16. Ash
Chapter 16
Ash
I jumped to my feet, and my leg splintered beneath me, pain surging through my calf and up into my thigh. My body crumpled to the ground next to the bed… The bed. A proper bed—not a bedroll. A plush rug caressed the skin that peeked out from my backside, my shorts riding up my thighs. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. Hope. I was in Hope—in the King’s estate. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my back against the bed behind me. I feared another infection had taken root in my leg, but I didn’t feel the feverish way I had last time.
The dreams were getting out of control, and the worst part: I couldn’t remember what they were about. Only that they induced my anxiety to peak levels, and they felt like something important that I needed to remember but couldn’t. I squeezed my palms to my head, trying to get my useless brain to think straight and to remember the dreams that wreaked havoc in my sleep.
I pulled it together enough to raise my eyes to look out the large window into the night as willowy threads of dusk floated through the sky. The bright moon poked through the clouds, and the stars shone through the darkness. The King’s mansion was another cage, but at least it was a beautiful cage with a large window to see the sky—not like where I had been trapped before. I shuddered, blocking that memory out of my brain.
My window faced the mountain behind the mansion rather than the city below. Something caught my eye far out beyond the buildings on the top of the ridge, where the dim light barely stretched over the skyline.
A soft knock sounded from the door, and I ignored it. Who was here this early in the morning, anyway?
“Prin—er…um…Miss, it’s Ryan… Captain Wavern said he heard something and came and got me to check on you. Can you open the door, so I know you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” I called. “Go back to bed.” Jerek was still out in the hall? When did he get to sleep?
“Are you sure? Is your leg bothering you? The Prince said it was hurt and came to bring you to the medical building last night, but you locked him out. Do you want me to take you right now instead?”
Apparently, word traveled fast around here. I thought it over for a moment, considering all the options. My leg quivered with pain that I could hardly tolerate anymore. Plus, I much preferred Ryan’s company to Diesel’s right now.
“Okay,” I croaked out before trying to stand. I loathed the weakness that I displayed to complete strangers. The weakness that had become my crutch. Maybe they could fix my leg so I could move on with my life.
I used the bed to pull myself up and hobbled along next to it, hopping rather than putting weight on my leg. I got to the other side of the bed, and the door still seemed so far away. You can do it, you can handle the pain, it’s only a few steps. I took a breath and steeled myself before taking the first step toward the door, but as soon as I did, excruciating pain shot through my leg and I fell to the ground, taking the nightstand with me, which landed on the floor with a loud crash.
My door flew open, and Ryan and Jerek rushed in with concern in their eyes, only to find me in a heap on the floor, embarrassed. Jerek scooped me up into his arms while Ryan put the nightstand back into standing position.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell anybody it was this bad, Princess?” Jerek grumbled.
I growled at the name. “It’s not that bad. I can handle it.”
“Oh yeah, let me put you on your feet then, and you can walk all the way to medical.”
“Fine.” I could do it…probably. It would be better than being carted around by his judgmental ass.
He narrowed his eyes at me, but slowly set me back on my feet, or rather, foot. Ryan looked between us with wide eyes.
“After you…Princess,” he gestured toward the door.
I glared at him and then tried stepping toward the door, only to have pain slice through every nerve in my leg. A whimper escaped my lips, and I was about ready to fold again.
Jerek cursed before scooping me up once again and walking out of the room with Ryan trailing us .
“You are the most annoyingly stubborn woman I have ever met.”
“So I’ve been told,” I retorted. Gratefulness for Jerek in this situation felt like pulling out my own teeth, but it swelled in my heart anyway. I’d rather have him take me than Diesel. “Aren’t you supposed to not talk to me?”
He harrumphed but didn’t say anything as we walked through the maze of halls. He looked and smelled cleaner, his beard was trimmed short, and I understood why all the girls swooned in his presence. How did he even know where he was going? The mountains and trees seemed less confusing than this place. At least outside, the sun and stars were there to guide you. In here, only the darkness could be your guide.
I caught Ryan’s eyes behind us. “How did you get into my room?”
She produced a key from her gray dress pocket. “Don’t worry, I’m the only one that has one, and I would never invade your privacy unless it was necessary.” Doubtful.
We walked down a flight of stairs at the end of a hall and then another where the air became chilly and damp—must be underground. A long tunnel stretched out before us with a cement floor and flickering lights overhead. The cold air from the passageway chilled the skin on my legs, and you could see the new scar that ran from the back of my calf to the front, where the pain pulsed from. We continued down the tunnel until we reached more stairs that stretched upward. This place must have mazes of tunnels underneath that ran from one building to another.
We entered a new building that was starkly different from the other. White walls, white floor, and cream furniture everywhere. The only person in the building was a woman who sat across the room behind a desk, wearing a similar gray dress to Ryan’s. She stood the second we walked in. Jerek strode right up past the desk and to the hallway behind the woman.
“Princess needs to be seen,” he told her without hesitation.
“Yes, sir. Right this way,” she stammered, racing to take the lead and guide us into a room in the back. The room had simple white walls, a white floor, an examination table in the middle, a few cabinets for supplies, and a chair in the corner.
It was warm, and the chill in my body subsided. How was it so warm without a fire? I wondered again.
Jerek set me on the table and glared at my leg. “I’ll wait in the hall,” he grumbled before vanishing and closing the door.
The girl from behind the desk looked at my hair like she was in utter shock. Her nervousness made its way to her hands, and they shook with a slight tremor. Ryan took a seat in the corner as the girl began talking. “Um, can you tell me what happened, Your Majesty, and I will go get the doctor.” Her voice trembled.
I let out a sigh. “A cougar used my leg as a chew toy a few months ago.”
Her lips parted in a slight gasp. “Oh…um, okay, I’ll go get the doctor that is here tonight…or this morning, I guess.” With that, she was gone.
“A cougar, huh? Please, do tell me how that happened,” Ryan said from the corner, looking like she was already bored.
“I’d rather not think about it.” I rubbed the palms of my hands over my eyes.
“Well, anybody who could live through something like that is pretty impressive in my book.”
I shrugged my shoulders at her compliment.
“How come you didn’t seem shocked at my hair?” I asked .
“Della warned me. I didn’t want to make you feel like an alien from a different planet.”
I thought about her response for a moment before I asked the next question that burned on my tongue. She seemed trustworthy enough—she was trying to help. “Where are all the other blondes?”
She gazed at me like she was analyzing my question inside and out before she gave a subtle nod. “The Pit.”
Before I could ask anything else, the door opened, and a middle-aged man in a white coat entered the room with Jerek on his heels. Jerek stood by the door with his arms crossed, shooting me a scathing look. The doctor stepped closer to me and looked at me with kind eyes. “Princess Asha, it is so nice to meet you. I’m Doctor Jones. You said there was something wrong with your leg?” He smiled.
“Yeah, it hurts like hell.”
He chuckled and stepped closer to examine my leg and the long scar. He pressed in places and made me move it in different positions. Jerek watched his every movement from the opposite side of the room. I didn’t miss the fact that he kept sending glances toward Ryan, either. Interesting.
Doctor Jones stepped back as he pursed his lips, a line forming between his brows. “I’m not quite sure what is going on…” he admitted. “It seems like you had a break, but it’s healed from what I can tell. The muscles have knitted themselves back together nicely as well.” He brought his fingers to his chin as he tried to riddle me out.
“Give me a few minutes; I have an idea,” he said as he turned and left the room. This time, Jerek stayed .
We all sat in awkward silence, waiting for the doctor’s return. Tension filled the air in his absence.
“How about next time, don’t try to play with the kitty cats, Princess,” Jerek said. Did he insist on calling me that every sentence, just to piss me off?
“Well, Captain Wavern…I could say the same for you. Seems as if you’ve had plenty of…kitties to play with as well.” It was not like I hadn’t noticed the hordes of girls that flocked to him at every opportunity.
Heat flushed up the side of his neck, and his eyes flickered to Ryan nervously, who snickered quietly in the corner. “Jealous?” he asked.
“You’re not my type,” I scoffed.
“What? Handsome soldiers with great personalities don’t do it for you?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. Any raping, murdering soldier would never do it for me.”
Ryan and Jerek looked at each other but quickly averted their eyes. What was going on between them that I didn’t know? My sentence proved to silence the room until the doctor got back.
When he stepped back in, a young girl, maybe only twelve, trailed on his heels. My jaw dropped to the floor. She had blonde hair almost the same color as mine. She looked so young and innocent. What was she doing here? Who was she? She wouldn’t meet my eyes, but rather stared at the floor. I wanted to stab every person in this room to get her out of here and away from this place.
“Emma is going to try to help,” Jones explained.
She tentatively stepped closer to me, and I tried so badly to get her to look at me. She appeared healthy, well-fed, and well-dressed, which was more than I could say for myself most of the time.
“May I?” she asked in a soft voice, gesturing to my leg. She finally met my eyes, and I gave her a slight nod. She placed her hands on my leg on either side of the scar and closed her eyes. What was she doing?
I looked up at Ryan, and then at Jerek for answers, but they simply stared at my leg.
Her eyes suddenly flew open, and her face filled with sympathy. “She has something in her leg; it’s digging into her calf muscle and the nerve.”
What? How did she know that only from feeling my leg? “I don’t understand—“ I started, but Jones interrupted me, mumbling various medical terms that I didn’t understand.
“That explains it,” he said.
“How could I have something in my leg? Wouldn’t it have been painful constantly since I got hurt? It got better for a while, then it got worse again.”
Jones scrunched his eyebrows together.
“It’s right behind your bone. It would have been hard to see if someone cleaned your leg and could have been mistaken for bone.” Emma paused. “Have you been around any other blondes?” Emma asked, with her eyebrows scrunched together, shadowing her eyes that seemed to swirl a mixture of brown and blue.
Will. How did Emma know? Will had blonde hair; did that mean he had an ability? Had he used whatever it was on me? I shook my head. I had to protect him at all costs.
“It’s just…” Emma shook her head.
“What is it?” Jones asked.
“The muscles and nerves seem to have been perfectly knit together around the object—possibly a bone shard—but it has moved. Have you done anything recently that would have jostled it free?”
I thought back to the pain in my leg when I kicked the rock in the river and nodded.
“Could you direct me to the shard, so I can get it out, Emma?” Jones asked.
Emma nodded.
What was happening? How could she possibly know all of this?
“Princess, if you will lay back, we can get to work getting that shard out, and hopefully you will feel all better. We will open a small incision and pull it right out…”
“W–Wait… Hold up. You are going to cut my leg back open?” I blanched.
“Yes, that is what I said.” Jones said matter-of-factly.
“I think not.” I tried to get up from the table, and Ryan came to my side.
“It’s only going to get worse if we don’t get it out,” Emma’s small voice sounded, and I halted. “You must be tough.” She gave me a tiny smile. “I’m surprised you’re not crying in pain all the time. If you leave it, it’s only going to bury deeper into your muscle and sever your nerve, which might stop your foot and leg from working correctly.”
Again—what? “How do you know?”
She looked at Jones before answering. “I can feel things most people can’t. Trust me?”
“Emma,” Jones warned.
The innocence and tenderness in her wide eyes melted my heart. She had to get out of here. That must be her ability—a heightened sense of touch. She could feel what was wrong with me. I wondered if Will had the same ability, except more. Could he heal with his touch? Diesel had said something about the virus heightening the sense of the blondes and that was what had given them special abilities. Did that mean I was—what? A seer?
“Okay.” I nodded, and Ryan helped me lie down on the table.
Jones busied himself with preparing things on the counter. “I’m going to inject numbing medication into your leg, so you won’t feel it when we are finding the shard.” There was such a thing?
“Okay.” Sounded better than the alternative.
“It stings like a bitch,” Ryan said from beside me. Wow, thanks for the confidence boost, Ryan.
“Okay, try to hold as still as possible for me.”
I gripped Ryan’s hand in my own and squeezed as Jones stuck me with the first needle.
It wasn’t bad at all, compared to the things I had been through—the numbing was like a miracle. I didn’t feel a thing as Jones searched through my leg with Emma’s help until he shouted that he found it and yanked the wicked little sucker out. Except it wasn’t a bone shard—it was a tooth. A tooth from the cougar that had tried to take my life. Jones washed it and gave it back to me as a souvenir .
The only sign of the incision was the few stitches in my leg. Jones told me to give it a couple of days to heal, and then he would pull the stitches out and I would be as good as new. I tentatively put weight on my leg, and no pains shot up it. Jerek still insisted on carrying me back to my room, leaving Emma with Doctor Jones once more. He seemed nice enough, or I wouldn’t have left her with him. I gave her a reassuring smile as I left—there was nothing that I could do right then, but I promised myself I would get her out. Even if it killed me.
Jerek sat me on the bed and eyed the food I hadn’t eaten last night. Ryan picked it up, and they both left me alone to get some rest. It was still very early in the morning, and my eyes fluttered closed from the lack of sleep and the adrenaline from the minor operation I had just endured. It felt wrong to sleep in the big, comfortable bed with Emma in the medical ward doing who knows what in the middle of the night. The bed seemed to devour me—the mattress was too soft. I ripped the blankets off and threw them on the floor next to the window before laying down on them and fading back to sleep.