Words, Volume 4: Attenuation

Let's Go

Neo waited.

One day until the doctor said she could walk. After previous experiments, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Fine. No walking today. She would sit in her bed like a good little girl and wait for the clock to tick. Read on her new scroll. Neo waited for her body.

Neo waited.

The sound was muted, but she still watched the news on the wall screen. Once or twice a minute, her gaze tracked across the ticker at the bottom, waiting for the notice that visitors from Vale were found dead. There were any plenty of other headlines that could catch her eye, too, like ones about the Nikos. If they went public, there went Nubu's contacts. Neo waited for tragedy.

Neo waited.

Neo was wanted in Mistral twice over. Both as Neopolitan and as Mari, from before. Mari, funny enough, was sought on a child welfare case and as a person of interest regarding the disappearance of her family. The rest of her family. Mari had already been disappeared for a while. The nurses called her Polly, but how long could that last? So Neo waited for the law.

Neo waited.

She wasn't hard to find. Sure, there were close to a hundred hospitals and clinics in Mistral, but Mistral General North was the second largest, and Polly was a known alias. Maybe not yet known to Mistral law enforcement, but known to Blake Belladonna. And certainly known Cinder Fall, and whatever faction of the white fang she still controlled. Maybe Ruby checked her in under the Mistral domestic abuse anonymity laws, but it seemed unlikely that she'd know them in the first place, or that such protections would hinder large criminal organizations. Maybe Cinder just didn't care enough. Neo waited to die.

She sighed and closed The Kingdom of Mistral: Geography and Landmarks. Somehow, geography always bored her. Few things could lose Neo's interest as quickly as fiction, but this book managed.

Back to research? She'd spent two days looking for the Salem Emerald had mentioned. Or at least, that Neo thought she mentioned. For all their popular appeal, flashbulb memories weren't especially reliable, and Neo had been in the process of bleeding out while Emerald had spoken. Maybe the days spent sleeping let her brain record the memory better, but that sounded farfetched.

All she'd found were fairy tales. Salem, the magician. Salem, burning the cruel children. Salem, half grimm. It was obvious Emerald had cracked, but Neo hadn't comprehended the level of nonsense inside her brain until she found herself perusing fairy tales in a desperate search for answers.

There was as little to go on as there was to do. Stuck in bed, clueless. Tomorrow she was supposed to start PT. If she was well enough to use a walker, she was well enough to leave. She was useless just waiting around.

But where to go?

Neo had alienated Cinder, and likely other organized crime outfits in the city. One or two might still hire her on, if word hadn't spread. Some others would want to if word had. But if somebody views your defection as a merit, it means they place little stock in loyalty. Again it came down to whether Cinder cared enough to end Neo's life, but in this case, the end was more indirect. And it wasn't even something Neo could blame on her. Neo invited it when she threw away her old life for Ruby Rose, the impossibly kind friend that abandoned her.

Neo was not an impulsive person. She hadn't been in the past, anyway. She'd started at the bottom, and worked her way up piece by piece. Certainly she'd had help. Roman, for one.

Where was Roman now? What would he say, if she found him, and offered bare skin? The touch he'd been denied in the past. Giving him the knowledge, the feeling, of why she'd done it. Why she'd felt it was right. Laying her soul bare. Would he take her back?

The doctors hadn't made a big deal about her hand. It was all she could hope for. It seemed to ache more now, maybe because her aura was busy elsewhere.

No. It was because she couldn't distract herself any more. Aches and pains didn't matter as long as Neo could keep moving forward. Stuck in her bed alone, she had nothing else to focus on. Pain in her chest or pain on her hand. And always, always, pain in her head, behind her eyes.

She could reinvent herself. The first time had been Roman's doing, but she got the idea of how it worked. Polly was a burnt identity, at least once Mistral caught up with Vale about Cinder and her team, but Lita could work. Better still would be to start fresh. Exchange her umbrella for a bat or something, and call herself Iris.

And what would she say, or type, when people asked about the other young short mute criminal enforcer?

The more Neo thought about it, the more she hated the only path left to her. But there were no alternatives. Word would spread to other kingdoms in time.

Should she be happy that she memorized Blake's number?