Chapter Forty-Four • Busy Signal • Lillith #4
Oren nods. “Even if I wanted to forget this asshole’s face, I don’t think I could,” he says, chuckling. His energy is lighter, now. Maybe relieved by what he’s seen so far. It helps buoy my own optimism.
I take his hand. It’s warm and dry. Large like Damien’s, but slender in a way that his aren’t.
He takes Damien’s less injured hand and holds it tightly, creating a circuit of energy between the three of us.
Already, my magic grows more nimble—a magnifying glass being tilted in just the right way to concentrate the sunlight to a tight point of blazing heat.
This time, I don’t have to close my eyes when I return to the task at hand. I force my magic into Damien again, imagining the rapid division of skin cells, imagining their cellular junctions and nervous dendrites lining up properly with the traumatized blood vessels, fat cells and muscle tissue.
His chest starts to mend, then his abdomen. Then his throat.
His heartrate increases, pushing his blood through his veins faster. Burning through the propofol and sedatives and pain killers. I sense him beginning to surface, so I work faster. As fast as I can. I don’t want him to be in pain when he opens his eyes.
The charred skin on his face weaves back together. His eyebrow goes from sparse and singed to dark and full. His long lashes return and flickering with his shallow unconsciousness.
Oren’s knees buckle as he almost collapses to the ground. But there’s just a little more left. Just a little bit.
My shirt sticks to my back and my stomach as Damien’s hair grows back. The natural dirty blond is strangely charming and new. I kind of love it.
And then he’s there.
He’s healed, for the most part, except for a few angry blisters. But those won’t threaten his life. Once I’m replenished, I can heal him fully. Make him good as new.
The only glaring thing remaining are his blackened lips.
Oren is panting and pale. I don’t dare draw on more of his energy. Instead, I do an old trick. One that’s been my favorite to use with Damien in particular.
I lean forward and kiss the edge of his lips. Borrowing the energy from the happy flip of my stomach to smooth over the lingering charred flesh.
I don’t have to work very hard to remember how his lips feel—don’t have to conjure some distant image. Because I know Damien’s lips better than anything else in the world. Even with the imperfect seal due to his intubation, I can tell when I’ve restored his lips to their former state.
Oren groans as I release his hand. He stumbles a bit before wordlessly collapsing into one of the greenish vinyl chairs in the corner of the room, panting and dropping his head back. His chest heaves with labored breaths.
I want to sit too. But I stay next to the bed, just drinking Damien in now that he’s healed.
If this is the last time I get to use my magic, and have it do what I tell it to, it will have been worth it.
Damien’s eyes shoot open. It’s so shocking that it actually makes me jump. His eyes blink tiredly for a moment before widening with terror.
“Damien?” I ask. “You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”
He rips his hand out of my grasp and before I can stop him, he grasps the tube hanging out of his mouth and pulls.
“Damien!” I cry. But he’s panicking. I can only imagine what it feels like to wake up with a tube shoved down your throat. I grasp his wrists and try to hold them still. “Wait until we can get someone in here—”
It’s no use, though. I’m not strong enough and I think Oren is actually unconscious in his chair. Damien shakes my hands off and extubates himself with such violence that it makes me cringe.
He hacks and coughs. A deep, wet cough with desperate gasps between them. Oh, fuck. Is he drowning? Is there fluid filling his lungs?
His eyes roll wildly in his head, though I’m not convinced he’s actually seeing anything.
He coughs up more mucous and phlegm than I’ve ever seen someone expel from their body.
I grab a nearby basin and hold it under his mouth as it pours out of him.
Little ribbons of blood mix with the pale, viscous fluid.
I panic for a moment that he may have severely injured himself.
That he might start choking on his blood.
But once he gets another couple rounds out of his system, he finally pulls in a deep, clear breath.
I think it’s over, but then he reaches for his IV. I grasp his face in my hands and force him to look at me. I will authority into my voice when I say, as firmly as I can, “Stop, Damien. You stop this right now. Breathe. You are okay. You’re safe. I’m here. I’m here.”
His pupils are tiny dots in the center of his green and blue irises. He swallows tightly, eyes flickering between mine for a what feels like forever. Then he’s pulling me into the bed with him, cradling me close. And weeping. He’s just weeping and weeping and weeping.
And even with how traumatic this whole week has been, even with all the ways I’ve failed, and all the uncertainty swirling around my life and Damien’s… For a moment, a single, precious moment, everything is perfect.
Because Damien is alive.
And he’s holding me like I’m the most precious thing in the world.