Chapter Forty-Four • Busy Signal • Lillith #3
I swallow tightly. “H-how does he look?”
Roxie purses their lips and looks down at their shoes.
“It’s bad,” they say. “But not as bad as they first thought. Originally, they were saying third degree over seventy percent of his body; now it’s looking like it’s more like fifty, with the rest being second degree.
It’s worst where the curtain landed on him.
His hair is almost gone. His face is super fucked up, and his left side.
He’s really swollen, too, so don’t be shocked.
The inflammation is bad. They have him in a coma to keep him from moving, and they’re supposed to take him in for a skin graft soon. ”
I nod, happy that it most likely won’t be necessary.
“I need you to keep the staff out of here,” I say.
“For how long?”
“At least an hour.”
“How do we... explain his miraculous recovery?”
I look at Wren and she seems to know what I have in mind.
“Once we’re sure it’s worked, we’ll rewrite the staff’s memories. If anyone witnessed his injuries, there will be conflicting reports—we may get a clone conspiracy or two out of it, but it’s better than exposing magic as real.”
“Shit. Alright,” Roxie says, running a hand through their tangled, copper hair.
I approach the door and hold onto the handle for just a little bit too long. My stomach flips with fear over what I’m going to see, even with the knowledge that I’m planning to heal him.
If I can’t heal him, fully—even if the scars wind up ghastly and extensive, I will still love him. He’ll still be everything to me, no matter what he looks like.
But to see someone you love in pain like this... To know that it’s your fault they’re fighting for their life…
My throat tightens. I steel myself, pushing the door open and forcing my feet to carry me inside.
Oren stands from where he sits on a pale green vinyl chair, looking shocked to see me even though he knew I was on my way up. “It’s such a trip, dude,” he whispers. “You really got here in under an hour.”
I nod, not looking at the bed yet. A heartrate monitor beeps a steady rhythm. Fletcher stands from a chair in the corner of the room, looking exhausted. He pulls me into a hug and exhales a relieved breath.
“You’re a good lass,” he says, sniffling.
I want to tell them that this is my fault. That Damien was likely used as bait. The sound of a blood pressure cuff inflating draws my attention to the hospital bed.
And it’s just... horrific.
Where his face isn’t red and furious, it’s charred black.
His lips are swollen and crisped with soot, hanging slack against a hose extending from deep in his throat, connected to a machine that presumably breathes for him.
His hair is burned from about three quarters of his head.
His eyes have swollen shut. His blacked-out arm has transformed to a sleeve of red, bloody flesh that stretches onto his chest. His hip oozes red and white and clear onto an absorbent pad beneath him.
I can’t help it. My eyes fill with tears and spill out with a loud, ugly sob.
Fletcher hugs me closer, crushing me against him. “I know, love,” he says. His accent would almost be comforting, if the situation weren’t so horrible.
Oren kisses the top of my head, shushing me softly. “It’s going to be okay. You’re here now,” he says, sounding choked up too. Sounding a little desperate.
I nod, sobbing for a little longer as I try to arrange my universe around this horror in front of me.
I’ve never seen burns like this. It looks so horribly painful.
A terror settles in me that I might not have enough time with him to heal him properly.
That I might not have enough energy stored up.
That my magic might not work at all. That the Aberrant has drawn me out to torture me with the mutilation of my love before he takes me as his servant.
“What do you need from us?” Oren asks. “Aside from keeping staff out?”
I’m at a loss for a long moment. I’m honestly not even sure where to start. I’m so overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable task set before me.
But I think of Bash. And I think about what he would do. The next correct step.
I swallow my next sob and heave out a controlled breath through tight lips.
“I might need more energy than I brought with me,” I say. “Can I siphon off of you if needed?”
Fletcher stiffens in my arms, but Oren doesn’t hesitate. “Of course. Whatever you need.”
“Alright,” I say. “Fletcher, I know you’re exhausted. Why don’t you just stay with Roxie and Wren and Satoshi outside? Keep staff out. Oren, I just need you to stand by in case I need you.”
“Sure,” he says.
“Oren. You should know... Once I start, it’s going to be hard to stop. It’s very possible that I could shave years off your life expectancy.”
“Will I shrivel up? Turn into a decrepit old man?”
“No. You might just be gone three to five years earlier than you would have been.”
Oren shrugs. “An easy sacrifice for that dumbass,” he says, smiling weakly.
I exhale and nod, feeling the same way. “All the same. I’ll do my best to do it on my own.”
I release Fletcher, finding that he looks oddly guilty. “I—I want to help, but I—”
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “It’s a big ask, and I don’t blame you for being unsure. Willingness is important, though. Without it, the efforts could rebound, and he could end up worse off. I’m just glad you’ve been here, keeping watch.”
“We made a deal, didn’t we?” Fletcher gives me a crooked smile and turns to grab a beanie from where he’d been seated when I came in. He tucks it over his head, fidgeting with it to arrange his curls. “I’ll help guard the room, then,” he says.
“Thank you,” I say.
After he leaves, I approach Damien’s bed. Oren stands across from me, watching at me as I watch Damien.
The first right step. It would probably be to heal the wounds on his body.
More opportunities for infection and pain there.
Of course, I want to start with his face, but I know that’s just because it’s distressing to see him so swollen and unfamiliar.
I take his hand in mine, the sticky dampness of it making my stomach churn again.
I need to hold a clear image of Damien in my mind. I need to will it back into existence, one little piece at a time.
I start by thinking of his fingers. I think of their strength and dexterity.
The feeling of them scrubbing my scalp, the clumsy braiding while I brushed his teeth after one of our first hookups.
The assuredness of his grasp as he caught the shoe I threw at him and tossed it aside.
The way his fingernails looked after a fresh coat of black polish.
His loose, yet confident grasp on his drumsticks.
I hear an awed breath escape Oren’s mouth, and that sticky sensation gives way to the feeling of warm, callused skin.
A sheen of perspiration breaks out across my brow as I open my eyes to check my handiwork.
It’s healed, but it’s not perfect. His skin is now clear of tattoos, which pulls a little curl of grief from me.
When I close my eyes again and focus on his arm, I think of the pitch-black ink that covers his arm from wrist, to elbow, to shoulder.
It’s a slow process. A careful one. Any broken concentration could lead to mistake.
It’s much easier when the injury is straight forward.
A piercing, you close. A gash, you weave back together.
But when it’s a burn that has scourged past the skin in some places and barely touched it in others, it’s a much more complex, exhausting process.
And it’s much harder when Damien is buried so deep in his unconscious state, too. I can’t tune into where the pain is worst, because he’s not consciously feeling it. He’s not aware of anything at all.
Sweat coalesces and tickles a path down the side of my throat, displaces the delicate hair at my temple.
My heart thumps a little harder with exertion, despite the fact that I’m holding completely still.
The room falls quiet, even the sounds of the machines and monitors fading into a muffled fog of white noise.
I hear my own quickening breath flowing through my chest and my nose.
I don’t know how long passes before I feel my magic snap back into me, leaving me gasping in gulps of air like I’ve just been gut-punched.
When I check my progress, Damien’s entire arm has healed. But there’s so much left to do. And I already feel so exhausted.
“How you holding up?” Oren asks softly as I pant across the bed from him.
“I’m okay.” I brush my fingers over the ridge of Damien’s blank knuckles. I frown. “I already messed up.”
“What? That stupid emo tattoo? He won’t mind,” Oren says.
I nod. “I like it though,” I mumble, embarrassed by the urge to cry.
“I’m sure he’ll go through getting it again for you,” Oren says. He offers me his hand across the bed. “Need a pick me up?”
I look at his hand and consider it as I’m starting to catch my breath again.
I’m about to refuse him when we hear a little kerfuffle outside of the room.
It sounds like Satoshi and Wren arguing about his arms. She’s trying to heal him.
She’s not as good as it as I am, but she’s a capable healer in her own right.
Then an unfamiliar voice joins in on the chaos, asking why his arms are unbandaged. Satoshi is downright yelling. Slurring, really.
Oren shakes his head. “Fucker sounds high as a kite. I told Rox not to give him all those gummies.”
“I should do this quickly,” I say. “So, I’ll take you up on your offer. I need you to picture Damien healed and whole, like we know him. Can you do that?”