I try to fend off Tosa, to push her off me, but I just can't manage. She is far too heavy for me, and on top of that, there is an excruciating pain in the area of my broken ribs, on which she has thrown herself.
Tears shoot into my eyes. With every scream I let out, my throat burns like fire.
What did I do to deserve this?
"Get off me!" I lash out at her. "Take your paws off me!"
But my screaming hardly impresses her.
Tosa reaches beside me for the spoon that is in the bowl of porridge. "Be good, and you won't have to suffer." To emphasize her threat, she shifts her weight onto my broken ribs. She holds the spoon in front of my nose. "Eat!" she demands.
She would love for me to give up without a fight.
My hands are free, so I can easily knock the spoon out of her hand. Although I immediately regret it when she shifts her weight onto my broken ribs again. I scream in pain and begin to cry.
Even that doesn't seem to soften her.
"Leave me alone," I gasp through the pain. My gaze goes to the door.
Are my screams muffled by the walls so much that the warriors who are supposed to watch over me can't hear them? I wonder. Or do they just not want to help me?
A satisfied smile spreads across Tosa's lips. She doesn't even need to say anything; that smile alone robs me of any hope for help.
"There are only a few who have access to your room," she explains to me. "Tarisa." She raises her arm and shows me a black bracelet. "I got this bracelet from her. Although the warriors who are supposed to watch over you also have one, they could still have become a problem."
Instinctively, I shake my head as I begin to understand her words. Tarisa, that nice girl who always brought me food with a smile on her face. Tosa must have taken her out too.
And the brunette tells me this with a cold smile on her lips.
I would never have thought Otscharsan's sister to be so cold, rather blind with love.
My gaze, fixed on her, shows shock at these words and clearly shows that I have lost every spark of hope for rescue.
"The two warriors always get their food before you," she continues.
"Koro, Waro," I whisper softly and full of disbelief. They seem so nice.
Tosa takes the bowl in her hands. "Gasard saved you last time. He decides who is allowed in your sickroom and who is not. But he is so busy with his work that he goes to the canteen rather than visit you. Lastly, one of the doctors. One of the few who also treats torsos, but she is not around either."
How does Tosa know all this? But it's clear to me that she must know everything from her brother. Is he involved too? Maybe, as a friend of Kaia, Gasard, and Torsos, he has something to do with it.
"Would you please eat now?" A kind smile lies on her lips.
But I only look at her with tear-filled eyes, begging her to let me go.
But it evokes no pity in her.
When I don't comply with her request voluntarily, she shifts her weight again so that I scream in pain once more.
She holds the bowl over my mouth. Now I understand what she intends. She wants to pour the porridge into my mouth.
Again, I try to resist. Tears run down my cheeks, soaking the fabric of my clothes.
"Help!" I whisper softly.
She shifts her weight onto my broken ribs again, but this time she stays there.
Please, someone help me, I plead silently as she slowly tilts one side of the bowl.
She doesn't get the chance to pour the porridge into my mouth.
The door opens.
The young warrior's gaze immediately falls on both of us. "What's going on here?" he demands to know, his gaze sternly on us. "Outside, my comrade is lying dead at the table, and in here, nothing looks like a normal argument either. Tosa, you will tell me immediately what's going on!"
"Damn it!" Tosa mutters quietly. She still holds the bowl in her hand, but she has taken her weight off my ribs, and her gaze is no longer on me but on the warrior.
A carelessness I immediately exploit.
I try to push Tosa off me again, this time successfully.
The brunette falls to the floor, and with her, the bowl, whose contents land next to my bed.
"Bitch!" Tosa growls at me. Her eyes, as usual, filled with venom, fix on me as she gets back up.
I sit up in bed and flee to the wall. My gaze full of panic falls on the young girl now standing next to my bed.
"She... she tried to poison me!" I scream in panic.
"You damned bitch, those idiots should have killed you instead of playing with you!" she spits at me venomously. "If you hadn't disturbed us, we could have focused on our plans instead of you!"
"I'm terribly sorry for interrupting you and that bastard in your plan to poison the station!" I lash out at her. Indignant, I turn my gaze away from her.
How dare she throw such words at me? As if I were the criminal and she the innocent one whom I disturbed in a noble deed.