The Apple of My Eye -Kaz Brekker (Complete)

Chapter Seventeen

DARKNESS OF SLEEP

Laura couldn't help but ask why there was sand on her throat as soon as she started to feel something in her body working again and her brain decided it was time to wake up, but not move a single inch.

Was she dead? Was there sand in heaven? If there was, why had she eaten it? Why did heaven smell like waffles with honey on top? And why the hell dying seemed to hurt so fucking much?

When she younger and living alone, ready to die at any point of time, she had imagined how death would feel a lot of times and how the afterlife would be; almost every night it was a different idea of how it felt or how it smelled, but she certainly had thought all nights that dying wouldn't hurt. But it fucking did.

Her whole body seemed to be screaming and she couldn't move at all. Her legs felt cold and they were hurting very little, her hands seemed alright, but her torso was simply burning – she felt like every breath she took was trying to kill her even more.

Laura understood suddenly that she was alive when she heard someone moving near her.

"Still nothing?" asked a voice, apparently it was Matthias.

"No," Nina answered. "The doctor came by and tried to patch her up, but there's no Healers in Katterdam anymore. I've been trying to find a Heartrender."

"Nina, is not your fault that your powers shifted," Matthias said.

"But if they hadn't, I'd be able to help Laura. Look at her Matthias. Kaz is freaking out and Jordan is terrified. I should be able to do something, but I can't do anything other just stay here and watch her."

"And you're doing all that you can," Matthias said. "You can't blame yourself and you can't overwork either. You got hurt as well. Go rest, I'll stay here until you wake up and eat."

"No, I can't –"

"Nina, go, please," he said.

There was a sigh and the sound of movement around the room before the door opened and closed again.

Laura fell asleep again, probably, because when she seemed to regain her partial conscious, Matthias was nowhere in the room and neither was Nina. Who was with her was Inej, washing her body slowly with a sponge and struggling a bit to change her clothes.

The door opened.

"Kaz, you can't just come in here like that," Inej scolded.

"Anything?" he asked.

Silence.

"Her hand twitched and her spine seemed to be in a better situation," she said in a low voice after a while. "The Heartrender came by while you were in the Slat."

"And?" silence again. "The truth, Inej. That's all I ask of you."

"And she's surprised Laura is alive at all with all the internal bleeding the beating gave her, but... the knife didn't do too much damage."

"How could a stab on the chest not do a great amount of damage?" Kaz sounded annoyed, almost as if he was on the point of breakdown. If Laura was awake, she would've scolded him right there for using such a tone with Inej, who was trying to help.

"It hit the bone. Her rib protected her lung, though she lost she lost a lot of blood and the rib was shattered," Inej said. "Her lungs and heart are fine, though her stomach very bruised, so even if she wakes up –"