Wings

Chapter 36: Departure

**Edit of Ed in the sidebar, above for mobile readers**

Breakfast was a bit quiet seeing as a chunk of our table was away on the raid, making their way through London to the countryside. But there were still enough people to make conversation and Perrie, Zayn, Andy, and I ended up discussing foods we missed. This mostly included desserts. "And chocolate!" Perrie and I agreed. Zayn mentioned a few foreign dishes that his mom used to make that I'd never heard of. It was all great fun until we realized that we missed the foods more after talking about them. The porridge before us was suddenly unappetizing compared to the rich, homemade foods we'd mentioned.

I spent the training time teaching knife basics with Zayn to some of the new recruits; a thin young man named Nick with quiffed hair, a new girl with dark skin and wild hair named Leigh-Anne, Cara who had been recruited yesterday, and a few others. Zayn took the reigns, being one with much more knowledge about knives, while I simply watched and made sure everyone was copying his movements correctly. It was mindless work, the newbies following his instructions easy enough, so my mind was free to wander. I thought about what Harry and I had discussed last night, what would happen if Strazier was defeated. I imagined it far in the future that such an event would occur, Harry and I several years older and fighting side by side in a mass of Straze soldiers. Afterwards, we would be together, no matter what. I hoped beyond all that my family was still alive but a part of me knew it was an impossibility. So many people had died when Strazier took over that my family would be in pieces, if it still existed at all. With that mindset, I couldn't help but imagine living with Harry. Hell, I even saw children with brunette hair running about. Harry loved Lux so much and seeing him interact so lovingly with her on multiple occasions only fueled this imagery of future children. But I was only eighteen and Harry twenty, it was silly to think of things like that. For now, we focused on survival; we had to make it out of this alive for any of that to come true. 

I was helping Lou in the infirmary the following day, learning a bit more about first aid and helping her tend to Andy, who had broken a toe while training, a mace falling from its spot on the wall right onto his foot.

"See, you wrap it like this to give stability; when he walks there will be less pressure than normal on that toe now," Lou explained. I nodded, watching intently as she worked. I was often the only one in a raid or recruiting group who knew anything of first aid and had rather taken it upon myself to learn more and be of more help should injuries occur whole out in the city.

"Now I want you to stay off it for the rest of the day," Lou told Andy. He seemed annoyed with the idea but agreed to stay in the infirmary until at least bed time to give the injury a rest. She elevated his foot on a few pillows to help the swelling, his face paling in pain when she moved the appendage. He may have been acting brave but it actually must have hurt terribly. 

"As much as I hate cold, I can't wait for winter so I can ice some of these injuries," Lou said. "The snow is the only way and it helps everything heal better, and faster."

"How cold does it get in here in the winter?" I asked, wondering what I had to look forward to when the snow came. The hotel was old and decaying now, it couldn't provide much of a shield from the harshness of winter. 

"It's warmer inside than out but layers of clothes are still generally needed. We don't want to have too many fires going either, the smoke from the chimneys would be too obvious, but we keep one going. It's a necessity really and so we keep the one in the dining room burning all day long. You get too cold and you just head in there. Less work gets done but it's a cost everyone's willing to pay to allow the little trips to get warm."

"I guess sharing beds is suddenly a good thing," I noted.

"All the boys will deny it probably but you can't help but cuddle when it's that cold. I once went to wake up Liam's room and Liam and Louis were spooning. But they'll deny it with their last breath," We laughed then, knowing the boys wouldn't ever want people to know something like that.