Cinders [Completed]

Chapter 19: Waking Up

The days pass in relative solitude, which I find I really don't mind. My wounds heal slowly, like they always do, and I can almost feel the effort drinking in all of my energy. It makes me tired, and for the first time in my life, I don't have a mandated sleeping schedule. Naps, as it turns out, are glorious. I sleep more then I ever have.

My waking moments are punctuated by Lucy, Jonah, and occasionally Mom. Mom somehow found out that Orion and I are mates, I'm sure of it, because the next time she visits, she refuses to look at me. In her eyes, now, I am complicit in the crime committed against Dad.

In a way, I guess she's right. She doesn't visit me very often.

Orion keeps his distance. Of course he does, I tell myself. There is no pretense of affection between us; he has upheld his duty as a mate. I'm safe, and being cared for. I have yet to do anything for him. The guilt hits me, sometimes, and I let it saturate ever cell in my body. I should feel guilty.

I blame the weird dreams on the pain meds. I don't usually remember them when I wake up. This one takes place in the forest between the Palace and my old house. Mom is forcefully pulling me towards the Palace, but I want to go back home.

"Lucy is in trouble," Dream!Mom tells me angrily, pulling again at my arm.

"Lucy's at home," I tell Mom, "you're sick. You're just sick. Let's go home, and you'll feel better."

Mom begins running, her grip on my arm painfully tight.

It begins to rain, but the drops are a pure, charcoal black that stick to my skin. Mom's grip on me suddenly disappears, and the rain is so thick that I can't see anything. When it drops into my mouth, it tastes like soil, burnt to a crisp by the sun.

"Mom!" I call, but my voice can't puncture the heavy atmosphere of black rain that bursts around me like gunfire. I stumble forward, but I trip on the air and fall into the ocean of darkness around me.

I wake with a gasp of pain, tears burning in my eyes. I try to sit up, but that makes the pain far worse, and I double over, clutching at the sheets, a cold sweat starting on my forehead. The epicenter of the pain is just below my hip, and when I try to move my leg, the pain shoots all the way through my spine like a jolt of lightning.

"Ahhhhnng," I cry, in a way that I'm sure is very dignified.

The pain is so intense that it makes it hard to see, but I try to calm down with a few deep breaths. "Okay, okay, okay," I say out loud, like I'm giving my body a pep talk. I just have to get to the door, and then someone can find a doctor that will be able to amputate my leg clean off. Anything would be better than the painful mass of nerves currently screaming at me.

"Okay, okay," I repeat in a whisper, and then, in one fell swoop, I pull the covers up and swing both of my legs over the side of the bed. Or, at least, I try to. My working leg moves quickly, but my injured leg gets caught in the heavy bedspread and jerks back painfully.

I bite into my lip to keep myself from crying out. A second later, I taste blood. Carefully, I pull the bedsheet back.

Now, move, I tell my crooked, bandaged leg.

AAAAAGGIBKLNLLLKJ, my leg replies.

For the both of us, I try again, m o v e .

My leg does not respond. I gently pull at it with both of my hands, gritting my jaw against the pain. By the time I have forced my dead leg out of the covers and over the side, my upper arms are going numb, as if protesting their involvement in causing even more pain.

Okay.

The door is only a few feet away. My heartbeat is so loud in my ears that it sounds like someone knocking violently on the door.