Chapter 11: Worse Than That
Quistis groaned and eased her eyes open. They resisted, still heavy with sleep. The room was dark, but she could make out indistinct shapes from the dim light coming in from under the door. Seifer was still lying beside her. At some point during the night, he must have pulled the blankets over top of them because they were covered up now. Utterly relaxed, her eyes snuck closed again without her realizing their intention.
Shifting her weight slightly, she cuddled a little closer to the comforting form of her comrade. He was easy beside her, his breathing working with a regular meter, and she could feel his chest expanding and contracting against the side of her arm. Pain and worry were forgotten. Sleeping next to someone was a soothing treat that Quistis didn't often indulge in. She and Carson never slept together — she didn't feel ready to invite that kind of intimacy with him yet, and he was the perfect gentleman about it, more than willing to wait. But she liked having someone with her at night. It was nice, especially here in the middle of nowhere, not to be alone.
Beside her, Seifer shifted and grumbled softly. Her moment was coming to an end.
When he settled down again, the cadence of sleep resumed, she breathed a sigh of relief.
And as she relaxed, her mind began to whir. Seifer had asked her if she loved Carson. Until then, she'd thought that she did. Now she had to consider…was she in love with him, or in love with his love for her? A strange feeling settled in her stomach when she thought about it. Carson was affection, and devotion, everything she'd thought she wanted. Yet everyone who looked at them seemed to think they made a bad pair.
Were they right? What could they see that she couldn't?
She and Carson had a lot of common ground. They shared a lot of interests. Their first date had been filled with great discussion of everything from Dr. Odine's most recent book exploring magical theory to Garden gossip. But she also hated seeing some of her worst characteristics reflected in him, and she hated watching him live the life that she still thought should have been hers as an instructor.
So maybe it wasn't right. Still, it didn't make sense to say goodbye to her best chance at happiness for nothing. She didn't want to throw what they did have with each other away.
Shifting her focus to the problem at hand, she rolled over onto her back and looked around the darkened room. It was entirely possible that these people knew Sascha Maurden. She'd hesitated to ask the doctor or Abra until she was sure who they really were, but she felt confident that this was where Maurden had lived the last days of his life. Maybe in this very room. But she didn't yet have the answer to how or why he would have made his way here. If Garden and SeeD didn't know about these people, then Sascha Maurden certainly couldn't have. So what drew him here? How was this island and these people connected to his disappearance from Winhill, to the extremist group his mother had talked about?
"Quistis?" Seifer lifted his head, his voice thick with sleep.
"Yeah?"
"Do you know what time it is?" he asked with a yawn.
"No idea." It was impossible to tell without a window. Day. Night. She didn't have a clue.
His head fell back against the pillow. "How long have you been awake?"
"Not long. I was just thinking."
He yawned again and rolled over onto his side, facing her. "About what?"
Best to leave out her musings on Carson, she decided. "About Sascha Maurden." That was the only safe answer, and one that might actually get them somewhere.
"Do you ever stop working?"
She frowned, not entirely sure what he meant. What was he expecting? "I guess not."
Seifer didn't say anything and instead pushed himself up into a sitting position, pulling the covers off both of them. Hyperion was on the floor, and she saw him bend down to retrieve it before getting up and striding across the room.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"To find some answers," he replied. "You coming?"
Quistis wasn't the sort of person who could get right out of bed in the morning and be ready to go. So when he turned on the light, she pressed her hands over her eyes and groaned, not understanding how Seifer could wake up and be instantly alert. Liquid and bleary eyed, she slowly sat up in bed while Seifer paced like a cat in front of her.
"Can't we just go back to sleep for a little while?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I can't sleep anymore."
Putting on her best pleading face, and throwing in a little seduction for good measure, she pulled the covers back over her legs. "Come on. Just a little longer." It was selfish and it was bad. She knew this was wrong. But she wanted him back beside her a little longer. Besides, she was still tired and wasn't ready yet to get back to the serious work of a SeeD.
But Seifer was ignoring her. He picked up his backpack and rifled through it, tossing clothing and food out onto the floor until he found what he was looking for. It was a wrist watch.
"We're…what? Two hours behind of Balamb time?" he asked.
"About."
Sighing, he shoved the watch back in his bag and flicked off the light again. "Four in the morning," he explained. Then the bed sagged as he sat back down. "I guess we can wait a little longer."
"Right." Quistis was smiling. "They're taking care of Adrian out of their own goodwill. Least we can do is not get them up at the crack of dawn."
"Who says these people have any goodwill?" Seifer asked. "Hyne. I'm wide awake now. I'm never going to fall back asleep."
Quistis stretched out, burrowing her head into the pillow. "Try," she suggested.
One hand forked through his hair, then he nodded. "All right. Fine. Let's go back to bed."
0 0 0
The world was dark, humid, and dingy among the trees. The sun, which had hardly begun to peek over the horizon, hadn't even begun to penetrate the dense jungle canopy. Bugs were thick in the air, which was filled with a raw, putrid scent. Abra's nose wasn't bothered by the smell. Rather, he followed it, letting the smell guide him where the light from his flashlight couldn't.
Brushing through the foliage, he picked his way slowly between the black trees.
He almost stumbled over what he was seeking. Up close, the smell was overpowering. But he moved the beam of his flashlight up and down the carcass and found it completely untouched. Uncompromised. Safe.
Bending down, he slid one hand over the cold, rough flesh of the animal's flank. He pushed and prodded at the muscle there, feeling for the right bone, the right joint. And when he found it, the device he was wearing around his wrist beeped and displayed a number.
Damn. That was what he'd been worried about. He couldn't say that he was surprised. There was no other way the SeeDs would have survived the attack. But it was still a massive disappointment and a huge setback. He activated his com-link, which buzzed for a moment before establishing a clear connection.
"I'm at the site," he announced.
"Is it confirmed?" came the voice from the other end.
"Yes. Serial ending 454."
"All right. We're on our way."
"I'll wait for you here," Abra replied, then turned off his com and sat down beside the body to wait. This was really unfortunate. It still wasn't clear how Garden had even found their island. And now their secret was far too close to being exposed before they were ready. But 454 was an animal that wouldn't be missed too badly. She was young, inexperienced. All things considered, the situation could be a lot worse.
0 0 0
Around eight thirty, Abra knocked on Seifer and Quistis's door, waking them up again. For all of his insisting that he was awake, that he couldn't sleep again once he'd gotten up, Seifer had tossed and turned only for a few minutes before passing out again. For Quistis, on the other hand, sleep proved more elusive. Mostly, she laid still, trying to keep her mind blank, dodging every thought of the mission or Carson that popped into her head. It was too uncomfortable to think of her boyfriend back home while Seifer Almasy slept beside her.
"I will take you to see your friend," Abra said when Seifer opened the door.
The path back to the room where they were keeping Adrian was a twisting path of identical hallways, and even though Quistis had an excellent sense of direction, she found herself disoriented. With no landmarks and no windows, the building might as well have been a labyrinth inside. Most of the doors had their signs peeled off, just shadows next to them on the wall where previously numbers or name plates had been screwed in.
"We moved him. He's in here now," Abra said and pointed toward and open door ahead of them.
The doctor they had seen the day before was inside. And Adrian was exactly how they'd left him, asleep.
"Good morning," the doctor greeted them, allowing Abra that chance to slink away. "How are your ribs feeling?" he asked Quistis.
"A little painful, but manageable. I'll live. Thank you." She was feeling much improved but didn't want to clue the doctor in quite yet to the fact that she had magic at her disposal.
"Be gentle with them," he admonished her. "Don't try to do too much too quickly. Give them time to heal."
"How about Adrian?" Seifer asked, his green eyes riveted on their partner. "How's he doing?"
"To be honest, not as well as I'd hoped he would be," the doctor replied. Adrian looked better than he had the day before but was still a little peaked. His cheeks were flushed and his hair was slightly damp.
"What's wrong with him?" Seifer walked up to the edge of Adrian's bed, and Quistis followed him, reaching out to take Adrian's hand in her own. His skin was hot and dry. Feverish.
"Time is everything with this poison," the doctor explained. "There's a short window you have between when it enters your body and when it starts to really do some damage. It's hard to tell at first whether you've gotten to someone in time or not. And your friend here is having a bad reaction to the solution we use to draw the toxins out of the wound. He might be allergic to something in it. I've been giving him antihistamines to control the reaction. But it's touch and go. All we can do is wait and see if we got to him in time."
Quistis swallowed. "Is it possible he might die?" She felt guilty now about indulging herself that morning and convincing Seifer to sleep in with her when Adrian was fighting this battle. She'd assumed that he was going to be fine; the doctor had seemed certain of that the day before. Now he wasn't so sure. Adrian's handsome face had a sunken look to it now.
"It's possible," the doctor said, shaking his head.
"That's not very comforting," Seifer grumbled.
"It's the truth."
Seifer cursed and Quistis gripped Adrian's hand a little more firmly. Things were starting to look dismal again. And they weren't any closer to wrapping up their mission.
"Why should we believe that you know what you're talking about?" Seifer asked. "I mean, nothing personal but…an isolated tropical island doesn't seem like the sort of place that would produce a fully trained doctor."
"I live here. And I know this animal," the doctor replied. "If you'd like me to stop looking after your friend, I do have other things I could be doing."
Shooting Seifer a reproachful look, Quistis quickly said, "No. We're really grateful that you're taking such good care of him."
The doctor nodded. "If you want, you can go right down the hallway here, take a right, then a left, and get something to eat. I'll come find you and let you know if he improves."
Quistis felt like they were being dismissed. After what Seifer had said, she wouldn't have blamed the man for wanting them out of his hair. The thought of food made her stomach gurgle excitedly, so with a shrug and a frown, she and Seifer stepped out into the hallway, leaving Adrian behind in the doctor's capable care. It was the first time they'd been allowed to find their way alone through the compound, so despite the clipped way the doctor had spoken, it seemed like a gesture of trust.
"Yesterday, he said Adrian was going to be fine," Seifer griped.
Quistis shrugged. "Things happen."
"Why are you defending him?" Seifer asked, staring at her.
"They haven't done anything but help us so far," she pointed out. "They could have left us to die in the jungle. They could have killed us in our sleep. But they didn't. So, for the moment, we don't have any reason not to trust them."
He grunted. "I don't care. I think they're dirty." His long strides were carrying him fast and far ahead of her, so Quistis had to jog to keep up with him. The directions the doctor had given them were simple. But under Seifer's guidance, they swiftly became turned around and lost. He didn't seem concerned about it. Or maybe, Quistis thought, he hadn't realized yet that he'd passed far beyond the right turn they were supposed to make. Instead he plowed on as if exactly sure where he was going.
"Why am I not seeing any food?" he finally barked.
"I think because you probably blew past it about five minutes ago," Quistis replied.
"What? Why didn't you stop me? You know, yell 'wrong way, you idiot' or something?" He propped his hands on his hips like a woman as he scolded her.
"Don't worry. I think I can find our way back. And it's a good excuse to see a little more of this place." She waved away his concern. "I was sort of hoping we'd run into someone. Like…a villager. A child maybe."
"Maybe they're all eating breakfast," Seifer suggested, "like I should be right now."
"Maybe. I'll lead this time. Back this way." They turned around and Quistis navigated back through Seifer's journey until they heard voices echoing down the hallway up ahead. It was a woman talking to a man, and her tone of voice stopped Seifer and Quistis in their tracks. She wasn't yelling. But the severe edge to her words was more than enough to tell them that the conversation taking place was one they didn't want to interrupt.
"Did you recover everything?" she asked.
"Yes," a man's voice replied. "We took all of our samples in the field and then destroyed the body."
The woman swore. "This is a mess."
"I know."
"I don't think you do," she hissed. "This couldn't have happened at a worse time. We've got another group going beta, and we needed to see that baby through to adulthood to monitor it for the alpha-T mutation. Now all that information is lost. We're going to be working in the dark here."
Puzzled, Quistis looked up at Seifer and he shook his head, apparently just as unable to make heads or tails of the conversation as she was.
"Have you made a decision about the SeeDs?" the man asked.
"Not yet. I'll let you know. Keep them occupied for now."
The conversation ended abruptly, leaving Seifer and Quistis to scramble out of the way, around a corner, so they wouldn't be seen. As they pressed up against the wall together, the gravity of what they'd overheard hit Quistis and she felt her stomach drop. There was definitely more to this compound and these people than they were letting on. And whatever they were up to, they didn't want Garden to know the truth. This was enemy territory.
She was still processing what that meant, and trying to untangle what they'd heard, when Abra's placid voice split the momentary silence. "Are the two of you lost?"
"Actually…yes," Seifer replied.
"You're missing breakfast," Abra said, his eyes narrowed and suspicious. "Follow me."
Quistis felt like a prisoner as she followed him, and new worry for Adrian suddenly assailed her. They had no choice but to let the islanders continue to care for him. They had to keep playing along until they found out what the hell was going on here. She grabbed Seifer's hand as they walked and gripped it hard. His eyes shifted casually to her and he squeezed back. She was glad to have him here with her. Because something on this island was very wrong.
