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Merry Christmas!

Writer's picture: Lacey St. SinLacey St. Sin



Merry Christmas and Happy Friday everyone. I've decided to post the next two chapters of Needing Cassidy today. My gift to you. Enjoy!


CHAPTER 5


Like most buildings in the compound, the medical building was constructed of seamless stone. The door invisible until one hit the panel correctly. A wide, single story building, the front was carved with a delicate pattern that might have meant something to the population before...or not. It was hard to tell with the Livarians. Sunlight gleamed off of the windows, reflecting her startled image back at her.

She should have taken the time to clean up. Strands of her shoulder-length poker-straight hair stood out from the side of her head, likely a result of the oltec sswitching into and out of helmet mode depending on her heart rate.

Carefully she lifted a hand from her basket of samples and tried to tap the wayward pieces down. The dark roots had taken over in the last five months, even more noticable in the glaring sunlight than the mirrors of the dorm or shower house. Thank God the last time she’d dyed her locks she’d given ombre a try, at least the hair slowly faded to blond at the tips. If she’d done a straight box job she would have had to shave her head by now.

Her face was red from her time in the sun without the energy field’s protective filter and it was obvious it had been a few weeks since she’d remembered to pluck her eyebrows. In short, she was a hot mess.

She tapped at the side of the basket, deliberating her choices. Containers of bark, sap, the red fluid that had been leaking from the diseased trees, flowers, leaves and even soil were piled high in her arms, waiting for analysis. The trouble was, there was nowhere to do that analysis except here.

An unexpected wave of nerves accosted her. Which was silly, since she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Just in case, she looked back to the street where the guard who trailed her waited. He looked bored. Certainly not like he was about to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing.

Alright. She could do this. Or, at least she could try.

Before she could think better of it, or let the feeling in the pit of her stomach develop into something more, she slapped her hand against the stone. It took some practice to understand the panel placement on Livarian buildings. She still wasn’t certain why they insisted on keeping doors and the controls hidden, unless it was the aesthetics of the unbroken walls that appealed to them. But once you figured it out they were pretty easy to place.

She guessed correctly and to her right the doors slid open revealing a bright room with two hallways leading off of it. The floor was immaculate, the only furniture stood in front of the windows, a sitting area with mismatched couches and a beautifully carved table perched on an ornate rug. A row of gleaming medical equipment and machines lined the far wall. There wasn’t a spec of dust, or item out of place in the entire room.

“Hello?” she called.

Silence answered her, as if she was completely alone. Even her guard had elected to say outside.

She stepped deeper into the room, jumping a little when the door hissed closed behind her.

Well, this was a predicament. Should she take a seat and wait for the medic to come find her? Or should she go looking?

“Hello?” she tried again, louder this time.

There was a clatter down one of the hallways, followed by a masculine curse.

Cassidy worked her way in that direction, noting that most of the doors were closed except one, at the hall’s end, where the sounds of rustling was coming from.

She poked her head in the door. The medic sat on a stool with his back to her, leaning into a tall machine with odd looking limbs, his arms deep into the thing’s insides. His dark hair was kept shorter than some of the other Livarians, nearly long enough to tuck behind his ears, but short enough to leave a strip of pale skin visible above his long-sleeved shirt. She’d seen him from a distance many times and knew his markings were mostly stripes, but muted, softer somehow.

“Hello?” she called to him.

He didn’t turn to her, only shoved his right arm deeper into the machine, reaching for something. “I wasn’t ignoring you by accident,” he grunted.

What? What kind of response was that?

“What if I was injured or sick?”

The medic made a grunting noise. “Then you would have said ‘help! I’m injured or sick’.”

Okay, that was true, but still… “I was hoping to borrow your microscope. Or something that can view the cells of my samples.”

The medic twisted the arm that was buried up to his shoulder. A metalic clanking sound resulted allowing him a satisfied nod before he retracted his limb, keeping the other hand on something just behind the surface wall. “No,” he spoke without looking at her. In fact, he hadn’t looked at her yet at all.

Cassidy stood, taken back, unsure of what to do with his blunt brutality. “What do you mean no?”

The medic’s shoulders sagged a little and finally, finally he turned to face her. “No, I refuse to give you my only working, very important, medical tool to play with.”

There was a high pitched, distressed noise from the machine and then a snap, a thin, sharp wire flew out of the opening where the medic had been working lashing against his left arm before curling inward in a vibrating mess. A line of blood welled where it had impacted, apparently cutting through cloth and skin alike.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, horrified.

He didn’t respond. Didn’t do anything except turn his back on her and face the machine once more. But the tension in his muscles said everything he didn’t need to.

She had been dismissed.


CHAPTER 6


Cassidy slammed the spade into the ground, the hardened, compact soil chipping apart as she levered the handle back and forth. The clouds had moved in, a murky gray, obscuring the sun, and the wind was picking up so she wasn’t pouring sweat like she had the day before. Maybe if she worked harder.

Stupid medic. Who did he think he was?

She slammed the spade down again, and again.

“Whoa, letting out a little aggression there?” Ashley called from the path. Cassidy looked up to find the woman, arms filled with leafy greens from the far garden. Probably heading to the kitchens to start prepping the next meal.

“Just getting work done,” she forced a smile, but some of the wind blew from her sails.

What was she thinking anyway, that he should have just let her have run of the medical facility? She didn’t know how to use any of the equipment. And even if she did she wouldn’t know what to do with the information it provided. It was like she was drowning in a raging river and just grasping at things that floated by, like she had with life in general. A well of frustration pushed unwanted tears to her eyes.

“Oh, hey,” Ashley looked up and down the path. There were Livarian guards present. There were always Livarian guards present. But they were well down the trail, perhaps sensing her mood and giving her space to work through her frustrations. When she saw that they were far enough away Ashey stepped from the trail into the garden and approached. “I didn’t mean anything by what I said, what’s going on?”

“It’s not what you said,” Cassidy assured her.

“Are you sure? ‘Cause I’ll be honest I make people cry a lot.”

Cassidy snorted. “I’m just frustrated, I had some samples from the orchard I was hoping to look at and Tor...”

“..and Tor what?” Ashley nodded her encouragement.

“Well, he refused to let me use the equipment and he wasn’t very kind about it I guess. Maybe I’m just thin skinned, I don’t know,” Cassidy leaned on the spade and pressed her forehead against the handle.

Ashley frowned. “Don’t do that.”

She lifted her head. “Do what?”

“Don’t make this about you.”

Cassidy faced the woman with a scowl. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Shit.” Ashley scratched her head. “I’m not so good at this. Don’t take what was his shitty action and make it somehow your fault. If Tor treated you badly then that’s on him, you don’t have to carry that.”

Oh.

“...You know what? You’re right.”

“Damned rights I am. Do you need the equipment?”

“Well...yeah if I want to figure out what is causing the disease in the orchard.”

“Then go back and insist he listen. If that doesn’t work, go above his head. The orchard is an important food source, I’m sure Draven would back you up.” Ashley nodded as if she had just solved all of Cassidy’s problems definitively.

Cassidy contemplated the words. She didn’t want to ‘go above’ the medic’s head. Not only would it work against her purpose, since she would definitely need his help using the equipment, but it felt a lot like tattling and she was not a child.

The rest, however...yeah, she could do that. She would badger him until it was easier to give in than to refuse. She might not have inherited many desirable traits but the Bronwin’s were tenacious and stubborn if nothing else.

“Thanks Ashley,” she offered a smile. A real one this time.

“You’re welcome,” Ashley perked up and stepped back toward the path, before stopping once more. “Any progress on the fiska root?”

“Not yet, but I think I have an idea.”

“Good, see you at evening meal,” and with that the woman was gone.


***


The next time Cassidy approached the medical building she did not hesitate outside. She pushed through the front doors, and when Tor wasn’t visible in the front room, she made her way into the hallway that she had found him in before.

Sadly, the longer she spent inside the building the more her confidence had begun to fade, slowly slipping away until her steps were more tentative than forceful. All the doors were closed too, which meant she either had to repeat her performance of that morning and hope Tor decided not to ignore her this time, or start poking her head in doors one by one.

She managed to make it to the end of the hall without any indication of life, and had just turned around, ready to go to the other wing and try there, when a door toward the main room opened and a Livarian stepped out.

A naked Livarian.

Cassidy froze. She could feel her eyes widen, she probably looked like one of those cartoons where the character’s eyes popped out of their heads, but she didn’t have the wherewithal to school her features into something less dramatic. Holy shit.

Six and a half feet of towering muscled god stood before her. Every inch was ripped, like nothing she had ever seen. Of course she’d been exposed to the models and valued sports stars, fireman’s calendars and the like, but she’d always accepted that they had been...touched up, you know, given that she lived in the age of technology. This man was well beyond anything she’d ever seen, and he was very, very real, and standing right in front of her. Completely, entirely, absolutely nude.

“Ah…” he began when he spotted her, a tanned right hand reaching up to scratch at his neck.

Embarrassingly, Cassidy finally managed to lift her eyes to his face. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what was wrong with her?

Brine, she recognized. And he seemed as embarrassed as she was.

“Are you that desperate?” A hardened voice accused from the hall behind her. Tor.

Anything that was left of her resolve melted into the floor, just like her self worth. She turned toward him. Her face was on fire. God, why did she even come here? She could be relaxing in the dorms or weeding one of the gardens right now. But no, it seemed that she enjoyed self torment.

“It’s my fault,” Brine interrupted, “my treatment was finished.”

“So you thought you’d treat my facility like your own personal mating display?”

Cassidy’s attention flashed to Brine. By the shade of his face, he was just as embarrassed as she was. Well, at least she knew that Tor wasn’t just rude to her. It seemed to be his mode of operation in general.

She straightened her shoulders and took mercy on the naked Livarian. “I was looking for you,” she turned to Tor.

A flash of surprise crossed his face. “Why?”

“You were right, I don’t know how to use the equipment.”

Tor’s upper lip lifted, giving her a hint of fang. “I’m glad you came all the way back here for this conversation.”

Slowly, Cassidy forced her jaw to unclench. “I wanted to ask if you would please teach me?”

“No.” He shook his head and then pushed past her into the room he had been working in when she’d first come. She stared after him, astounded.

“Well...I’m just going to...” Brine gave her a weak smile and pointed back to the room he had emerged from, “...good luck…” he added before closing the door behind himself.

She stood, alone, in the hallway.

Well, that was a bust. Her motivation, and self esteem was bruised to crap. But really, she glanced at the door Tor had gone into, she had nothing left to lose.

She pushed the door open.

“Why not?” she demanded.

Tor flinched, and looked back at her over his shoulder. He was working at one of the tall shelves, placing items neatly in their categories. “Curse, you are persistent.”

When she didn’t leave he finally sighed and then turned to her. “Because teaching you is a waste of my time and resources.”

The nerve of this guy.

“Yes, I can see how your every second is essential,” she gestured to the stack of folded cloth he had just been shelving.

Tor’s eyes narrowed. “I am the only one who cares enough to run this facility.”

Cassidy let out a slow breath. “Look, I’m not asking for a free ride, maybe we can make an exchange?”

Tor didn’t answer, but he didn’t turn away from her either.

“Teach me how to use whatever it is I need to analyze my samples from the orchard, and teach me to do the things here that you don’t want to. The easy stuff. I can organize and clean without wrecking your precious facility. However many hours you spend teaching me is how long I’ll work for you. That way you don’t lose any of your precious time.”

Tor snorted and glanced at the shelf behind him. “Teaching you to do these things will take time.”

“Yeah...it looks super hard.”

That earned her a side eye.

“Fine, I’ll work that time off too.”

Tor studied her thoughtfully, no indication on his face of what he was thinking. He could be planning to murder her and be done with it, drop her body outside the energy field where scavengers would make it disappear….

“Alright.”

“Alright?” Cassidy blinked.

“Yes.” He gave her a smile that she would never deem friendly. “You can start with the wasteroom.”

The bathroom. Great. She’d been demoted to janitor. But God help her if she wasn’t stubborn as hell.

“Fine,” she agreed through gritted teeth.

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