Sleeping Dogs Lie

Chapter Seven

When I wake, I am still pleasantly floaty.

It must be very early in the morning, because the slim square of light that peeks around the curtains of the white room's window has that ultra-light blue quality to it. The room itself is shrouded in darkness and shadow.

I'm so floaty and happy feeling that I begin to think maybe the whole nasty beating scene between the Hulk and me might have been something I dreamed up in an especially bad and vivid nightmare. I raise hands that feel curiously light up to brush them over my face. Unfortunately, it really is puffy and swollen, bearing witness to the fact that I did indeed get the crap beaten out of myself. I am unable to open my right eye at all.

Nope, a nightmare that was not.

I sit up and take a look around. I'm in a slim, white bed all by myself, and my bed is against a white wall. Kitty corner from me is another bed, and Daniel is in it. Freya has curled herself around him there.

Gingerly, I slide out of my bed to rest my feet on the cool, tile floor. Whoever put us here cleaned me up and changed my clothes. I remember snatches of these things only vaguely through my pleasant, floaty haze. I'm no longer wearing the blood-splattered nightgown. Now I have on a long-sleeved t-shirt in light blue and a matching pair of blue cotton pajama pants.

There's a door near Daniel's bed, and I make to limp over there. My leg no longer feels like a rubber band where the Hulk kicked it. Now it feels hot and stiff and swollen. Whatever they gave me a shot of in my neck to deaden the pain, it seems to be wearing off, because the pleasant floatiness is slowly leaving, and as it does, various and sundry aches and pains have begun to lay themselves down over my bones like a stiff, heavy blanket. I make it to the door and try the knob. It's locked from the outside. How weird! It would seem that they mean to keep us prisoner in here. Or something like that.

On the wall facing Daniel's bed, there's another door. I hobble over there. This door is unlocked, so I open it and take a look inside.

It's a bathroom. Decent sized. Sink with cupboards, big tub with a shower, good-sized closet. Someone dropped my rucksack in here. I turn on the light and close the door so I won't disturb Daniel and Freya. Unzip my bag. Freya's books are still in there. Her pink lamby sits on top. They must've put it in there after they took it off her when we arrived. All of her clothes and mine were left inside, though they've obviously been rifled through. Even that stupid red dress I tossed in the bottom before we left the Blood Flea House is still there. Sheesh! What use am I ever going to have for a fool thing like that? Of course they took my ammo. I cry a little tear deep inside for my beloved Walther. No words can express how much I loved that gun.

With some trepidation, I head for the mirror over the bathroom sink. My reflection there confirms my suspicion that I'm nothing short of a righteous mess. My face is at least fifty different colors, and my nose is taking up four times the space it was this time yesterday. I can't tell where it begins and where it ends. Whatever Flat Top did to it that was supposed to be helpful sure doesn't seem to have done anything other than turn it into even more of a putty-shaped mess. My poor right eye is a deep, grapey-purple color. The eyelid's only a spare little slit. Even my left eye – the one I keep thinking of as my "good eye" – is damaged. There's some red swimming around in the white part of my eye, kissing my hazel iris. I look gross, no matter how you look at me.

Disgusted, I shut off the light and leave the bathroom.

Back out in the bedroom, I take the covers off the bed I'd been in alone, and carry them over to Daniel's bed. It's a thin little bed just like the one they gave me. Only made for one. I can't bear to sleep alone, though. I can't even remember the last time I did it, slept in a bed without either Freya or Daniel.