Villainous [Wattys 2021 Shortlist]

21: Take Them Down

Delilah's entire body ached. She was burning up and freezing at the same time, and it felt like her arm had been stabbed with millions of tiny needles. She couldn't even open her eyes. After what felt like hours of wallowing in pain, she realised someone had laid her on her back, on something soft and cushioned.

There were gentle noises all around her. Hushed talking, bustling movements, footsteps. The clink of two glasses being placed beside each other. The air smelled sharp, like rubbing alcohol.

A hospital? Surely not. What had happened to the grass she'd collapsed in?

Dante had fainted. He couldn't have brought her here.

With difficulty, she forced her eyes open. She was in a long wooden building, and twisting her head from side to side revealed a long line of flat, raised pallets covered in white sheets. Dante lay on one beside her, still as death.

This was a hospital.

Someone noisily turned the page of a book, and her head whipped around to her other side so fast her neck cricked.

A handsome man sat primly in a chair between her bed and the one beyond it, absorbed in a leather-bound tome. He looked tall and slender, clothed in blue. Black hair rippled down his back and his dark eyes were almond-shaped, intelligent and furtive as they scanned information. He rested an elegant finger on part of the page before looking up. At her.

Delilah's entire body stiffened.

"You're awake," he said warmly. "Finally. I found you on the clifftops - you'd fainted from a nasty snake bite."

"Yeah. I'd noticed." Her voice was hoarse from lack of use.

"I don't doubt it. The edema following envenomation, and the resulting haemorrhaging... There was no way you wouldn't have noticed. You came to Terra for medicinal help, didn't you?"

She gaped at him. "Fancy words, Doctor."

His gentle smile widened, showing white teeth. "Alas, I'm only a part-time doctor. You know, you're lucky to be alive. The nurses and I had to use five different types of antivenom at once to have any effect – what type of snake bit you? I've taken a sample of your venom-filled blood to study, I hope you don't mind."

"Study it to your heart's content," she said dryly, and shifted her arm. Pain lanced through it. "Ow. It still hurts."

"It will." The doctor leaned forward and placed a hand on her brow. She readied herself to attack before realising he was checking her temperature. "You're still recovering, but you'll live."

"My friend?" she asked.

"He'll be fine, too."

She released a breath of relief she hadn't realised she was holding. The doctor was staring expectantly at her. "We didn't see the snake," she blurted. "I can't tell you what species."

"Really? Odd, considering it must have had hold of you for quite a while due to the amount of venom in your veins. We found you just in time. You were both close to death."

Delilah let her head drop back onto a cushion, overwhelmed with shock at how weak she'd been, how helpless. She felt relieved that no one had touched her clothing except to remove her sleeve: that meant Dante still had the Opals hidden in a pocket.

Her saviour stood up when someone on the other end of the huge room started to cry.

"Wait. What's your name?" Delilah asked.

"Kai."

She gasped. "The Empress's son?"

He gave her a suspicious look. "The name Kai is very common. How did you know?"