Love Lines

4: What's Your Particular?

Chapter Four

"Well," the woman who'd been introduced to me as Tina looked at the cut on my arm from a distance, "that is a problem."

"It can't be that bad," Andrzej said snidely. "Just do what you usually do. She'll be fine."

Tina looked at Andrzej blandly, making me wish for the smile to come back on her face. She was tall, her skin was a nice caramel color which complimented the color of her lines perfectly. From what I could tell she was African American but she seemed to have some Spanish decent in her as well. Her brown hair was done in tight corkscrew curls that made me want to just reach out and pull one just to watch it bounce back.

She caught me staring and her lips twitched in a smile. Of course, being taught that staring was rude, I immediately avert my eyes, completely embarrassed that she caught me. I got the feeling, however, that she was used to people staring at her.

"You're just like your mother," she said warmly which caused me to look up at her again. "She didn't like people catching her staring either."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Be sorry about your arm though. I think I'm going to have to amputate."

My jaw dropped. "What?"

She nodded. "I can't do anything with this. From what I can tell, Plouton used his death blade. Either we take the arm or you die completely."

"But..." I was going to lose my arm over a little scratch? I couldn't believe it. She couldn't be serious, she just had to be joking.

Her face broke out in a grin and Andrzej just rolled his eyes.

"She does this to every newbie when they first show up in the infirmary. You're fine."

She glared at Andrzej again as she made her way over to a very large glass case. There were at least seven shelves and on each one were numerous vials. The contents of each one varied from powders to liquid to dried herbs to what looked like fingernails in another. I did not want to consider what that one was used for.

The one she picked contained a cobalt blue liquid, wisps of white drifting around inside.

"Plouton did use his death blade but it's just a scratch. If he stabbed you, then we would have a problem. Since your skin was only partially exposed to the blade, I can make a paste, apply, and it should be taken care of. Your lines will reconnect over the next couple of hours."

I sighed in relief. "That's good."

She nodded in response and started mixing the ingredients. Her brow furrowed in concentration but every once in a while, she'd glance over at me and smile. It was like she could sense I was watching her every move. But if she was planning on using that weird looking paste stuff on me, I wanted to keep an eye on her as she made it. Trusting these Assarions was going to be hard for me. After the way Cecil made them sound, I was hesitant in even being alone with any of them. I was half afraid they were going to eat me or something.

"So, Ms. Natalie Abernathy, what exactly did you do to piss off the Lord of the Dead?"

"I was born," I said bluntly.

Her eyes snapped to my face. "What do you mean?"

"It's hard to explain."

"Which translates into it has something to do with Cyrus," Andrzej replied.

I just glared at him. He could not know me that well already. Only Schylar knew what it meant when I said 'it's hard to explain'. He definitely wasn't Schylar so he shouldn't know what that meant.