Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One

Chapter Twenty-Eight - The Aftermath

Trigger warning: mention of sexual assault

The glow of magic hadn't yet faded from around Maloney's hands when Kalyna opened her eyes to find she'd been moved to recovery. The witch's magic left none of the grogginess that people spoke of after traditional anaesthetics. That didn't mean she ever again wanted to have it used on her, though, and she quickly turned away from the Corporal.

Instead, she focussed on her body, cautiously testing her arms and fingers, which still hurt but now moved as they were supposed to. She thought the burns and bruising were a little better too, and she guessed Captain Pullman had pumped her full of enough of Dunstan's blood to begin the process of healing. When the doctor spoke, she realised she could even hear him. Not well. Not by a long shot. But enough that it supplemented her lip-reading.

"How to you feel?" Pullman asked.

"Like... I've been... hit... by a... bus," she croaked, her tongue and trachea still protesting, although not as much as they had before. "And... like I... was then... run over... by... a train.... and had... an anvil... and a piano... dropped... on me."

"Was Wiley Coyote or Roadrunner around?" Dunstan wondered.

Kalyna almost managed to cough a laugh, only then everything that had happened came crashing down on her, and tears burned her eyes instead. A sob escaped her before she should stop it, and she wished Maloney and Pullman would go away. She didn't want anyone to see her, to see how thoroughly she's been beaten. She didn't want the questions and worried glances that would follow. In truth, she just wanted to hide.

"I think everyone needs to get out of here for a little while," Eorl interjected, looking at Pullman, Maloney, and the nurse who currently checked Kalyna's vitals for any sign of life. "She needs to rest. She needs time for my blood to really help her. Questions can wait."

"The Major will want to confirm everything she knows about Price's involvement. He can't hold him in our cells forever without knowing the full story," Maloney noted.

"The Major can wait until she's had a chance to heal," Dunstan argued, without looking at the Corporal.

"Dun," she breathed, shaking her head. "You're in enough trouble as it is without obstructing him. You're lucky you're not in a cell yourself..."

"As are you," he snapped back at her, and it was only then that Kalyna realised how strange it was to see Dunstan in jeans and a t-shirt rather than his uniform.

"What... happened?" she asked, looking up at him, her brows pinched into a frown. "You... aren't... on duty?"

"I'm on leave pending a disciplinary hearing," he admitted stiffly, and his jaw tensed as he ground his teeth.

With a sinking feeling, Kalyna asked, "Because... of me?"

"No, beautiful," he said, frowning when she winced at the endearment. She didn't feel beautiful.

"It's because of the people who took you," he explained. "Not because of you."

That didn't offer any comfort because it still came back to her; if she hadn't left then she wouldn't have been taken.

"What... happened?" she managed to croak.

Dunstan seemed reluctant to tell her, and even Maloney looked down rather than meeting Kalyna's gaze, refusing to betray Dunstan's confidence. The doctor, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

"She's going to find out either way, as everyone knows," he pointed out, ignoring a warning growl that rumbled from Dunstan. "Staff Sergeant Eorl went AWOL trying to track down the van they bundled you into. Its number plate must've been cloned, however, as the real van with those plates is red and belongs to a builder in Cumbria. The van that your captors used was likely a stolen vehicle anyway.