Cinders [Completed]

Chapter 46: Scars

Lucy tries to look taller.

She shuffles on her crutches nervously. She holds them close to her feet so that she's almost at her full height. To my eyes, she looks healthy. Healthier than I'd seen in years. The hard, jagged boniness is almost entirely gone from her frame. The last few months had saturated her pale skin with sunlight, and she now has a slight golden hue to her pallor.

I don't know if she looks healthy, by normal standards. There are the rings under her eyes, perpetual and gray. Her arms still shake slightly under her own meager weight.

But I think she looks very good. Very much like someone worthy of a miracle surgery.

She's nervous.

"What was her name, again?" Lucy whispers.

"Dr. Huntley," I tell her, smoothing her light hair back. I laugh a little as she fidgets. "Calm down. It's not like a test you can fail, or something."

Lucy's glance is speculative. "Isn't it?"

I open my mouth to reply, but then she arrives.

Lucy cowers behind me, shrinking down all of the height she was just trying to emulate. Almost like instinct, her hand goes straight to the sleeve of my shirt, gripping it tightly as she balances on her crutches.

Lucy had gotten more used to doctors in our time here. But it's difficult for her to fully believe that they're safe. When Dr. Huntley walks through the door, Lucy's lips tighten into a thin white line.

First Dr. Huntley greets me, as clinical and professional as she was on the phone. Then, she looks behind me.

"Hello, Lucy," she says, and I'm surprised by how different her voice is. Soft, gentle. I remember that Dr. Huntley is a pediatric doctor - trained to work with kids. "My name is Dr. Huntley. Your sister had me come over to take a look at your legs. That okay?"

Lucy's still pale, but she nods.

"W-wi - " she tries, so nervous that she can't speak, her voice tiny and shaky, "w-will there be - needles?"

"Not right now," Huntley promises. "We'll start with just an examination."

"Lee will be there?" she asks, terror still gripping her throat.

"Of course," Dr. Huntley replies.

Slowly, Lucy nods.

"Okay," the doctor says, looking Lucy up and down, "let's get started."

We make our way to the medical wing, setting up in one of the private rooms. Lucy gets changed into a medical gown. Then, she sits on an examination table, her legs dangling uselessly over the side. After Dr. Huntley asks, Lucy seems to get very suddenly embarrassed, looking away as she pulls the medical gown up to her hips.

And then we see Lucy's legs.

It's a sight I'm familiar with. After all, I helped her get dressed for years. But in the fluorescent lights, it looks so much worse. I'd never seen it, like this, clinical and exposed.

It starts at her knees and goes up.

Ragged lines rip from her hip down her thigh. The muscles under her skin twist with the scars, like the layers of a mountain. The lines deepen in the middle of her thighs, and there's a strange shift at that point, like the bones are growing in the wrong direction, making her knees always point slightly outwards. It doesn't look like the legs are broken. The lines are different, jagged, angry.

Claw marks.

Dr. Huntley isn't surprised. After the initial examination, Lucy gets X-Rayed. I've never seen her legs like that before, either.