Wildfire

Chapter 48 (Part II)

48. Defeat (Part II)

I was pulled under by dark waves, tugged deep beneath the tide. There was something oddly soothing about giving in; my bones ached with relief, my mind unravelling like a billion thousand strings. Each blink came in slow, drugging motions like I was too tired to lift my eyelids, and my vision became a hazy whirl of colours.

I fell to my knees in a cloud of silver rain, the gun slipping from my fingers. It hit the ground with a dull thud, the sound muted by the pool of blood creeping across the floor.

Somehow, I managed to crawl over to my father's body. My palms were slick with blood as I pulled the syringe from his still-warm hand, my fingers shaking as I aimed the syringe. The first, dull throb of pain was quickly replaced by the sweet, chaotic sensation of magic and relief escaped my body in wispy colours, disappearing into the atmosphere.

I made it over to the bed before my mind was completely overtaken, and my last coherent thought was of the sticky quality of Diego's hand, as I curled my own around it.

__________________________

"How are you feeling?"

I watched as Georgina slid into the only chair in the room, crossing her ankles daintily. She looked tired, her eyes puffy and her hair surprisingly less-than-perfect — but then, it had been a rough couple of days for all of us.

"Good," I croaked. "Better."

Physically, I was in as close to perfect health as someone in a supernatural hospital could be. I had broken my right clavicle when the bomb had detonated and screwed up the alignment in the hours afterwards, but one of the medical attendants had been able to repair the damage with demon technology. I'd gotten an excited speech from one of the trainees about how surgery wasn't necessary and how human methods of healing were 'positively medieval', but it didn't seem all that different to me.

Mentally, though...

"Dr. Paxton told me they were ready to discharge you today," Georgina said brightly. "Marco officially signed your case over to me to deal with this morning, so if you're ready..."

Ready.

I'd known this moment was coming — I'd prepared for it, even before Leon delivered me to Killian and Ian — but hearing the words come out of Georgina's mouth caused a tremor of panic to wrack my body. I doubted I would ever be truly ready for this.

But beneath the panic, there was a lingering sense of anticipation, of hope...

"What will happen?" I asked, my voice rough from disuse. "With my... with my problem, I mean."

I couldn't bring myself to say 'addiction'. This wasn't something I'd deliberately brought on myself and the fact that I had no control over the cravings, no way of helping myself... it killed me inside. Every time I hit a low, I saw his face — the dead look in his eyes, the blood seeping from his head, the gradual paling of his skin. I got caught up in the darkness, the guilt pressing down on me like a heavy blanket.

Every time I closed my eyes I could hear them whispering, "Wolf-fucker, father-killer. Wolf-fucker, father-killer."

"There's a team of officers working for the Housekeeping department of the SCC," Georgina explained. "They specialize in weird, one-of-a-kind circumstances where humans can't be directly cut off from our world. I'll let Olenya Belinsky explain. She'll be the witch overseeing your memory procedure."

I nodded, pushing myself up off the bed. I was still a little woozy from the Incoendium antidote, but I'd take woozy over lucid any day of the week. I had been so out of it when the SCC officers stormed the Club that I wasn't even sure who had found Diego and me. I remembered hearing Slater's voice and someone yelling for a medical attendee, but the next time I fully regained consciousness, I was lying in a hospital bed alone.