The night was young and quiet, which was still something I had to consciously process. Quiet nights outside meant something was wrong. Quiet nights here apparently just meant it was night. The world inside the walls had not gotten that memo to my nervous system yet.
I could hear Sherry moving around in her room. Drawers. Footsteps. The specific sound of someone existing peacefully in a private space without monitoring the perimeter.
I sat on my bed and did the first thing that felt important. I covered the hole with a tissue. Not because I didn't want to look. That would be a lie and I had enough self awareness to know it.
I covered it because we were actually talking now. She'd smiled today, a real one, and whatever distance had existed between us at the gate was closing in the slow way of two people who didn't choose each other but had decided to make something of the proximity. I was not going to undermine that with a hole in a wall.
[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]
[Charge: 2%]
[Warning: Ability output severely limited at current charge. You need to level up. Tonight.]
I know, I told it. I'm aware. I'm working on it.
The night was supposed to be used effectively. May had told me exactly what was going to happen tonight and I had no reason to doubt a probability manipulator. I sat on my bed and waited and thought about how to make the most of whatever was coming.
The knock came small and precise. The kind only someone raised in the outside would catch. Not Miss Brown. Too quiet. Too careful. May, I thought, and went to the door. Not May.
One of the twins. Mini skirt, long socks, thick sweater, torch in hand. Annabelle, I was fairly certain. Or Isabelle. The only reliable way I had to tell them apart was fire versus ice and she wasn't currently producing either.
"Hey," she whispered.
"Hey." I kept my voice low. "How can I help you?"
"Can I come in?"
Which meant: I'll tell you from inside. I stepped back and let her through.
She sat on the edge of the bed. Not seductively. Carefully, the way people sit when they're managing something. I closed the door and sat across from her.
"You're a healer," she said. Not a question.
I ran the calculation fast. I didn't know exactly what I could do. I had a system I'd had for two days. But I had always been a risk taker. Outside the walls, uncertainty was the only certainty and you learned to move through it anyway.
"Yes," I said.
She pulled off one boot, then the sock. The mark above her ankle looked worse, a living spiderweb of black veins slowly crawling outward. Her hands shook as she set her foot back down.
"Day seven," she whispered. "Please."
There it was. She hadn't snuck to our wing to make friends. She was dying and she needed something she believed I had. I couldn't be angry about it. Outside, I had done versions of this calculation myself. What do I have. What do I need. Who has it. How do I reach them.
The plague inside the walls. I hadn't known it existed in here. Seven days, no cure, no known origin. Just a countdown that started without permission and ended one way.
[Annabelle: Plague detected. Day 7. Critical.]
[Purifier skill available. Activation requires sex.]
[Objective: Charge first. Purify second. This is your opening.]
I read the notification and felt something ugly twist in my stomach. The system wasn't wrong. But it also wasn't kind.
I sat with that for exactly one second. Yes, I decided. It is. And if it works, she lives. Both things are true at the same time.
"My ability isn't fully online," I said. "There's… a condition."
She didn't look surprised. She'd come here expecting complications. She pushed herself back and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and we were both quiet for a moment.
"How long?" I asked.
"Day seven," she said. "Could be minutes. Could be hours. Can't tell."
She had chosen my room over Sherry's. That was interesting. Either she knew something or she had good instincts. Outside the walls, those were usually the same thing.
"There's only one way I can heal you," I said.
"Tell me." She didn't lift her head.
I swallowed. "We'd have to have sex."
I said it plainly. Then I waited, because what I didn't say was the more complicated part. I didn't actually know if it would work.
I had a system I'd had for two days telling me about a skill called Purifier that I had never used on anyone.
Her head snapped toward me. For a second the fear in her eyes was raw and unguarded.
"No." The word cracked. "Absolutely not."
She sat up fast, but the movement made her wince. The grey was creeping higher, visible now at the edge of her calf. She stared at it like it was a traitor.
I stayed quiet. Outside, I'd learned that when someone is cornered, you don't push. You just wait while reality does the pushing for you.
Thirty seconds. Maybe forty. Her breathing got shallower. She looked at the mark again, then at me, then at the door like she was calculating how far she could make it before she collapsed. Her fingers dug into the sheets. The grey continued its slow, merciless climb.
"If I say no…" Her voice was small. "I die tonight, don't I?"
I didn't sugarcoat it. "That's what the plague does."
She laughed once, bitter and broken. Then she dragged both hands through her hair and let out a shaky breath, shoulders trembling.
"Fuck." She looked me dead in the eyes with something desperate and defeated. "You better not be lying."
I didn't answer. There was no need to. If it doesn't work, I thought, she was already dying anyway. If it does work, she lives and I charge. Either way I tried.
That was the closest thing to a clean conscience the outside had ever taught me to construct.
"Fine," she whispered, voice barely audible. "Let's do it."