Free Temper by Beck Nicholas Page B

watch duty catches up with me and I sleep again. Only to dream of Zed following me from the ship. His cheeky voice yelling ‘Surprise,’ because we’d always teased each other and scaring me was his latest joke. And the look on his face when he realized there would be no going back.
    I turn again and the dream flips. Zed becomes Davyd. He’s leading Asher toward the edge of a huge chasm while I can only watch on. He laughs and teases her, completely distracting her from the perilous edge crumbling away beneath her unsuspecting feet.
    Look down , I beg her. There’s no sound but their laughter no matter how loud I scream. Don’t trust him .
    I wake to a female voice seeping into the cracks of the nightmare. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”
    I smile. Somehow she heard me, she came back. Her name is on my lips as I turn over and open my eyes. Except it isn’t her.
    “Megs?”
    Megs’ grin slips. “Who did you think it was?”
    But we both know who I was thinking about. I rub at my gritty eyes rather than answer, and stretch my arms over my head. Pain shoots down in hot trails from my shoulders to my fingertips.
    “Holy—” I bite down on the rest of the curse.
    Her face pales. “This is bad.”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    She grips my elbow, dragging it up toward my face. “Look at this, you need to see Charley.”
    I let myself look where the pain’s coming from. No wonder my sleep was feverish. The scratch and bite marks from my attempt to help at the brawl have festered. What were long lines of red attempting to scab over flaps of skin, is now green and swollen in places. One spot on my wrist has become infected, stretching the skin and filling with fluid like a horror bubble. I don’t want to think about what would come out if it burst.
    “I meant to get stitches yesterday.”
    I think she’s going to ask what kept me so busy, and I’m all ready to not mention Asher and remind her of the funeral and the council meeting and seeing my mother, but she doesn’t. Instead, she tosses my jeans onto the blanket. “Put those on, and we’ll see if you can make it to the hospital. The last thing we need around here is someone else carried across camp on a stretcher.”
    She turns her back, and I slide the jeans over my hips, wondering when my whole body began to ache. “What are you doing here, anyway? I didn’t think you were talking to me.”
    “I decided that you couldn’t help it.”
    “What?” The fever isn’t helping my abilities to understand females.
    “You can’t help thinking with your …” She waves at my jeans. “You know.”
    “I don’t.”
    She spins around with arms folded. “Asher’s gone off with your brother, and you’re taking it personally.” Her smile is somewhere between sweet and slit-my-throat. “I, however, am not interested in you as anything more than a friend, so I’m choosing not to take your personal reaction personally. It’s simple.”
    The room begins to spin. “Yeah.”
    I’ve given up attempting to make sense of why Megs is here. I’m grateful she is and too dizzy to do anything but accept the arm she offers and do my best to remain upright as we head across the camp toward the hospital. My ears ring, and I know Megs speaks to people as we pass, but I can’t focus enough to make sense of the sounds.
    One foot in front of the other takes everything I have.
    “Don’t worry,” she whispers as we enter the waiting area. “I told everyone you drank too much.”
    “We’ll talk about the effects of a bad cover story later.” I try to put warning in my tone but since the words all slur together, I’m not sure she understands any of it. The condescending pat on the arm she gives me would work either way.
    A nurse I don’t recognize hurries over. She frowns and immediately calls for Charley.
    Excellent, I must look as good as I feel. My clothes are sticking to my skin in patches, and I feel where my hair is plastered to my forehead. I pull Megs toward the