“Why didn’t you sedate him before you started?” Nita asked, hiding her shaking hand from her mother.
Her mother shrugged, nonchalant. “I thought I could cut it off fast enough.”
No, Nita realized, looking at the half smile twitching across her mother’s face. You thought no such thing. You wanted this to happen, so I would wake up and be forced to help you.
Nita was being tested. She didn’t know what the consequences of failure were, but she knew they weren’t good.
You shouldn’t have talked to Fabricio and then lied about it to her.
Nita had been stupid. She should have known better.
Clenching her jaw, she put the syringe down. “I don’t see how it’ll be any easier to sedate him than it would be to just get the rest of the ear off.” She showed her mother her scalpel. “There’s only a strip of flesh left. It won’t take much to finish the job.”
Her mother’s smile widened until it seemed to consume her face. “If you think so, I’m happy to try.”
“Nita.” Fabricio spoke for the first time. “Nita, por favor.”
Nita’s mother laughed. “Oh, it figured out your name.”
Nita clenched the scalpel in her sweaty palm and focused on the ear, ignoring Fabricio’s crying and continued whispers of her name like a prayer.
Just get this over with. Then she could figure out where to go from there. But if she failed this, bad things would happen. She didn’t want a repeat of the dact incident with parts of Fabricio in her bed each morning.
She tried not to look at his face as she pushed the scalpel through the cage bars, but she couldn’t escape his sobs and cries. Her hand was shaking, and her palm was so sweaty that when Fabricio shook the cage again, the scalpel was knocked right out of Nita’s fingers, leaving a deep, bloody gash across her palm along the way.
Nita yanked her hand back, swearing as the blood dripped down her arm.
Her mother gave her a tired look. “Well, heal it already, and we’ll try again.”
Nita turned away so her mother wouldn’t see the flash of anger in her expression. Then she let out a breath and focused her body. She increased blood clotting factor in the affected area to speed up the scabbing process. She didn’t want to do too much repairing until she had some disinfectant, though—while she could stimulate her body’s natural defenses against the microbes, it was just easier to wash the wound in soap.
Nita wasn’t sure how old she’d been when she discovered that other people couldn’t control their bodies the same way she could. Her mother did it all the time—enhanced her own muscles so she could run faster, hit harder, heal quicker.
The more Nita understood about her body, the more she could control it. But it was dangerous—there was a reason for swelling, and if you took away the symptom without dealing with the underlying cause, it could make things worse. She’d discovered that the hard way when she was seven and her father had to take her to a hospital because she’d accidentally paralyzed herself trying to make her bicycle-butt bruise go away. Only after the x-rays and scans, and the doctor’s detailed explanation of the precise issue, had Nita been able to fix it.
After that, she’d been very cautious about how she altered herself.
“Are you done yet?” Her mother’s voice was cold.
Nita nodded and turned back to her mother. “For now. But it’ll take time to fully heal. I severed a tendon—I don’t think I’ll be able to hold a scalpel for a day or so.”
Her mother scowled, clearly displeased. Nita made no comment and kept her face blank. It wouldn’t do for her mother to see how relieved this injury made Nita feel, or for her mother to realize she was stalling and could, if she wanted, finish healing the wound much sooner than tomorrow. Now she had at least a day where she didn’t personally have to do the slicing. That was something.
“Fine.” Her mother picked up the bloody scalpel, gave it a quick rinse in the sink, and then, before either Nita or Fabricio had a chance to react, spun with near superhuman speed and threw it. It neatly sliced through the last piece of cartilage connecting Fabricio’s ear to his body, and he screamed as the severed piece of flesh tumbled to the ground. He tried to clap his hands over his ear, but they were still chained to the bottom of the cage, and he couldn’t reach. Instead, he wept as blood coated the side of his face.
Her mother scooped up the scalpel and speared the ear like a piece of steak. She showed it to Nita with a grin. “You know, I think my aim could have been better.”
Nita resisted the urge to throw up.
Five
THERE WERE STILL zannie parts to be boxed, but Nita couldn’t stand the idea of working with Fabricio’s sobs punctuating her every move.
Nita turned to her mother. “I’m going for a walk, to get some fresh air.”
“You do realize how polluted this city is?” Her mother was getting the packaging out for the ear.
Nita shrugged, averting her eyes. “Whatever, all cities are polluted. Besides, it’s a mental thing. And the walk along the ocean isn’t so bad.”
Mostly, she didn’t want Fabricio’s eyes boring into her, judging and begging at the same time. She needed time to sort out her thoughts, away from her mother, away from Fabricio.
Her mother waved her off. “Pick up something for dinner on your way back.”
Nita could hardly believe her mother had agreed. Maybe she understood that Nita needed time to not think about Fabricio. Time to settle her thoughts, to figure out what to do.
Or maybe she just wanted Nita out of the way so she could cut more pieces off Fabricio.
Nita didn’t want to think about that. She’d never been confronted with this level of violence before. When dead unnaturals were brought to her, everything was calm and structured. Her smooth white walls comforted her as she worked. They didn’t get spattered with blood and gore. That wasn’t what Nita had signed up for.
Not that Nita had ever had a chance to sign up for anything.
But she liked it. Had liked it. Nita had always had a scientific mind, and there was something fascinating about dissecting and learning about different unnaturals. And the more she understood about bodies, the more she began to understand the potential of her own ability.
She’d always wondered if her ability could grant her immortality if she just figured out how to counteract the aging mechanism.
She’d always wanted to go to college, to study and learn from professionals, to research with proper machines, to publish papers and discuss her theories on unnatural traits with others in her field. But her mother had refused to let Nita go—said she couldn’t be spared for some “waste of time and money.” So Nita contented herself with her biology journals and her dissections.
But this wasn’t dissection.
Outside, the sky was gray, sun barely visible. Nita walked out of her residential area, toward one of the main thoroughfares. People hung out the doors of small buses, calling out destinations to those on the street. Boutique stores and small cafés gave way to a wide plaza in front of Larcomar shopping mall, which hung off the edge of the bluffs. The open mall gleamed pristine and white, and beyond it, she could hear the gentle thrum of the ocean.
Nita crossed the street to the wide path that meandered along the cliffs and overlooked the ocean. It went all along the coast, but Nita’s favorite part was the walk from Miraflores to Barranco. Just the sound and smell of the ocean hundreds of feet below her, and the steady rhythm of her own footsteps.