Station 2-14: Chapter Nineteen
Ley struggles after her last match
Previous Chapter - Station 2-14
Chapter Nineteen: Ley
It’d been days since the match but Ley can’t get past the weight of the water pressing down around her. Every time she closes her eyes the water is there waiting for her; the sounds of it churning beneath her grip. It was so easy for her to ignore in the moment; if she let go of her grip it would have killed her. There was no choice but to push through, to keep holding the water away from her until the match was done. But now that it was over, her body and mind were chasing her, desperate to catch up.
She can feel Pangere studying her as she slumps into the library chair back at the penthouse but she pays her not attention. It was too bright in the room to concentrate, too loud for her to think. Pangere is ticking things off a list, outlining everything that she had done wrong in her interview. She works her way through them one by one, pausing between each item to wait for Ley to explain herself but she doesn’t. She can barely remember when her interview was - today? Last week?
She remembers sitting in the chair across from Erica Harvey. Remembers the overwhelming stench of Erica’s perfume. But she can’t remember what she was asked. Let alone what she said. It was all pulling at her in different directions to where she wanted to go. She wanted to sleep she tries to get up out of the chair but her arms are too weak. She realised that she doesn’t just want to sleep, she needs to. If she doesn’t, she’ll fall apart.
Pangere is getting angry now. She knows this. She’s finished her list and is waiting for her to say something.
But she can’t - she can barely keep her eyes open.
She wants to sleep for a thousand years but knows that she won’t survive the water waiting for her. She shouldn’t have done it. She should have followed Tessa’s plan but instead she pushed herself too far. Like she did when she tried to move the ring. Only she hadn’t passed out this time. Tessa hadn’t been there to rein her in at all.
Hadn’t Tessa told her once that she shouldn’t push herself that far again. Hadn’t she promised that she wouldn’t? Too late now, and wherever Tessa was, she wasn’t going to clean up this mess.
‘I’m hungry,’ says Ley. Even though she wasn’t. She can’t imagine keeping any food down but Tessa told her to eat the last time she went too far. So she hoped that it would help her again.
She can still feel Pangere studying her, waiting for something else.
‘Wait here,’ she says to Ley before she goes in search of food. Ley coughs out a laugh - where else was she supposed to go? She thought that if she moved she would unravel entirely. And there was no one that she could turn to anymore. Tessa was gone and Voss had been lying to them, anything that he could do to get paid. Even now, as she struggles beneath the weight of the light bearing down on her he’s watching the door, waiting for a time to escape.
‘Somewhere t’ be?’ She slurs, her words heavy on her tongue. She shakes her head as if she can shake off the weight of it. But it doesn’t help and she struggles to talk: ‘You can go now, so jus’ go.’
‘Believe me or not, kid. I’m not the one you should be worried about here. Something stinks and that shit ain’t me.’ He drags his gaze from the hall to look at her, and the movement doubles in Ley’s eyes. No she’s looking at two of him. And they’re trying to talk to her, but the words can’t seem to cross the floor. She shakes her head again. This wasn’t like before.
He kneels in front of her, too quickly, she shuts her eyes against it.
‘Heyheyhey, what’s going on?’
‘I’m goin’ to be sssick.’
‘You should be resting.’
‘I wan’ my mum.’
‘I know. We’ll get you something to eat and then I’ll take you to see her. Just, here, have some water.’ Ley pushes his hand away, he doesn’t get it. He could never understand. He doesn’t have TK, so he’ll never know what she’s going through. None of them do, except -
‘When’s Tessa coming back?’
‘You know this, Ley darling,’ says Avery, returning with a tray of food. ‘Tessa isn’t coming back.’
‘But…why?’ Says Ley, as she falls back into her chair exhausted.
‘Shit,’ breathes Voss. ‘Avery she’s spent. We have to delay the match - it’ll kill her.’
‘You know we can’t do that,’ she puts the tray down. ‘Here, Ley, eat. You’ll feel better.’
‘Avery, look at her. She can’t go on like this.’
‘And at what point did you start to believe that I wanted your opinion. Besides, who’s to say you haven’t already gone and told the opposition what’s going on.’
‘Avery, I never told them anything.’
‘Enough. I don’t want to hear it. You’re already in breach, our deal is done. Feel free to leave at any time.’
‘No thanks,’ he says firmly.
‘Then be useful and get some more water,’ Ley goes to vomit. ‘And perhaps a bucket.’
‘I don’t know what’s happening to me,’ says Ley, her vision now swimming. Pangere wraps an arm around her. She can’t focus properly but she thinks that this may be the first time that Avery’s hugged someone because she keeps waiting for Ley to lean into her grasp and close the distance between them. But she can’t. So instead, Pangere simply holds her in place, keeping her steady.
‘I’m so sorry, Ley, you’ll be okay — ’ which is when the alarm breaks through the penthouse. A blaring tone that comes from down the hall. Down at her mother’s room. It dawns on her all at once: she needs to reach her mum.
The sound pierces Ley’s ears, she tries to get up but Avery holds her back. She recognises the noise as well and she knows that it can’t be good news. Ley wants to throw Avery against the wall and race to her mum, but she doesn’t have the energy to move her at all.
But she has to.
She has to reach her mum and know that she’s safe because the penthouse was screaming that she wasn’t.
Avery’s grip falls back just enough for her to stumble out of it and she staggers out of the library and down the hall. The alarm grows louder as she draws closer. There are doctors everywhere, more than there had been before. She lunges forward, she has to reach her. Her legs are heavy as stone but she pushes herself to make it.
The doctors form an endless river of strangers’ to her eyes. More and more of them filing in and out of the hall, blind to the small child desperate to join them. She makes it to the door just as the sounds fall flat and make her worst nightmare a reality.
She opens her mouth to scream but can’t find the strength. What propelled her forward now collapses around her. Like the water that she was holding at bay, the weight of the scene is heavy and unyielding.
She’s frozen at the door, her hands gripping the frame. She tries to convince herself to move. To go to her mother - one step, one inch closer; but she can’t. She can feel the wood begin to vibrate beneath her fingertips, the colour blanching in her hands.
This was not supposed to happen.
Someone tries to pull her away, a doctor? Avery? She can’t be sure. She only knows that the touch is what breaks her trance and her scream builds endlessly from her heart. It was all too much. She can’t hold onto it. She had to let it go.
Her hands are pried from the frame and she’s lifted up off the ground kicking and flailing.
There was nowhere for this pain to go.
Nowhere for the weight to fall but upon her and she can’t handle it.
When she reaches the ground again, she can feel that it’s Avery holding her. Only now she was trying again to hug her. To hold her in this moment and let her feel it, so that she could understand that it had happened. But she didn’t want to feel it. She wanted it gone. All of it. If she got rid of the feeling then maybe its meaning would no longer be true. If the feeling was gone then maybe her mother would come back to her.
All at once, she finds a space for it. A small gap within her where she’s able to push it all through. She collapses back into Avery’s arms and screams, the pressure finally forcing its way out and out and out. The lights burst around her, glass shatters, and for the first time since it was founded, the entire station plunges into darkness.
