Damsel[ed]: Some Rescue Required (#2 of the Damsel[ed] series)

Chapter Seventeen: Broken

How do you know you've hit rock bottom? Is it when you're so beaten up that your big brother has to carry you? Or is it when your best friends are in danger and you can't do anything about it? Or heck, is it when you look out the window and know your city is a hellscape, but you're trapped as all get-out and can't fight the people doing the damage?

I don't know. You tell me.

Toby plops me down on my bed, and as I contemplate my uselessness, I feel like a whole lot of yuck and a whole lot of existential crisis.

Toby sighs, and I stare a little. I don't see him a lot. He's usually working extra shifts at the hospital, downing coffee after coffee so he can function during those eighteen hour days. When he comes home, shaky and baggy-eyed, he usually looks worse than I feel.

He glances over me, and I see the way he recoils, see the flash of fear in his eyes, dark like Mom's. "You know," he says, "Mom used to come home looking just like that, bruised up and hardly able to move. Dad too. I don't understand why you do what you do what you do. You could've died, Hev." My heart slams up against my ribs. Of course, he talks to me about this type stuff when my voice is shot, when I can hardly squeak out a line about my own best friend's kidnaping.. If my voice were back, I would be arguing, probably, but then again, I don't care.  They have Gatsby. Who cares about my jacked-up ribs and dead parents?  I have to save him, and I have to find Angelos, that's all that matters. "Need another aspirin?"

I've already had nine. If I weren't a super, my liver would bleed. "N-No." My head's all stuffed up, and my motor functions are almost gone. The roof of my mouth feels thick and bristly, like sandpaper.

I try to stand, but pain tears through my torso, like something inside me is cracking with every breath.

So, I sigh instead. The faded pink sheets are rough and unraveling and scratch my skin at the touch. I've had these since I was a little kid. I never needed new sheets or blankets; I never slept. "What are we going to do about Snare?"

"Huh?"

I have to repeat myself, shouting every syllable until my raw throat feels like it'll fall apart. I barely sound. He rubs his hair back and sighs, his face in his hands.

"I don't know. I shouldn't have done it, but you were dying." He slides his fingers down his skin and groans. "God, it was awful. I was like, like when Mom died."

 I remember that out of body experience thing I had. How could I forget? I remember what my mother said, about her dying in the coma thing. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge, and Toby gives me a sad, wry smile. "At least we cheated fate, even if we did it pretty dumbly."

"Oh, my God!" a girl shrieks. Toby whips to his feet, his hand grasping at the hip of his jacket where he carries his concealed sidearm, a .22 caliber pistol. I grab his arm, my jaw clenched up even though the pain that ignites there is excruciating. I know the voice. Of course, I do.

"You guys are so cool! And, like, old." Toby shoots me a glance, sighs, and drops his arm. The mattress coils squeak as he stands. I bite back a groan and ease after him, stab after stab of pain ripping inside as I try to struggle to the ground.

"Get out of my house," Toby growls when he leaves. I glance down at the dusty floor and drop off the bed's edge. Needless to say, landing on solid wood hurts. I yelp and clutch my side, gasping and moaning for breath. My teeth grind.

 My powers should've come back already, shouldn't they? It's like the universe hates me even more than usual.

"A corded phone? Really? How old are you?"

"Go home, Jaylin." Toby's voice is tired and aged.

"Hmm." She laughs quietly, and I wonder if that girl has something seriously wrong in the head. Other than the trauma of living with supervillains, though I suppose that would drive anyone bonkers. "I guess. . .three hundred years? Is that right?"