Please don't feed the children

please don't feed the children chp. 9

My eyes flutter open with shock and it takes me a second or two to realize that I was in the cell, my wretched nightmare over. My body is shaking from the cold and I try to get up but my arms are too wobbly and weak. I have just enough strength to move my head around and I see Lane in the corner aside from me.

“Lane?” I croak.

His head shoots up so fast I thought it might slide off. It stays were it is though as he scrambles towards me. Before I can speak again, tell him how much I miss him, how I was so sacred, his lips are on mine and he is kissing me feverishly.

His lips are crushing onto mine, and then breaking apart to give him enough time to mumble something before he has to kiss me again.

“I… I thought that you were going to… “

 He can’t finish the rest of his statement; tears fall onto my lips and sting them with their salinity. I pull away from him and ask for water, my voice turning hoarse as I did. He starts to back up to the bucket near the cell door, but something flashes across his face, some sort of realization, and he shakes his head.

“There’s no more water, I threw it on you. I thought it could wake you up.” He puts his head down, as if he had disrespected me.

But I just raise my eyebrows. “What else did you do while I was dreaming?” I smile.

He laughs, finding the humor we desperately needed in this moment. I raise my arms to get up again, and this time Lane comes over to support me. With his arms I’m able to slide my back onto the wall and stay upright. A headache comes to greet me in my new position, grinding against my scalp to make me mash my teeth together.

“Are you okay?” Lane asks, putting his and to my forehead. Immediately he pulls away and reaches for something in his pocket.

“I’m fine.” I lie. If he wasn’t here right now, I’d be screaming my head off.

Lane holds out a small red pill to my lips and tells me to swallow. “You have a fever. If you take this, you’ll get better.”

I swallow the red thing without any water and it slithers down my throat with a bad after taste. After getting over the lingering flavor, my eyes shoot back to him questioningly.

“Where did you get that?”

His eyes look away from me, like he is trying to pretend I’m not there.

“It was from Shay. When he came to check on you again he said you… passed out from your body being over heated and you needed to take medicine so you could get better. He said you’d wake up… I didn’t believe him.”

Tears stricken his face again and I struggle to wrap my arm around his shoulder. I stiffen when I see a white cloth wrapped around my arm where my angry infection was.

“Shay fixed me, right?”

Lane nods and then raises his head to face me again.