Chapter 34 — The Wall He Cut
Dorian was ordered to repair the wall he had nearly cut through.
The assignment came from discipline, medical, and facilities at once. Each department had found a different reason to approve it.
Discipline wanted visible consequence.
Medical wanted controlled left-hand use.
Facilities wanted the wall fixed.
Dorian suspected facilities had the strongest case.
He stood beneath the long white scar in the corridor ceiling with a bucket of mortar balanced against his hip. Two escorts waited several feet away.
Neither was Ivo Pell.
Ivo worked with the repair crew.
His ribs remained bound beneath his uniform. He moved slowly when lifting tools from the cart.
Dorian hated that more than if Ivo had stayed away.
A facilities worker pointed to the damaged section.
"Fill the cut. Smooth the surface. No Ink tools."
Dorian held up his braced right arm.
"Hadn’t planned on them."
The new brace ran along the nails and backs of his fingers. His palm remained open around the gold scar. The smallest finger rested slightly apart from the others.
The worker handed him a trowel.
Dorian took it with his left hand.
Mortar work required pressure from the wrist and control from the fingers. His left hand knew swords, doors, ropes, and impact.
It did not know how to smooth a wall.
The first layer fell onto his boots.
Ivo watched.
Dorian said, "You have advice?"
"Yes."
"Keep it."
Ivo returned to sorting broken pieces of railing.
Dorian tried again.
Too thick.
He scraped half away.
The brace clicked.
His grey hand pressed against the stops.
He lowered the trowel.
The movement stopped.
The worker marked something on a slate.
Dorian looked at him. "Do that again and I’ll—"
The gold scar flashed.
Every escort shifted.
Dorian stopped.
He opened his left hand.
The threat remained unfinished.
The worker kept the slate.
"Grip event," he said. "No cut."
"I know."
"You don’t feel the hand."
"I can hear metal."
Dorian returned to the wall.
He worked for twenty minutes.
The patch looked terrible.
The corridor no longer had a hole.
That counted.
Ivo carried a replacement rail toward the stairwell where he had fallen.
Dorian saw the effort tighten his face.
"I’ll take that."
Ivo kept walking.
"You have one arm," he said.
"You have broken ribs."
"Then neither of us should."
The facilities worker called two others.
They took the rail.
Dorian and Ivo stood empty-handed.
No one turned the moment into reconciliation.
Ivo walked toward the report station.
Dorian followed.
A plain acknowledgement plate waited there.
INCIDENT STATEMENT.
The stylus had been chained to the wall.
Dorian took it in his left hand.
His first line slanted downward.
I used force before the alarm reached the stair.
He read it.
The sentence was ugly.
It remained true.
The second line took longer.
Officer Pell attempted to stop me under active medical order.
The brace clicked.
Dorian paused.
Ivo stood beside him.
"You can stop," Ivo said.
Dorian looked over.
"Why?"
"Your hand."
"It is not writing."
"The shoulder is shaking."
Dorian noticed only after Ivo said it.
His left shoulder trembled from forcing unfamiliar control.
He released the stylus.
The chained pen swung beneath the plate.
"I need to finish."
"You can finish tomorrow."
"I won’t."
Ivo’s expression hardened.
"That is why I blocked the stair."
Dorian’s grey fingers pushed against the brace.
The smallest finger moved.
A fraction.
The gold scar brightened.
Ivo saw it.
"Open the hand."
"It is open."
"More."
The brace prevented full extension.
Pressure built against the nail supports.
A white line appeared across the incident plate.
Dorian stepped away.
The line followed his palm.
"Clear the corridor," Ivo said.
The repair crew moved without argument.
Dorian grabbed his grey wrist with his left hand.
The invisible cut sharpened.
It aimed toward the newly fitted stair rail.
The same place.
His body had remembered.
"I can stop it."
Ivo did not approach.
"You said that last time."
Dorian forced the little finger outward.
Nothing.
He hooked the finger against the edge of the brace with his left thumb and pulled.
The joint moved.
No sensation.
The nail support bent.
The cut shifted.
Upward.
Toward the ceiling.
Dorian turned his entire body toward the unfinished mortar patch.
The invisible edge struck.
The wall split open again.
Mortar exploded across the corridor.
The cut stopped before reaching the structure behind it.
Dorian remained standing.
Blood ran from beneath the nail support where he had torn his own finger.
He could not feel that either.
The facilities worker looked at the ruined repair.
Dorian said, "Add it to the form."
Medical arrived.
They removed the brace.
The grey boundary had not spread.
The gold scar remained bright for six minutes.
A technician examined the torn finger.
"You injured the nail bed."
"I cannot feel it."
"We know."
"Then why say injured?"
"Because damage does not require pain."
Dorian looked toward Ivo.
The officer signed the witness section of the report.
No embellishment.
No omission.
Dorian returned to the plate after treatment.
He finished the statement.
I attempted to pass him because I believed the emergency mattered more than the order.
The final line took three attempts.
That belief did not give me the right to use him as an obstacle.
Dorian put the stylus down.
Ivo read the statement.
He did not forgive him.
He signed beneath it.
The discipline system printed:
ACCOUNTABILITY ACKNOWLEDGED.
CONSEQUENCE PENDING.
Dorian looked at the repaired wall he had cut open again.
"Fair."
His grey hand closed inside the temporary restraint.
This time no blade formed.
That frightened him more.