BOND

43.

Know there will come a day when this moment is faded

But that day will be too late

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My sincerest condolences to anyone who even vaguely knows about Chadwick Boseman. Wakanda lost T'Challa and Earth lost an angel. So sorry.❤

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"Taylor I don't think you're being violent enough," Elena gritted through her teeth, struggling to keep her voice down. "Please push against the two bruises you didn't."

Taylor adjusted the back of the thin material and scowled, "Don't mind me but this is my first time dressing up somebody beaten to pulp." A split second after she had said it, Elena flinched, and quicker still, Taylor realized that she should not have said that.

Grimacing, she stood up and helped Elena to sit back down on the bed, her broken ribs restricting long periods of standing. "I'm sorry."

Elena clutched at her side, struggling to take in a lung full of air and calming her increasing heartbeat. She waved a hand in the space between them and said after a while, "It's okay. It's fine."

"Yeah, except it's not," Taylor muttered and turned away from the bed, focusing on the three backpacks lying by the foot of the bed. They had been playing this game for a while now. Her, Daniel, Chase, all of them.

They would mention the night at the warehouse in hushed tones and whispers, knowing Elena could hear them but too wrecked to actually talk to her about it. She won't ever mention the slightest detail about it or say anything else altogether.

Joey's injury might have been more life threatening but it was hers that had left everybody stunned. Her reaction to it more than the damage itself. They were used to the loud, spontaneous, crazy girl. Not one who weighed each syllable before forcing it out of her mouth.

It made sense. She had been pretty shaken up, but that was it. She wasn't getting any better. There was no perceptible difference in her today to when she had first woken up in the hospital, other than her physical condition. 

If she was feeling something inside, she wasn't crying about it and that worried the doctors. Since she hadn't been reacting vocally they had been hoping for an emotional display. So far all they had gotten was her wailing when her leg ached.

Elena took the painkillers without any fuss. If she wanted to get through a day of lots of movements and facing Joey, she would have a better time of doing it if she couldn't feel half of her body. The mental pain outweighed the physical one but getting rid of it was tempting enough on its own too.

"Why are we doing this again?" Elena coughed when the pain didn't go away, not meeting Taylor's eyes lest she see the tears forming in hers. The drugs were setting in but the flashbacks she had been getting dominated any bodily ache.

Taylor, mainly to distract herself so she won't hammer the answers out of Elena, busied herself with checking the books in the bags. She could have extracted them from her, with minimal violence, but Chase had warned her to lay off. "So we can graduate and become seniors and have the best year of our lives."

"That's unlikely," Elena scoffed.

Taylor tilted her head up to look at Elena, her expression soft as if even a harsh look would get Elena to crumble. She hated it, obviously, the way they were treating her like she was made out of glass.