Restart Again: Volume 2 by Adam Scott (hardest books to read txt) 📕

“I don’t care about the fucking world! They’re all miserable shits, and they deserve whatever miserable life they get. I’m not wasting my life on their account.” I turned away from him and crossed my arms. “You should have left me to die in that blizzard,” I murmured under my breath.

A thick silence fell over the room as I stared away from him at the wall. “What about Alda?” he asked in a sad, weak voice. “Does she deserve a miserable life, too?”

I whirled on him, eyes blazing and nostrils flared. “Don’t you fucking dare. She is not a piece of leverage for you to lord over me.”

“What then? What happens to her when I’m gone?” He lacked the energy to match my ferocious assault, and instead slumped back against his mattress in defeat. In that moment, he seemed to age another ten years; his wrinkled face sagged further as a long lock of silver hair spilled down over his eyes, and the white wolf-like ears protruding from the top of his head fell flat. “You know they won’t accept her out there. Without this lab, she’s as dead as I am.”

With a furious kick, I stood and sent the chair beneath me flipping backwards into the wall. “Just stop dying, then!” My fists balled and swung impotently at my sides. Jaren’s illness had come on quickly; I identified the pneumonia early on, but without modern antibiotics or more in-depth medical knowledge, I had been forced to watch helplessly as he succumbed to the sickness. “What am I supposed to do without you?!”

Tears pooled in his eyes as he watched me. “You just have to keep going, Lux. If you fulfill our end of the contract with Hedaat, they’ll uphold their end. You’ll be fed, supplied, and safe.” He nodded weakly towards the door. “You both will.”

I froze in place as the emotions fought for dominance in my head. “It’s not fair!” I yelled, feeling powerless and pathetic.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “But it’s what we have. I know you haven’t had the—” A brutal cough interrupted his thought and doubled him over in pain. I rushed to his bedside and knelt down, placing a comforting hand on his back. When the fit was over, a thick coat of fresh blood stained the sleeve of his woolen shirt. “I think...it’s time. Go and...fetch Alda for me, would you?”

My rage died away in an instant and left nothing but sorrow in its wake. I took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze as I stood to leave the room.

Jaren tugged at my hand as I turned to leave. “Lux, wait. The lab, the research, it...doesn’t matter what you do. As long as you keep her safe.” His eyes filled with a determination I hadn’t seen since he had first fallen ill. “Understand me? Do whatever you have to do. Please.”

Tears streamed down my face as I knelt beside him again. “Jaren, you have my word. She’s the only thing that matters in this damned world. I’ll keep her safe, no matter the cost. I promise.”

A weak smile spread across his face as he nodded. The gesture seemed to cost him the last reserves of his energy, and he collapsed back onto the mattress once again. “Alda...please…”

I stood and hurried to the door. There was a loud thud as I pushed it open, and Alda bounced back into the hallway, startled. She stared straight down at the floor with her hands gripped behind her back as I closed the door behind me. “I couldn’t hear anything, honest. I-I just wanted to make sure, uhm, that he was okay,” she stammered.

An immense wave of grief washed over me as I thought about the days to come. I reached out and pulled her in for a tight hug, gently stroking her hair as I tried to find my voice. “He’s asking for you,” I finally managed to say, almost choking on the words.

Alda looked up to me, her icy blue eyes half hidden behind her silver bangs. “Sir? Are you...alright?”

“Everything’s going to be alright,” I lied through a false smile as I opened the door and led her inside. “I promise.”

***

10. THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS

The wagon rattled to a halt and woke me from my daydreams. “We’re here,” Val called out solemnly from the driver’s bench. I did nothing with the information apart from let out a long sigh. As hard as I had tried to convince myself that there was no true threat in Attetsia, sitting in the shadow of the country’s gates made tangible the basis of my fears. The city existed, the gates were closed, and there was nobody there to man them.

Lia gave me a reassuring nod as she stood and disembarked the wagon, and I followed close behind her. The late afternoon air was cool and the wind licked icily at my exposed skin, a reminder that winter was close at hand in Kaldan. I burrowed further into the hood of my cloak and made my way to the front of the cart to join my party members in examining the closed gate. It was two stories tall, made from sturdy looking wood with wrought iron fittings, and each door was wide enough to accommodate a full-sized wagon. There was no sign of a wicket gate, and the mechanisms that controlled the doors’ movements were well hidden in the surrounding stone walls.

Val approached the gate and gave it a push. “The gate is sealed,” she reported after a few moments of effort. I snickered and looked away, catching Lia with the same reaction. When our eyes met, she attempted to put on a serious face and nodded insistently towards the gate.

“Yes, it does seem that way,” I said in a level tone. With a quick scan of the surrounding area, I spotted an access door nestled into the corner where the gatehouse protruded from the wall. It was made of one solid sheet of steel similar in