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He stumbled back and then threw the bottle of artificial skin at Kurt’s chest.
“Just—” He gasped for breath and managed to find it before he hyperventilated in front of the crowd staring at them again. “Just spray this liberally along the laceration, and you’ll be fine. I need to go.”
He forced his feet toward the door. One after the other, walking steadily but feeling like the door was getting farther away with each step. He just needed fresh air. He just needed to breathe. He saw Rhast trying to chase after him out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop while he could still feel Kurt’s eyes boring into his back.
Finally, he stumbled out the door and into Carta’s muggy, breezeless air. He’d never been so thankful for the smell of slowly decomposing sea life. He staggered the few more steps needed to get out of the doorway and around the corner, then knelt and braced his back on a scrap wood wall.
It was all so obvious now. When Maxwell had been caught in the middle of it, he’d never known what would happen next. Would Kurt be kind and understanding? Would he be petulant or peeved? Would he be furious and frightening? Maxwell had walked on eggshells because he’d never known.
But once he’d gotten some space, the patterns had become clear. Kurt had a strategy, and he stuck to it. Knock Maxwell off-balance and then hold him close. Over and over again until Maxwell clung to him for security.
Except Maxwell wasn’t going to play along anymore, so where did that leave them? What would Kurt do once he realized that no matter how hard he hit Maxwell, he wouldn’t be able to knock Maxwell back into his arms?
Maxwell wrapped his arms around his legs. He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think it would be good.
“Doctor? Are you alright?”
Maxwell blinked at the muddy shoes in front of him, then followed the spindly pair of legs up to see Lillian peering down at him. He forced a smile and a chuckle as he stood back up. “I’m just fine, Lillian. Thanks for checking.”
“What were you doing down there?” Lillian searched his face with eyes that looked like they saw too much.
“Just resting my legs.” Maxwell shook his head and stepped around her and back into the street. “It’s been a long day.”
Lillian frowned as she turned to watch him go. “You’ll tell someone if you need something, won’t you?”
“Of course, ma’am.” If only Maxwell knew what he needed, or how he would tell someone, or who. “Don’t worry about me. Just keep taking those pills!”
“I am, I am!” As expected, the reminder of her own well-being made Lillian wave her hands and turn away. “I promise.”
That got a real chuckle out of Maxwell. “Good!”
He watched her go and then found himself in the street. Clearly, going to pieces on the side of the road would only make things worse. But his clinic—his sanctuary—had suddenly started to feel more like a trap. He bit his lip and glanced down a side street that ran to a particularly pretty canal. There was one place he could go. He’d already been considering it before Kurt showed up and threw him for a loop.
His feet started walking as he continued mentally debating, and before he’d made up his mind, he found himself in front of the cantina that had sprung up as soon as the Resistance evacuation ships had made landfall. He heard the same bark of laughter he’d been playing in his head, and his heart lifted.
When he pushed open the door, the smell of alcohol and food and people rushed over him and swept away the smell of salt and fish. There were fewer Resistance members these days and more civilians and Cartel members, but though the bar stood empty more often than it heaved with people, it still did good business.
“Could it be?” Jun grinned from behind the bar and pulled out a huge glass. “The good doctor himself! You must need a tall one if something’s got you coming in here all alone.”
Maxwell shook his head and waved down Jun’s entirely too-large glass. “Just a small one will be more than enough.”
“Well, you can always get a refill or three.” Jun made a show of sighing, tucking away the stein, and pulling out a more reasonable glass. He filled it with the light amber beer Maxwell liked and slid it across the bar to him. “Really, though, glad to see you. You work too hard.”
“Maxwell?” Garrett’s voice cut across the din of the bar with such surprise and delight that Maxwell’s insides all but melted into goo. He turned away from the bar to see the younger man poised over a pool cue with that dimpled grin across his freshly shaved face.
Maxwell couldn’t help the answering smile that tugged across his lips as he made his way over. “You’re looking better.”
Garrett straightened up without taking his shot. “Everyone looks better after they’ve taken off half a week of uneven scruff.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.” Maxwell perched on a nearby stool and took a sip of his bitter beer. He knew he couldn’t get properly drunk—his true body, tucked into the place this human body’s brainstem should be, didn’t have the enzymes needed to break the alcohol down into a form that would affect his mind—but that was the only reason drinking beer felt safe enough to do. “It was very even scruff.”
Garrett rubbed the back of his fingers against his jaw. “Yeah, the men in my family always could grow proper beards.”
Maxwell tilted his head, intrigued by the sudden offering of new information, but before he could ask for more, the woman across from him—Bonita, Maxwell remembered, joined the Resistance a few years ago, came from Libha—reached over and shoved Garrett’s shoulder. “Come on, are you going to put us out of our misery or what?”
The man next to her—Evan, but Maxwell only knew him a little because he’d never gotten more than a scrape—tutted. “Don’t be so negative, Bonita. That’s why we’re losing.”
Garrett laughed and lined himself up on the orange ball again. “Bonita’s attitude is not why you’re losing.” He hit the ball decisively, and it clacked into a second—sending the second ball ricocheting into a pouch—and then bounced off the side of the table before sinking into the corner next to Garrett’s left elbow. “It’s Bonita’s playing.”
