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

Chapter Thirty-Three: And The Aftermath Goes Something like This...

Poison.

I wake up first, eyes squinted, earlier aches leaving a knot in my jaw. My nose throbs. The side of my mouth pounds, dry blood flaking off my face when I touch it. Every nerve in the back of my neck screams. Luce has a good swing. He should've joined the baseball team while he had the chance, then maybe the Cosmonauts wouldn't have sucked so much.

I roll my head back. Bits of glass stick out of my neck like quills. They ooze blood and I hiss under my breath, the blackened ceiling fading in and out of vision. Giant lights shine down at me, and at this angle, they look like the eyes of monsters, like the building itself will gobble me up. I swallow up a laugh. This, this is hell. For me. For Luce.

But hey, who said power would come easily?

Animals bark and growl as I shift on my side, piercing my eardrums in a way that makes me wince. "Shut up, shut up, shut up," I say. "You don't know a damn thing about pain. Not a thing." I run my fingers down the thread of my jeans, the blood flaking there, too. Hot lights burn, pouring down on my skin. 

A sweet and flowery smell masks the worst of the room's stench, like the strongest, cheapest perfume that can be bought at the Dollar General. My head spins. My stomach clenches, lunch sloshing around in there waiting to be thrown back up. Ugh. I hold my forehead, easing to my feet in a way I hope won't make my knees give out under me. "Stupid Lucy, stupid father, stupid Ceres..." I curse everyone that lead to my being here, with a bunch of lab animals and a dumb, passed-out half-brother. 

Swiping the glass away from my neck, I stride toward Luce. He's easy to spot, slumped on the floor, his black wings spread. I fluff mine out and comb the dust out between the feathers. His look all wrong, the bones curved all the wrong ways to make them look like two little crescent moons. The bottle lies half-shattered a few feet out by of his hands, his palms open toward the sky, his fingers half-curled as if they were about to ball into fists but didn't quite make it. His chest rises and falls with a drugged calm, one eye sealed shut, his patch crooked, the strap tangled with a loose strand of hair. It's a lot shorter than it was, his hair, I mean, cut to taper down to the back of his neck, but it's still pretty long for a guy.

 I grunt and yank the patch off, easing his head off the floor and untangling the little strap that keeps it intact. I've seen enough of the stupid patch on Owl. I'd rather see whatever gore is left of his eye than that thing. "Besides," I tell Luce with the tiniest hint of a shrug. "That's not gonna help it heal. You need to get some light in there." Which probably isn't true. There's probably a reason for the ugly patch, why he'd keep the eye covered, but if I blind him for a good, well, I'm not gonna be the one crying over it.

The sweet smell clings to him. The wolf, the experiment, whines and noses my shin. My fingers twitch to slap the thing away, but I let the animal sniff at me. Hell, I even talk to it. I never liked silence much. I never liked being alone much, either. "What are you looking at, project?" 

I grab Luce by his wing, digging my fingers around the bladed bone for grip. Mine jolt, tingling just a little as if out of sympathy. If there's one thing I can say about my precious, dainty angel wings, it's that they're tough. They've grown strong and sinewy over time, powerful by long flights and nights spent out on the lam. 

But his? His are fresh. Rows and rows of new nerve endings unprotected by much. Every touch will hurt. Every bruise will ache for weeks. The skin beneath the feathers is as fragile as a baby's, and even the feathers themselves are pretty brittle. I yank one out and roll it through my fingers, running the soft bristles over my fingertip. It snaps in half like a crisp, dead leaf. I grip his opposite wing. The kid needs to eat more, to keep up his strength. And he's gotta fly. Or else the wings will wilt and crumple up like dead petals on frostbitten flowers and the feathers will all fall out.