Fedora
I stayed with the Pembroke brothers far longer than I should have. I thought about sending them away like I’d done to Carmen, or just sneaking off in the middle of the night sometime, but in the end, I always found reasons not to do it: I needed them, they needed me, surviving together was our best option at least until there were fewer tributes... The excuses went on forever.
But really, the excuses didn’t matter. All that did was that, days later, I was still with the Pembroke brothers despite my better judgment.
It was during one of those days that I stumbled upon their best-kept secret--me and by default, I supposed, the entirety of Panem.
Vil had gone off to try and hunt something up for our dinner, and Cecil and I continued through the woods at a much slower and (in Cecil’s case) louder pace, following the marks Vil had notched into the trees with a knife we’d stolen from one of the dead tributes. We were climbing up a steep hill, huffing and puffing, but pretending we were fine, when Cecil’s clumsy toes snagged on a rock, and down he tumbled down the hill.
I ran after him, suppressing snickers, as he didn’t seem too terribly injured. “Hey, Cec,” I called. “You okay?”
He answered with a grunt and a moan but it wasn’t anything that made me worry about his wellbeing. Probably would’ve made Vil worry, but I wasn’t about to pamper the little wimp; he’d clearly received way too much of that over the years.
Still, I jogged a little ways back down the hill and, as I reached him, noticed something laying on the ground a short distance away. Frowning, I edged closer, and upon closer inspection, I realized it was a human hand. Cecil’s.
I immediately felt sick.
Oh heavens. What would I tell Vil?
“Cecil,” I called, panic seeping into my voice as I knelt beside him, “Cecil, let me see it; I’m a healer.”
“See what?” he asked, sounding far more irritable and far less pained for someone suddenly missing a hand, but maybe he was in some kind of shock and just hadn’t realized it yet.
“Your hand,” I said, swallowing, forcing myself to stay calm for him--
He immediately paled. “How do you know about that?”
“Know about...” Even as I trailed off, my eyes slid to the appendage laying on the grass a little ways away from us.
“Oh no!” Cecil groaned. “Vil’s going to be so upset.” He scrambled over, picked up the hand with some amount of revulsion, and then proceeded to reattach it to his wrist.
It was only then that I realized the hand was fake, and not only that, it wasn’t his wrist Cecil was reattaching it to; it was the end of an appendage something like a hand, but smaller than normal and somewhat disfigured.
“You, uh, you wear a prosthetic?” Because at the moment, stating the obvious was about all I could manage.
He nodded jerkily, watching me with wary gray eyes. “My hand’s been... messed up since I was a kid.”
“How’d you get a prosthetic in Textiles?”
His eyes darted around as if he’d be able to spot the hidden cameras the Capitol and the Districts watched us by. “Just did,” he muttered, and I suddenly realized what a dangerous question that might’ve been.
Still, I was fascinated with the idea of a prosthetic. I’d heard of them of course but they were almost... science fiction. The only people with the money to make such things lived in the Capitol; the only ones who actually needed them lived in the Districts.
I’m sure you’re beginning to see the problem.
“So,” I said as we got up and started to walk back in the direction Vil was heading. “How does it, you know, work?”
Cecil gave me a weird look, but then his eyes fell to the ground and he shrugged. “I don’t... really know.”
“You wear a prosthetic hand,” I stated, raising an eyebrow, “but you don’t even know how it works?”
“I never needed to know, I guess,” he replied.”Why? Do you know how everything you use works?”
Knowing Cecil, I’d think this would be an honest question (sass wasn’t really his speciality, unless he was half-unconscious) but there was an undertone to his words that made me wonder if he was a little annoyed with my questioning.
So I replied, “I’d learn about anything that directly attaches to my body.”
“Well, lucky you, you don’t have to worry about it.”
I was so in shock, that I actually stopped for a second and stared after him, then hurried up to make sure he wasn’t about to pass out on me since exhaustion seemed to be the only thing that could make him sarcastic. By the time I was sure he was fully awake, though, we’d caught up with Vil, who’d stayed stationary after catching our dinner. Which, unfortunately, canceled out my opportunity to make another sarcastic reply, unless I wanted to seriously irritate the only allies I had.
Cecil stayed annoyed with me for several hours afterwards. Eventually, Vil caught on and asked his younger brother what was wrong while I was gathering herbs that would be useful against infection. I knew, because as soon as I came back, Vil pulled me aside.
“Cec doesn’t like talking about his hand much,” he said in a low voice.
“No duh,” I replied, matching his tone.
“But to answer the question you asked, there’s a fitted glove inside the prosthetic that can read the electrical signals sent to the nerves in his hand and sends them on to the prosthetic, allowing it to move as he wants it to. Basically. I’m still not totally sure how it works, but that’s what I’ve been able to gather.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That, from just observing? I’d say either you’re brilliant, or have way too much time on your hands.”
Vil just grinned at me.
No comments:
Post a Comment