Chapter 947 - 947: Jade Moves Clinic Five Before The Fight

The white line from Clinic Five tightened when Jori tried to swallow.

Jade saw it pass through the yellow speaking tube, cross the floor beside Ruvan's boot, and wind twice around Ty's chain. The pull lifted Jori's cough through the tube before Talli Ren could strike the clinic bell.

Jade caught the mouthpiece.

"Talli, set Jori's cup down before he swallows."

Ceramic struck wood at the other end. Jori coughed twice, then managed enough air to insult whoever had tilted the cup.

"He blames my wrist because his throat keeps choosing the cup sideways, and I have already checked every strap twice."

Talli's answer came between the sounds of buckles being checked.

"His throat changed when the oldest stake vanished."

The line around Ty's chain drew tighter. His two cracked ribs pressed against the crossing table groove, but every bone kept the same down.

Jade wiped the white blood under her damaged eye with the inside of her wrist. The line stayed sharp. It ended inside Jori's neck, exactly where a swallow had tried to pull water across a throat that no longer agreed which way down went.

Nessa placed her cutter against the loose black band.

"Cut the band and these routes lose Ty."

"They could enter Jori or Sennik when the chain releases everything it currently carries."

"The White Reaper reaches us before the last occupied route moves."

Jade looked past the band. Another white line left Ty's third link and entered Clinic Five beneath the patient rail. A third crossed the west sleeping tube. More rose through Orra where nine houses and their foundations had torn away.

Every occupied line used Ty as its nearest end.

"We move every living person attached to Ty before anybody cuts the road they share."

Ty's skull rested against Jade's ribs inside her coat. His green eye followed the line toward Clinic Five.

"My chain holds while Jade moves their bodies."

"Their bodies come with three bad directions, two patient frames, and whichever worker touches the wrong buckle."

Meya had reached the table beside Jori's old cord. Her tied forearm pulled behind her hard enough to shift the belt across her stomach. She braced the bad wrist under one elbow and leaned toward the speaking tube.

"Talli, roll the yellow rail toward ration red."

"That rail carries Sennik's chest, both of Jori's hip straps, and half the cupboard you keep calling medicine."

"Then the bolts travel with them, and your hands decide when anything leaves the rail."

Ruvan pulled the clinic load strip from beneath Marn's ruined pay card. Two yellow pegs remained in its column. The third had left with the old stake.

"Ration red takes one loaded rail after Harven clears the water rack and somebody accepts a week of angry cooks."

Harven was already winding a red rope around his forearm.

"My wife will object when patients inherit her supper wall."

"Tell her every living patient complains louder than spilled grain."

Harven took three crossing workers toward the ration shaft. Todd picked up both staff sections and looked at the white line entering west sleeping.

"Cava and I will wake west sleeping while everyone here argues over furniture."

Cava tested her wrapped ankle against his boot. Her three working fingers closed around the capture hook.

"Carry the bell and leave our floor attached to me."

Ruvan handed Todd the west tube key.

"Count them by name before moving a single rope, mattress, blanket, or stubborn relative."

Todd and Cava left with Marn, Havel, and Sima following under separate red lines. Nobody asked either cutter to surrender a jaw. Ruvan recorded the tools before sending them into a sleeping room.

Jade took Ty's skull in both hands and moved beside his chain as the crossing workers rolled the table toward Clinic Five. Nessa walked at the loose band's side with her cutter lowered. The recovered field finger dragged behind her wrist chain and kept trying to grip the nearest yellow peg.

The clinic door had been built to become a floor. Talli had opened it flat and locked a ladder across its hinges. Jade climbed down beside the patient rail while Meya descended with her useful hand on the red rope.

Jori lay on the upper frame with his left knee strapped toward a square of old stake metal. His water cup sat beneath the cot where nobody could reach it by accident. Sennik occupied the lower frame, her chest belt loaded toward the yellow wall while her legs pressed into the current floor. Her left shoulder pulled against a padded strap fixed overhead.

Talli stood between them with chalk marks covering both sleeves.

"You may see where death waits, but these buckles still answer my hands and the patients wearing them."

"Move the rail exactly as you loaded it."

Talli pointed at four iron feet under the yellow beam.

"The wheels work after somebody removes my cupboard from the first pin without smashing four shelves of fever medicine."

One clinic worker had already emptied the upper shelves into a blanket. Another sat on the cupboard base with both boots against the wall, trying to lift it away from a wheel pin. The cupboard kept sliding back whenever Orra flexed.

Jade set Ty's skull inside the crook of her left arm. She reached beneath the cupboard with her right hand and found the trapped pin.

"Ty, send one finger along this floor while the rest of you keeps Ruvan's table exactly where he left it."

His right index bone came along the floor from the crossing table. It reached Jade with the knuckle scraping the same surface the entire way. She guided it beneath the cupboard and hooked the pin through the final joint.

"Pull on Talli's lift, then return before your soul mistakes distance for another body."

Talli put her shoulder under the cabinet. The clinic worker pushed from the wall. Jade hauled Ty's finger toward herself until the pin cleared its bent socket.

The cupboard slid across her shin and struck the door ladder. Glass bottles knocked together inside the blanket, but none broke.

Ty's finger stayed hooked through the pin.

"Send that joint home before your soul follows it."

Jade sent the bone back along its scrape. Ty answered only after the finger touched his palm at the crossing table.

"All five fingers returned, and the chain still holds."

Talli kicked the freed wheel lock. Meya and both clinic workers took the front rope. Jade grabbed the rear bar beside Sennik's shoulder frame.

"Move my chest first, because the left shoulder has spent eight days trying to leave without me."

"Your chest moves first, and the overhead straps keep their full load until you release them."

Talli pulled the yellow lever one notch. Sennik's chest belt transferred into the rail. Her teeth closed on the folded cloth under her jaw. Jori used both hands to keep his left knee against the old metal square.

The rail rolled.

Its front feet entered the corridor wall before the rear pair left the clinic floor. Meya's injured forearm pulled toward the old room and dragged her half around. Jade caught her belt, planted one boot against the rear bar, and kept the rail from turning over Sennik.

Talli slapped the second wheel lock.

"This rail waits until Meya ties that arm somewhere useful."

Meya bit through the loose end at her belt and passed it around a corridor ring.

"My arm keeps complaining without making decisions for anyone."

They rolled again.

The white line in Jori's throat stretched past the clinic door. Jade's damaged eye opened farther under the patch as she followed it. The lower lid split at the old seam. Warm blood crossed her cheek while the line lost one turn around Ty's chain.

Ahead, Harven knocked twice from the red ration brace. Ruvan answered through the floor with one strike.

The rail crossed onto red.

Jori's white line slipped from Ty's chain and fastened around the ration stake.

He swallowed once without the cup. His throat pulled straight.

Sennik's line remained wrapped around Ty.

Jade followed it to the padded strap above Sennik's left shoulder. The strap still pointed toward the missing oldest stake, beyond the clinic and through Orra's torn underside.

"Sennik stays loaded until the missing stake releases her shoulder or we carry that direction with her."

"Good, because that shoulder still belongs on my body."

The crossing table bell rang behind them, followed by three slow blows from Ty's chain against wood.

With his skull held against her chest, Jade turned.

Through the third chain link came white finger bones. Four long joints closed around the iron. Beneath the crossing table, a white floor spread over the red groove and erased every stake mark it touched.

The White Reaper's voice reached Jade through her own damaged eye.

"Your skeleton crossed my gift, and this ground will hold our wager."

Jade shoved the patient rail deeper onto the ration brace.

"Ruvan, move the table toward the stripped anchor yard now."

The white hand tightened around Ty's chain.