Bitter Blood (BBi)

Chapter 30: Like Lightning

Chapter Thirty
Like Lightning

I steer clear of my dad for days after the incident in my room. I quit going to school because every night I spend drinking coffee and energy drinks and swallowing pro-plus to keep myself awake, to keep myself free of nightmares. I can barely focus on blinking let alone reading a blackboard or listening to a teacher talk.

The night after the nightmare with the wolves, I tried sleeping again. I read a cheerful book, patted Blue goodnight and curled up in clean sheets to sleep. But despite all that, I still had nightmares as terrifying as the first.

So this is my solution.

My bandaged wound remains in constant, pulsating pain and even Blue's healing properties are barely helping it anymore. I need sleep.

And yet I don't lie down. Hell, I barely sit down in fear of accidentally drifting off. I find myself unable to eat because the sight of just about everything makes me sick to my stomach. It takes a mountain of effort everyday just to pick myself up and keep moving around.

One day though, I open my eyes to find myself walking through the front gates of the school. I stumble forward, nearly tripping over myself in shock.

How on earth–

I lean my weight against the fence and take in as many deep breaths as I can to stop the world from shifting beneath my feet and spinning around my head.

A figure approaches me, long legs the only thing I can see from my low vantage point. When I look up, I look into the eyes of Merida who's smug smile vanishes in the time it would take me to click my fingers.

I guess I'm not looking too good.

I try to gather the strength to speak but words continue to escape me. Instead, a swell rises up in the back of my throat. I cough into my hand and speckles of blood blossom across my palm. I lower my hand from my mouth slowly and look up at Merida, who's staring down at me in pure horror.

"Whats wrong with you?" she asks, searching me over with her silver eyes.

I sniffle and blink, forcing my vision to clear, then wipe a hand across the blood remaining on my lips and stumble away from her back out the gates.

The trip back home is foggy and wrong, like a puzzle missing a handful of pieces. But when I reach my front door I get inside and then seal myself inside the bathroom. I go over to the sink and look up at myself.

I barely recognize the girl in the mirror. Her skin is pasty white, clammy with sweat and fever. Dark circles hang beneath her eyes like heavy bruises. Her hair is dark and oily, hanging like limp seaweed down over her shoulders. Her eyes are tinted red by the spidery veins spreading across the whites towards her irises.

She looks like she's dying.

I am dying.

I pull my hoodie up over my head and let the shadows hide my face from view. Blue sits at my feet and I leave the bathroom with him walking alongside me. He heads towards the front door and guides me out.

I stick a hand into my hoodie and hold the bandage over my wound, wishing I could hold the skin in place so it doesn't hurt so much when I walk. It seems that all the work Blue put into healing me has been for nothing because the threads of my knitted together flesh are suddenly unraveling again, my previously stable state deteriorating back to nothing.

I walk out towards the street, Blue invisible at my side so that he can walk as a lion, my free hand resting on his back. Together we journey to the nearest bus stop and I scan the schedule pinned on the wall for a bus going to Lochton. I find one that's coming in half an hour and sit down on the bench, leaning my head against the side of the shelter. My vision wavers and when it settles back again, blurred shapes taking proper form, the bus is just pulling over to the curb.