The Exchange

Chapter 29

Voices are talking, but they're so far away.

I try to open my eyes, but it's like they're glued stuck.

'Calm down, Az,' I hear a male voice say. 'She's just unconscious. Let her sleep, she'll be alright.'

Am I the 'she'?

'I hope you're right,' I hear another male voice answer. Must be that 'Az' that the first male voice was talking to.

I try to open my eyes and say something, but my throat feels like sandpaper. I can't say anything.

I hear more voices speak and try to listen to what they're saying, but I slip away into the darkness again.

When I wake up it takes me a few seconds to realize where I am.

I'm laying on my stomach in my bed, in my room in the Night Court.

A feeling of relief comes over me.

I got out of that nightmare shithole.

I wonder how.

I carefully move my head and look around me in the room. A little light is seeping through the curtains that are hung in front of the window. It's night, and the light comes from the moon.

It's quiet in my room, peaceful.

I turn my head to the side and see a chair next to my bed, with a person in it. I can see it's Azriel. His shadows look like they're also sleeping, they're calm.

Someone draped a blanket over Az, no way he grabbed that blanket by himself. It's not laying over him the correct way if he had done that himself.

I look at Az for a minute, taking advantage of this opportunity.

After a minute, I tell myself I should get something to drink. I can open my eyes, but my throat still feels like sandpaper.

I get up carefully and have to stop a few times when the pain gets too much. Pain in my back, and wings.

When I sit up straight, I can see someone has taken care of me. I'm wearing shorts and nothing else. Bandages are covering my chest, from my collarbones to my waist.

I didn't know it was this bad on my back.

I look at my wings and see that they look better than they feel. The black is now mixed with stripes of scar tissue. It's not healed completely, I can see that. But it's getting better.

The only wound on my legs is the one in the back of my thigh, where the knife hit me.

My face also feels better, I feel at it and only feel bumps above my eyebrow and where my lip split.

Slowly I stand up. I give my feet a bit of time to get less wobbly and then take one step at a time to the bathroom.

Azriel is still sleeping. I try not to wake him, he's probably tired and needs his sleep.

When I reach the bathroom, I'm thankful for the glass that is standing next to the sink. I couldn't have walked down to the kitchen to get one now.

I fill it up with water and take one sip. I lift my head and horror fills me.

I look in the mirror and instead of what I'm used to see in the mirror I see another person.

I gasp and my eyes widen.

I stumble backwards and bump with my back against the door. I try to hold in the scream I want to let out, but not on time. A loud kind of half-scream escapes me when pain flashes through my body.

I drop the glass and it shatters on the floor. I fall to the floor when the pain reaches my feet and I can't stand anymore.

'Anna?' I hear Azriel ask, his voice still full of sleep.

Before I can answer him, he's standing in the doorway, looking down on me.

He kneels next to me and asks; 'What happened?'

I get myself together and say; 'I looked in the mirror.'

'Oh.' That's all he says when he sits down next to me and takes me in his arms.

I don't have to say that I feel like I'm not me anymore. My ears are not mine anymore, they're Fae ears. My cheekbones and jawline are way sharper than they used to be. My eyes...
There's something else about them. They're still the green I like, but there's something in them I haven't had or seen before.

Azriel wraps his arms around me and I cuddle him back. He leans against the bathroom door so I don't have to, and we just sit there for a while.