Don't Whistle Past the Graveyard

Ch. Fifty-Seven

I woke up feeling strangled, and realized it was because someone had wrapped like an entire roll of gauze around my neck. Opening my eyes, I frowned slightly as I tugged at the wrappings, just to have familiar hands curl around my own, stilling my movements. 

For a moment I was distracted and fascinated by the fact that I had somehow memorized the precise placement of each callus on his palms. That I almost instinctively knew how his fingers were jointed, and exactly how they fit around my own hands.

Squinting against the lamp light, I turned to find Shane looking down at me. We were lying on the bed, an IV still in his arm, and his arms around me, keeping me propped up against his chest. I frowned at the odd expression he was wearing, but ignored that in lieu of being able to breathe properly. Rasping, I said, "Shane, I need to loosen the bandages."

He blinked slowly, then let go of my hands, letting me sit up. The dresser across the room from us had a small mirror set above it, and I watched distantly as I quickly unwrapped the endless length of dressing someone had put on me. I was starting to suspect who.

"Did Kyle do this?" I asked, still watching as I continued to unwind my neck. Shane nodded curtly and I sighed. It was still coming off.

When I finally got to the last couple layers, I slowed down, unsure of how bad the damage was. I didn't want to do anything rash and bleed to death in front of Shane. Or... anyone, really.

I felt strange, though that's not exactly what it was, considering what I felt in the moment was actually nothing. I remembered exactly what had happened. I remembered getting to the room and falling forward into Kyle. Everything was in weird crystal detail. And I was fine, didn't feel a thing.

And that's not normal.

Regardless of how familiar I'd become with death, I shouldn't have been this comfortable. I should have been rattled. I should have woken up disoriented. I should have been scared... I should have been in pain.

I realized this last with a frightening calm. No jolt of concern, no nothing. Just completely un-rattled. Carefully I peeled away the last few layers, which were bloody, and gazed emotionlessly into the mirror, watching for a brief moment as bright red started to trickle down the side of my neck again.

My movements efficient I wound the fabric, though definitely a much shorter length, back around my throat. Since I was still breathing, I knew he hadn't hit the carotid. I wasn't surprised by the bleeding though. Sometimes people forget that there's a bunch of little veins and other arteries in the neck because all they ever hear about is the carotid. It doesn't really matter where you get hit, if it's your neck it's probably going to bleed like a son of a bitch.

I wasn't even surprised that I'd passed out, though, I suspected shock and exhaustion had just as much—or more—to do with that than blood loss all by itself. I still wasn't concerned.

And later... that concerned the hell out of me.

Because as soon as you become comfortable with death, that's when you wind up meeting the bastard in person.

Calmly, I turned back around to Shane, who was still watching me with that weird look on his face, and asked, "How long was I out?"

He blinked once, then tonelessly said, "A couple hours. It's the middle of the night."

"Dammit," I muttered. "I don't suppose Kyle used those grand powers of deduction and figured out that he did this and caught him?"

Now Shane blinked rapidly. "What?"

I stared back blankly. "What, what? If Kyle didn't go after him immediately, he's probably long gone by now."

I kinda felt like I was watching a play. This wasn't happening to me, so it didn't require any sort of real response.