Halo: Indelible Past/Chapter Thirty

His head hurt.

Simon coughed weakly and opened his eyes. Or tried to. Everything was blurry and dark and there was something wrapped around his head. He lifted his arm and felt his fingers brush against rough fabric. That was what was covering up his left eye, he realized dimly That was what was blocking off his vision.

"What the hell," he muttered. The fabric was wrapped so tightly around his head it felt as if it were cutting into the skin. His prosthetic's metal fingers scraped against the fabric, trying to get underneath to tear it off.

Someone grabbed his skeletal arm, pushing hard enough to make him stop scrabbling and look to see who it was. He had to turn his whole head to look off to his left; it felt strange not to be able to just glance over to see what was going on.

Zoey shook her head at him. "Don't take the bandages off," she told him. "He said we needed to keep that spot clean."

"Him?" he rasped. The last thing he could remember was Peter's hideously familiar face laughing down at him. His body tensed up just from the thought, sensing the places where the clone had been kicking him. "Where'd he go? What did he do?"

"No, not that... thing," she said, as if the very thought of Peter made her ill. Simon didn't blame here. "The guy in armor. The one who brought us here."

The Reaper? "What was he doing here?"

"He... he saved us. He beat up the guards and kicked Peter out. Then he treated you for a while." She held up a canteen. "You need to drink."

It was the best water he had ever tasted. He had to struggle not to gulp it all down in a single swig as Zoey helped him keep the bottle steady. Like a shot to the arm, the water threw everything back in his face. The thumb coming down, the searing pain, the ringing of his own screams in his ears...

And his head hurt so much.

"No," he whispered. "He didn't..."

"I'm sorry, Mordred," Zoey said from somewhere far away. "You protected me, and..."

"Enough." He didn't want to hear any talking right now. He didn't want to hear anything. The darkness on his left side pressed in as if it threatened to steal the vision from his right eye as well. "Enough."

Was there nothing that couldn't be taken from him? Was this really all there was to his life? He had thought there was nowhere lower to sink to, but Peter had proved that wrong with one jab of his thumb.

He was shaking. Even his prosthetic trembled, the canteen slipping through unresisting fingers. He closed his eyes--no, his eye-- and shook his head. "Damn it. Damn it. Damn..."

"Mordred..." Someone took hold of his shoulders. He barely felt Zoey's hands through his filthy, bloodstained jumpsuit. "Mordred, thank you."

''I don't want thanks. I want...''

He wanted his eye back. He wanted to get out of this cell. He wanted to stick a knife in Peter's throat. He wanted to stop running. He wanted Cassandra. He wanted...

''I want Venter. I want Venter to die screaming.''

His fists clenched tightly as he seized this last lifeline and clung to it like a drowning man. Maybe this was the end. Maybe his life went no further than this cell, but before he died Venter would go first. The very thought of it pushed more fire into his body than any amount of water ever could.

And then the alarms began to sound outside the cell.