Chapter 25 Mattie
MATTIE
Pain was the first thing Mattie became aware of. A throbbing ache that radiated from her right hand up through her wrist and into her arm. She tried to move her fingers and gasped as the pain sharpened into something brutal, something that made her vision swim and her stomach lurch.
"Easy," Dimitri said from right next to her. "Don't try to move it."
She opened her eyes slowly, blinking against the light filtering through the window. They were back in the lab, back in their room, and Dimitri was sitting beside the bed, his face drawn with worry.
At least he wasn't covered in blood anymore.
"What time is it?" Her voice came out as a croak, her throat dry and scratchy.
"Late afternoon. You've been asleep for hours." He reached for something on the nightstand. "The doctor who took care of your hand left these for you. For the pain. He said you can take two every four hours."
Mattie struggled to sit up, and Dimitri helped her, propping both their pillows behind her back. Every movement sent fresh waves of pain through her hand, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.
He shook two pills into his palm and held them out to her. She took them with her left hand, the good one, and washed them down with a few sips of water.
With that done, she finally allowed herself to look at her injured hand.
It was wrapped in white bandages, the fingers immobilized by splints beneath the gauze. The wrapping extended from her fingertips almost to her elbow, keeping everything perfectly still.
Thankfully, she couldn't see the damage beneath, but she remembered it.
Mostly she remembered the blinding pain, but she also remembered the twisted, misshapen digits, the swelling, and the nauseating wrongness of the crushed bones.
"What did the doctor say?" She couldn't keep the tremor out of her voice. "Will it heal alright?"
Something passed across Dimitri's face too quickly for her to identify, but then he smiled. "The doctor promised that your hand will look as good as new."
He didn't sound sincere.
There was something he wasn't telling her.
She could press him to tell her what he was hiding, but she had no energy for that.
Not now. She felt like she'd been hit by a train, and in a way, she had been hit by a train made of four immortal warriors who had wanted to kill her and Dimitri for something they hadn't done.
The memories came flooding back. The harbor, the ships, the security protocols she and Dimitri had observed.
The immortal with the shaved head and his accusations.
The way they'd surrounded her and Dimitri, cutting off escape.
The hand that had grabbed her wrist, twisting, forcing her to her knees.
The boot coming down on her fingers with all the weight of a massive, immortal body.
And Dimitri. Fighting, somehow holding his own against four trained soldiers who should have torn him apart in seconds.
The tears came without warning, spilling down her cheeks in hot streams.
"Mattie." Dimitri leaned closer, his arm coming around her. "What is it? Did the pain get worse? Should I call the doctor back?"
"I thought they were going to kill you." The words came out broken, fragmented by sobs. "I was so sure, when they attacked you, I thought I was going to watch you die."
"Hey. Hey, look at me." He waited until she met his eyes, his gaze full of love and warmth. "I'm right here. I'm fine. Better than fine, actually." A hint of a smile curved his lips. "I held them off."
She made a wet, hiccupping sound that was half sob and half chuckle. "You fought off four immortal warriors. That's impressive."
"It was admirable, wasn't it?" he teased. "A sight to behold. I was a titan, fighting for my woman."
She knew he was trying to lighten her mood, and she loved him for it even as she marveled at what she'd witnessed.
"How did you do it?" She shook her head, still not quite believing what she'd seen with her own eyes.
"I know you're stronger now and faster, but you've never trained as a fighter.
You're a scientist. Those were soldiers, trained killers, who've been fighting for God knows how long.
How did you hold them off long enough for Dave to arrive? "
He considered the question for a moment, or pretended to, because then he grinned, with a boyish, almost cocky expression. "It was the power of love," he said solemnly. "Love gave me supernatural strength to defend the woman of my heart."
Despite everything—the pain, the fear, the trauma of the past day—Mattie smiled. "You're ridiculous."
"Wrong adjective. I prefer romantic." He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead, his lips warm and gentle against her skin.
"But honestly? I don't know how I did it.
I guess it was desperation. I knew they were going to kill us, and something snapped.
It was like my body had some genetic knowledge and knew what to do even when my mind didn't. Maybe the transformation to immortality also activates some ancestral memory of combat skills. "
"You fought like a god," Mattie said quietly. "It was beyond impressive. It was...I don't have words for what it was."
His smile widened, and there was a gleam of pride in his eyes, perhaps, or satisfaction that she'd never seen there before.
"You shouldn't say things like that," he teased. "It will go to my head."
It would, wouldn't it?
The thought crept in unbidden, cold and insidious. Dimitri was becoming stronger, faster, and more confident in his new body with each passing day. He'd fought off four immortal warriors, persevering until help had arrived.
He had every right to feel superior because he was superior now, at least physically. And where did that leave her?
A weak, fragile human who was a liability to him. Someone who needed his protection. Would he start to see her as lesser? Would the change in his body eventually change his heart as well, until he looked at her and saw not a partner but a burden?
It would break her heart. More than the attack, more than her crushed fingers, more than anything else that had happened on this terrible island. Losing Dimitri's love would destroy her.
"Please don't let it change you," she whispered, the words escaping before she could stop them. "I mean on the inside."
Dimitri's teasing expression faded, turning softer and more serious. He lifted her good hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
"I'm still me. The same person who fell in love with you in that bar.
The same person who would do anything, fight anyone, risk everything, to keep you safe.
" He met her eyes, and there was nothing but sincerity in his gaze.
"I chose you when I was human, Mattie. And that will never change.
The body may be changing, but my soul isn't."
She wanted to believe him so badly that it hurt, but she'd learned long ago that wanting something didn't make it true. Despite what Dimitri had said, people could change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.
Still, it was better to believe him than doubt him. She needed him in ways she had never needed anyone, and it was terrifying.
"Okay, I believe you." She averted her gaze, not wanting Dimitri to see the fresh tears that were gathering in her eyes. She didn't want him to think she doubted him. She didn't want to add her insecurities to the problems he was already facing.
Her eyes landed on the gilded mirror with the broken corners that was propped against the wall.
She'd been so excited to restore it, to sand away the damaged areas, repair the ornate frame, and bring back its original beauty, but she couldn't even hold a paintbrush now. Not with her right hand anyway.
The tears started flowing in earnest, rivulets tracking down her cheeks and neck that were soaking into the pillow.
"Mattie?" Dimitri's voice was worried now. "Are you in pain? Should I get more medication? The doctor said you could have another dose in a few hours, but if it's really bad—"
"It's not the pain." She managed to get the words out between hitching breaths. "I mean, it is, but the pills are starting to work. It's just a dull ache now."
"Then what is it? Talk to me."
She gestured weakly toward the salvaged mirror.
"I can't work on it now. The broken furniture will remain broken like my dreams. Just a pile of junk that no one wants."
"It's only temporary, and you are catastrophizing because you are in pain and still traumatized from the attack.
" Dimitri reached for the corner of the blanket and used it to gently wipe the tears from her cheeks.
"Your hand will heal, and when it does, the furniture will still be here, waiting for you to turn it beautiful again.
Unless—" He leaned closer, a conspiratorial gleam entering his eyes.
"Unless we escape this hellhole before you do that.
You won't be able to take the furniture with you anyway, so why waste time and effort to restore it? "
As if they were ever going to actually escape this place.
She remembered Dimitri saying something just before the attack. Something about gliders floating through the air and adding something about her flippant comment regarding invisibility.
"You said something about gliders," she said. "Before those four monsters attacked us. You said that my comment gave you an idea."
"It did." Dimitri's expression grew animated, the scientist in him awakened, and he was excited to solve the puzzle.
"You said we'd need to be invisible and float through the air to escape through the harbor.
And I started thinking that we obviously can't become invisible, but we can float through the air on gliders.
" Mattie frowned. "How? Where would we even get gliders, and where would we glide to?
It's an island with hundreds of miles of water separating it from the nearest land mass. "
If there were any islands nearby, they were not visible to the naked eye, which meant that they were too far to reach with a glider.
"The supply ships have to come from somewhere. If we could time our escape with a ship's departure, we might be able to paraglide onto it. The idea is only half-baked, and there are a lot of variables to figure out, but it's not impossible."
"The problem is visibility," she said. "Even if we had gliders, we'd be spotted immediately and shot down."
"That's the problem we need to solve. You said invisibility isn't something I can achieve, and you're right—true invisibility is science fiction.
But camouflage isn't. Blending in with the surroundings isn't. Where there is a will, there is a way.
" He tapped his temple. "We just need to put our heads together and think it through. "
"A blue paraglider, or maybe gray, depending on the weather, that would blend with the sky and the ocean."
"That's a good start," Dimitri said, his tone encouraging. "What else?"
"Timing? We'd want to go at dusk, when the light is tricky, and visibility is reduced. Or maybe just before dawn."
"Excellent. Keep going."
"The launch point matters. It would need to be somewhere high enough to get good altitude, but also somewhere remote, where there are no guards present."
Dimitri nodded along, his eyes bright with excitement. "The cliffs on the eastern side of the island. They're steep and uninhabited, but the challenge would be getting there without being noticed."
"We'd need supplies," Mattie continued, warming to the idea not because she believed it was actually doable, but because the mental exercise distracted her from the throbbing ache in her hand. "Not just the gliders, but survival gear. Something to keep us afloat if we come down in the water."
"All solvable problems. Not easy, but solvable."
She looked at him and saw hope that this might actually work.
"Do you really believe that we can do this?" she asked.
"I think we have to try." He took her good hand again, holding it between both of his. "I'm not going to let you rot on this island, Mattie. I'm not going to let either of us spend our lives as prisoners. There has to be a way out, and we're going to find it.
“But first, I’m going to help you out of those clothes so you’ll be able to sleep more comfortably. I think we can improvise a nightgown with one of my t-shirts.”
It was obvious that she was not going to be able to manage the buttons on her blouse and that it would take two hands to work her pants down over her hips.
Once Dimitri had taken care of that, he removed her underwear and then carefully eased one sleeve of the t-shirt over her bandaged hand and the neck opening over her head.
Then she was able to push her good arm through the other sleeve.
Now that the pain pills were dulling the sharp edges of her agony into something more manageable, her eyelids were growing heavy as exhaustion pulled at her, but underneath all that, there was a tiny spark of hope.
They had a plan. Or the beginning of one, at least. It was crazy and dangerous and had a thousand ways to go wrong. But it was something to anchor herself to, and it was infinitely better than nothing.