After Happily Ever After

Chapter 28

After getting Crescent to a separate room for medical care and observation, Thorne finally let a doctor place a bandage on his bleeding neck. Aces, mutant-Crescent's teeth were tiny daggers that shred into his skin. When he saw the bite for himself, he swore a rabid Tasmanian Devil attacked him.

Seconds after, he nearly fainted.

Yes, the whole squeamish - afraid of blood thing was very much alive in Thorne to this day. Even after witnessing Luna be repainted with red during the Revolution. Until the blood was cleaned up, Thorne refused to leave unless Crescent or Cinder absolutely needed him to.

He sat in a chair near Crescent's bed and watched as doctors circled around her. Pushing needles under her skin, taking small samples of blood. One of them was kind enough to wipe his blood from her mouth, which Thorne was thankful for.

As he watched, Thorne couldn't shake the aching. The emptiness he'd felt after Crescent told him how she felt, of how she truly thought of him. She was infected with a mind-bending contagion at the time.

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling. Not even with Cinder's help.

Thorne knew Crescent could do so much better than him. That he was a petty thief who only recently started making an effort to change. She was a girl who'd never done a bad thing in her life. She had a horrible past with trauma and abuse.

He grew up in a cushy lifestyle that catered to all his needs and then decided he wanted more. To not be like his father, and to avoid his parents at all costs for his new life.

Crescent never had a family. She grew up as a prisoner, with no family to speak of. Her father was dead, so were her brothers, and assumably her mother as well. Yet, she was still so positive. So kind and generous towards others. She always chose to do the right thing.

He set a tiger free from a zoo. He manipulated a girl into doing his homework for him. He ditched the Army, stole one of their ship, and got arrested.

He was such a good role model.

Staring at her face, her eyes closed and smile gone, he feared that there would be an unremovable trace of the contagion left. One that made her put two and two together. Convincing her she was too good for him, like she'd said before.

Of course, he couldn't blame her. If he was in her shoes, he would have split and gone off on her own. Living her life to the fullest and seeing the world - without having to deliver vaccines to people at the same time.

He must have sat there for hours, waiting for Crescent to wake. Cadmar and Goldi were still under heavy sedation, keeping them from waking any time soon. Cinder and Iko busy going queen stuff. Wolf and Scarlet were infected. Kai, Winter, and Jacin were back on Earth.

The only person he could hang out with was Crescent, and she was unconscious. Good stars, Thorne needed to make more friends. Half of them were political leaders, the other half were working themselves to death. Actually, a few of them were in both categories.

A familiar DING rang in his ears. He found his portscreen in his back pocket and examined it. He had a message from one of his contacts.

Wolf?!

Thorne quickly opened his comm with Wolf and read the message, astonished with what his friend had to say.

Meet me in half an hour by where you were with Crescent. Bring two syringes of the cure. Bring only as many guards as you need. I want to go back to what I was, and Scarlet needs to too.

It was one Hell of a statement. Thorne gave him that much. But that didn't mean Thorne was going to believe a word of what he'd wrote. Unconvinced, he wrote back-