Healer's Touch (Deadly Touch #1) [Complete]

Chapter 4: Cleaning Up The Streets

Llew woke from a dreamless sleep. It took but a moment to realize she wasn't breathing, that she hadn't been breathing. Gasping for air now, she grabbed the rope around her throat, trying to ease the pressure; her own weight kept pulling her down. Her legs kicked at nothing and she began to swing gently.

Someone gasped and someone – the same or another – ran off.

Consciousness faded and everything went black again.

***

When she stirred, Llew had a vague recollection of having done so before. She fought down her panic and managed to squeeze her fingers between the rope and her throat and raised herself enough to take a ragged breath: but her arms failed and she came down on her fingers. She was able to take shallow breaths, but her fingertips were being rapidly suffocated of blood.

A woman's scream alerted her to the fact she was in full public view. Great. Even if she got herself down, there was every chance she'd be right back here soon after, or disposed of in some other, more certain way. An image of a chopping block and an axe flashed through her mind. Oh gods!

Through sheer force of will she made her arms once more raise her body and, trembling under the strain, she eased the rope forward from her throat toward her chin. She rested her fingers, grabbing the sides of the noose and leaning her head back into the spiral knot, redistributing her weight. This wasn't going to be pretty.

The hushed silence told her that people were more fascinated by her efforts than they were interested in alerting anyone official.

She didn't know how long she'd been gone. As she focused her efforts on freeing herself, some part of her mind turned over the fact that she'd already died once before. Now she could make it, what? Three times? Three times in how many days? The sun was high. Lunch time. She'd been hung in the morning. Was this the same day? The next day? A week later?

As far as she could tell, it had taken her a couple of hours or so to come back after the glass bottle incident. She didn't know how long a broken neck would take to heal.

Her arms rested as much as they could under the circumstances, she returned to her efforts to slide the rope to her chin. Her neck ached, the rope burned her cheeks and jaw, and trapped blood threatened to pop the tips of her fingers. But none of that mattered when giving up would mean suffocating to death. Again.

The flutter of wings and the scratch of claws on metal drew Llew's attention to the roof of the building that cast a shadow over her, shielding her from the afternoon sun. A swamp hawk perched there, inspecting her, its head moving in staccato tilts and turns. She bared her teeth and hissed at the bird. It continued to peer at her with idle curiosity. The best way to lose the scavenger's interest was to get free and on the move.

This was it, her moment of freedom likely followed by a more permanent death. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer to whatever god might listen to an orphan in such a godforsaken place. The ignorance of others and her own luck had so far kept her alive. She just needed them to hold out until... well, until she was away from Cheer. She was almost certain there was more to life out there, somewhere.

She took a breath, steeling herself for the drop, and wiggled, rolled and pressed the rope over the curve of her chin. It burned up the back of her head and caught under her nose. Pain seared through her top lip and up her sinuses into her forehead, and her legs thrashed, seeking ground; she wasn't there yet. The rope was slipping, if slowly. With a flick of her thumbs she forced it from under her nose. Her brow caught on it briefly, then she slid free.

Landing on something soft she leaped up immediately, adrenaline flooding her bloodstream, fearing she had landed on an over-enthusiastic onlooker, only to find a still warm but motionless pile of feathers, fur, and flies. A selection of the local carrion eaters: swamp hawks, rats, and bugs.