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CHAPTER SIXTEEN sisters in spirit
⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:
THAT NIGHT, NADINE had the hotel room to herself. Both Viktor and Allison were still out—Viktor was with Harlan, and Allison... left after what happened in the bathroom. Nadine still slept in the bed she'd claimed for herself, though she did bring over a few blankets from the others. It was unnaturally cold in the room, colder even than outside, and she didn't want to put the effort in to light the fireplace. She lay there under the bundle, Band-Aid over her cheek and bruise forming on her jaw, and stared at the ceiling until she fell asleep.
It had been one of the wildest days in a while—which was truly saying something, considering the chaotic mess Nadine's life had become—so it was no surprise that some of that showed up in her dreams. She ended up waking several times from nightmares about ravens pecking her eyes out and Harlan's power melting the flesh from her bones. Eventually, she ended up trudging down the hallway to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, trying to shock the bad dreams out of her system. It didn't work, but she at least slept for a solid five more hours.
In the morning, Nadine had just finished getting dressed when Allison arrived. She was still in her clothes from yesterday, and her newly shorn hair was mussed. She had a split lip, and her knuckles were red and scabbed over. The sight of her caused Nadine's heart to stutter.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Allison touched a hand to her lip as if she hadn't noticed that she'd received such an injury. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me."
"Did you get into a fight?"
"Are you really the person that should be asking that?" Allison pulled off her shoes and crawled on top of her bed. "Why does it matter, Nadine?"
"Jesus, I'm not allowed to ask my friend if she's okay?"
Allison closed her eyes. "Where's Viktor?"
"I don't know. With Harlan, probably." Nadine combed her hair with her fingers. Now that she wasn't actively curling it, it had become a little stringy, falling down past her chin like strands of spaghetti. This wasn't exactly the look she was aiming for, but she supposed she'd have to wait until it grew a little longer. She liked it short, but this was a little too short. It'd probably be better if it was down to her shoulders.
"Huh," Allison said. "Okay."
Nadine rubbed the pad of her thumb over the Band-Aid on her cheek. She'd been lucky the cut hadn't required stitches. She'd had to steal a wad of toilet paper from the bathroom and hold it to the laceration until it stopped bleeding enough to cover up. Even so, it still stung a little. Kadence really hadn't been messing around last night.
