The Gender End by Bella Forrest (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

The look she gave me told me all I needed to know. This landing was not going to be easy.

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6

Violet

I had braced myself as much as possible from my spot on the floor, but when the heloship hit the platform jutting out from the tower with a hard jolt, it still threw me to one side. My casted arm broke the fall, and from the bottom of the ship there came an awful grating sound, like glass being cut or nails being dragged down a chalkboard.

The noise stopped for another moment where we went weightless again, and then we landed with another hard jolt and it came back worse than before. Kathryn cried out. Even though we had taken great pains to strap her in using the remains of the harness, it was probably still hard to control both her arms beneath the elbow without being able to brace them on anything. I felt her pain—I knew what it was like to have most of my body unable to function. I’d made sure to strap Solomon down as quickly as I could before we impacted the tower, too. I didn’t want him to be in any more pain, either.

The grating sound slowed to a stop, and the heloship shuddered before going still. I sat up and cut the engines the way Kathryn had instructed me to before we’d strapped her down. The subtle vibrations beneath me stilled, and I slowly extracted myself from the complicated mess of wires and equipment on the floor, gently setting down the handheld that now controlled the heloship’s engines. It had been difficult to hold during the landing with all the wires jutting from its back, and we still couldn’t move it very far—hence why I was sitting on the floor to begin with.

I breathed in and climbed to my feet, taking a moment to carefully release Kathryn from her straps. Sweat continued to pour from her face, and she was growing paler. I knew that wasn’t a good sign at all, but I couldn’t be sure whether it was just from pain, or from some internal bleeding I knew nothing about.

“Give her some more water,” I said to Belinda. “And check her stomach and chest for any dark bruises. I don’t like her color.”

“As if you care,” said Belinda, unhooking herself from her own chair and moving forward on shaky legs.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Belinda.” My legs were also shaky, but I was determined not to show them that. She looked at me, and I looked straight back into her eyes. “She’s in pain. I’d have to be a monster not to care.”

“Aren’t you?” gasped Kathryn from between us.

Something inside me must have snapped a little at that—less anger, and more the sheer pain of being called something terrible, a word I hadn’t heard in a long time. I heard my own voice crack. “A monster? Did I call Belinda a monster when she told me to my face that you were taking me back to execute me? No, she’s just trying to do her job, and so are you, and I get it, I really do. But Kathryn, just because you view me as your enemy, it doesn’t mean I can’t understand, I can’t feel, the fact that you’re in pain. I’m a criminal, I won’t deny that. But I’m not inhuman.”

I ran out of breath and pressed my lips tighter together. Kathryn and Belinda didn’t answer me, just stared at me with hard eyes, and I reminded myself again that it was pointless to try to get them to empathize with me.

Instead I moved back into the bay and knelt down next to Solomon. His body had shifted even under the straps—likely from the rough landing—but after my inspection of the bandages and the patches, everything still looked about the same. His color was darkening, finally, which was good, but it might not last long.

“I wish you were awake,” I whispered as I inspected his wound. “I wish I could trust you to be awake… But please, just stay asleep for a little while longer.”

Kathryn groaned loudly, and I turned to see Belinda helping her move through the narrow hallway that separated the cockpit from the cargo bay. “You were right,” Belinda grunted. “She’s got some really bad bruises on her chest and stomach.”

“I’ll be fine,” Kathryn gasped, and I heard the wheeze in her voice. “We need to get out there and fix this ship.”

“I need the bullets,” I said, pulling out the gun.

Belinda and Kathryn froze.

“For all we know, this structure is abandoned,” Belinda said, taking a step forward. “But why do you get the bullets? I should have the gun. I’m probably a better shot than you.”

“That’s true,” I acknowledged. “Especially considering that my broken arm is my dominant one. But that just adds to the fact that Kathryn knows this ship, and you have the working appendages. The only thing I can do is play guard duty—so on the off chance there are people, I can defend us, although I hope they’d rather talk than fight.”

Belinda snorted. “Someone like you trying diplomacy? Please.”

“I seem to have inspired the three of us to work together.” I held out my hand, looking at her expectantly.

Belinda just glowered at me, and yet again it was Kathryn who broke the stalemate. “Just do it, Belinda,” she grated out harshly. “You’re wasting time, and if I die because you two can’t get along, at least I’ll die knowing I took you with me.”

Gallows humor. Maybe Kathryn and I could get along after all. I kept my face neutral, however, waiting for Belinda’s reaction. She squinted at me, and then shook her head, her free arm reaching into her pocket and pulling out the clip. “You better keep us safe,” she warned.

“I’ll do my best,” I replied, reaching out to take the clip. I slid it into the slot at the bottom of the handle and chambered