Chapter 17 #2
Light fractures into a thousand hues like the birth of a new star. Despair and gratitude rise in tandem, heavy in her chest.
Her head throbs. Her vision clouds.
Darkness swallows her whole.
“Don’t move.”
Veda gasps into consciousness. Coughing and flailing, she panics, sucking in as much air as her lungs will allow and sputtering. The tightness in her chest unwinds enough to carve out one desperate sound as she claws at the hands near her face until the world sharpens.
“Can you hear me?” they ask.
She knows the voice. She knows the face. Confusion halts her fight.
Hiram looks up, signaling to someone. “We’re over here!”
What follows is a blur of Gabriel and Francisco and medics crowding around her.
Questions fly, but Veda can’t answer any.
She jolts at every noise and touch, especially when they poke, prod, inject potions into her veins, and pour elixirs down her throat.
They talk to each other, but Veda can’t focus, too tired after crawling through hell.
Veda doesn’t realize she’s being moved until she’s already off the ground. She screams.
“Give her a minute,” Hiram snaps, then his focus is on her. “They’re taking you to the hospital. You’re hurt and your throat is . . .”
His words fade into a hum when a medic dabs at her eyes. Her head swims. Gently, someone touches her neck. She smells burning flesh and wonders if it’s hers. Everything goes from too loud to too quiet. Air is lava in her lungs. Veda forces her head to the side. Gabriel is watching her, worried.
Hiram rides with her to the hospital, doesn’t explain, nor does she ask.
Under the harsh lights, subtle signs of his distress are easier to see.
As are the burn marks on his knuckles, the cut on his forehead, his torn sleeve.
Veda’s injuries are deeper than pain, and his grimace once the doctors cut open her dress confirms this.
“You can wait outside, sir,” someone says.
“I’m not leaving.” He’s firm, unmovable.
“At least let someone check out your injuries.”
“No.”
The healer blocks her sight of him, shining a light in her eyes. “I’m Healer Michaels. I’m going to put you to sleep while I heal you. Rest. Somnum.”
The spell wraps its arms around her and drags her into the void.
The next time Veda opens her eyes, she’s alone, but not for long.
Healer Michaels enters the room after a polite knock.
“I’m fine,” she says automatically.
“You will be.”
He walks her through everything. They found evidence of a nearly crushed windpipe, but not how she ended up healed.
She knows, though she keeps that to herself.
Veda touches her neck. The reason she’s alive is gone.
Healer Michaels explains that her burns are healed, ankle repaired, but her wrist needed to be set due to the number of broken bones.
Her concussion must be monitored closely; he warns her that the bruises caused by magic will take days to heal.
“You need to have that Sanguis Curse checked out,” Healer Michaels says.
“I can see where the curse’s scars have begun to retreat, which should not be happening.
The bind is stable, and Sanguis doesn’t typically retreat, it grows larger.
Have you done anything differently? Has a Seer tried healing you? ”
“No and no. I know the rules. Even if they could . . .”
“How long has it been in place?”
“Years,” Veda replies, voice hoarse.
“Too long.” The healer frowns and looks at the door as if someone is going to burst into the room. “I’ve seen your curse once before in a patient. Nasty creation. The worst of the worst. She was cursed by her sister in a fit of rage, and it didn’t leave her body until she . . . died.”
Well, that’s comforting. The healer is about to say something else when a doctor knocks on the door. “We need you in room four for an arterial unblocking.”
“Be there in a second.” He lets his exhaustion show and apologizes.
“Been here a long time?”
“I’m fifteen hours into a thirty-hour shift.”
Veda winces.
“Yeah, rough.” The healer steps back. “Excuse me. Duty calls.”
He’s gone before Veda can react.
Nothing has changed in the medical field. Healer Seers are still criminally overworked and underpaid. It’s a shame.
Veda shifts in bed, frowning at her itchy gown, in desperate need of a shower and something to wipe her memory.
Hiram knocks on the door.
Before Veda can answer, magic allows him into her room like he belongs.
“How?” Veda croaks, her voice rough.
“Had to say you were my wife so they wouldn’t kick me out. They tied my Imprint to your room.”
Wife? She elects not to dignify that with a response. There are more pressing questions. “No, the alley. How?”
“How did I find you?” He sits in the chair next to her bed. “Gabriel got your message. Peter got your missed call. He called Gabriel, then me, because I was in the area. I saw the flare. It smelled like . . .” He clears his throat. “Doesn’t matter. It led me to you.”
“Everett?”
“Gone. You caused enough ruckus between the fire and your amulet’s detonation that the news got involved.
Apparently, Commander Bishop was on the way, and the FCD is conducting a manhunt, but he’s hurt,” Hiram says, flexing his fingers, curling them into a fist before wincing.
“When I found you, the Botanist was getting up. They looked like you.”
“I . . . yeah, I fought myself. I don’t think I’m going to look in a mirror for a while.”
He makes a small hum of understanding. “I hexed them, tried to restrain them, but they broke out, said my name, and told me that they would see me again.”
“Shit,” Veda says faintly. “Are you—were you injured?”
“A bit. I was checked out. It’s just a consequence. My amulet only partially worked for a protection charm I cast on you. It’s not meant to be used on someone unrelated to me.” Hiram glances at her. “I’m not sure how it worked as much as it did.”
Veda looks down at her splinted wrist. “I’m worried about Everett being out there, getting madder by the day. He needs to be found.”
“You should rest.”
Memories plunge her into fear’s icy waters. “I don’t think I can.”
“I know, but—oh.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. Her amulet. It’s cracked and burned, the chain rusted and blackened. “I found it and thought you might want it.”
Hesitant fingers curl around the twisted stones that saved her life once, and sacrificed themselves for her now.
Veda is so damn tired. But if she lets herself feel, even for a second, she’ll drown.
She forces herself to get past the night’s horrors, only realizing she’s forgotten gratitude when the words slip out.
“Thanking you is . . .” Veda tries to hold back the words.
Hiram’s smirk spreads wider. “Is the last thing you want to do, I’m sure.”
“It’s the worst.” It hurts to smile, but one twists her lips before she winces. Hiram reaches for a nearby compress and brings it to her sore cheek. When Veda takes over, their fingers incidentally brush. A flash of inviting warmth leaves her scrambling to reestablish the distance between them.
Hiram grows serious, his expression hardening into an unreadable mask. “You’re welcome.”
“If you get any nicer, I’ll start insulting you to maintain our status quo.”
“One you set.”
Veda focuses on the growing numbness instead of his comment. It’s easier.
Fortunately, Hiram’s phone rings, and he excuses himself. The conversation doesn’t last nearly long enough, and he returns with: “Gabriel said that Khadijah is on her way. She’ll wait with you until you’re discharged, take you home, and get your bike.”
“Okay.”
Hiram returns to his seat, blue eyes searching hers. “I can leave now, or I can wait until she gets here.”
The first option would leave Veda alone, staring at sterile white walls and trying to hold herself together. It sounds miserable. But the second option is no easier. Whether now or later, she’ll be alone with her thoughts soon enough.
“Wait.” It’s the hardest word Veda has ever uttered.
Hiram settles in his seat without hesitation. Adrenaline fades. Pain dulls into a cold hollowness as the past few hours hit Veda like a freight train, dismantling every painstaking measure of self-preservation she’s managed to construct.
The dam doesn’t crumble—it bursts.
Without permission, tears rise, pooling in her swollen eyes.
They sting, burning hot trails down her battered face.
She tries to stop them, scrubbing at each one with stubborn resolve, but the effort only brings a splitting headache.
She can no longer keep up the charade of acting like she isn’t scared.
Like she didn’t silently plead for her life despite believing that she was ready to lose it.
Like on another day, in another way, the circumstances already beyond her control will have a different outcome.
Later, she’ll rebuild the dam. Patch it. Reinforce it. But tonight, she lets her tears fall. Veda sobs with abandon, each breath raw and shuddering.
Hiram’s hand covers hers, his grip warm and solid. A rescue from deep waters.
He’s prickly like a rough rope. Quiet and steady. Her tether.