirmary right now, having fourteen stitches put in above his eye. As if we didn’t have enough medical problems.’
Chris hung his head.
‘Secondly, you put yourself at risk — extreme and totally unnecessary risk — by running into that fire like a damned rookie.’ She grabbed hold of the front of his T-shirt. ‘You should know better than that by now.’
‘I heard him,’ said Chris. ‘I heard him screaming. I wasn’t going to leave him there.’
‘You made a lucky guess. There was no way you could hear someone screaming over that fire.’
‘Ah.’
Roz looked as though she was going to deck him if he didn’t stop talking nonsense. It took her a few seconds to catch up with him.
She jerked back. ‘Are you telling me you’ve developed telepathy?’
Chris managed to hang his head even lower.
‘How — how much do you...?’
‘Not much,’ said Chris quietly. ‘I can only hear what you’re thinking when you’re angry.’
She was on her feet, looking at him in undisguised revulsion. For a moment, he thought she really was going to hit him.
‘Stay the hell out of my head,’ she hissed.
‘Roz
‘Just stay away from me.’ She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.
Cwej put his head in his hands.
Chris!
‘Leave me alone!’ he shouted. His voice echoed around the common area. ‘For Goddess’ sake, leave me alone!’
In the chapel, Byerley St John and Cinnabar Flynn sat with their heads together, gripping hands.
Perhaps they were praying. Perhaps they were just sitting together, still as statues in the front row of the plastic pews. In Byerley’s lap, a real paper Bible was open. His heart was scrabbling at John 11: ‘“Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Do you believe this?’
Byerley whispered, ‘I want you to understand that it’s all right if you don’t want to go through with this now.’
Cinnabar squeezed his hand so tightly it hurt her. ‘I was right: you have been chasing some hussy with a cold.’ They didn’t laugh. ‘You don’t get rid of me so easily.’
‘Think about it,’ said Byerley softly. ‘Any kids we have are going to get this gene. It’s even possible they’ll inherit a working copy.’
‘Dear Jesus, Byerley.’ She pushed her face into his shoulder. ‘What’re we going to do?’
‘If we hadn’t left Australia,’ he whispered, ‘none of this would have happened.’
‘If we hadn’t left Australia, we’d still be up to our armpits in garbage and radioisotopes. We wouldn’t even be thinking about kids.’
‘I can’t help feeling it’s some sort of punishment. That I deserve to have this happen to me.’
‘You know it doesn’t work like that.’
‘I know. I know.’ He sighed, so deeply the sound of it echoed in the chapel. ‘I haven’t had any patients since the wedding. My nurses have been taking care of people.’
‘It wasn’t your fault that man died. Nothing could have saved him.’ She smoothed back his hair. ‘You’re so tense.
You’re wound up like a spring.’
‘I’m trying so hard not to... not to do anything... I haven’t been in the lab. In case I break something. In case I break everything.’
‘You can’t know that’s going to happen.’
‘I can’t know it isn’t going to happen. I was so afraid at the fire...’
‘You did fine then. Oh, hey, shhh, it’s all right, hey...’
Cinnabar just held on to him