Red Leather (Book 2)

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

  

JESS:
Cold, was Jessabel’s first thought. I’m so, so cold.

She hadn’t always been cold. Her body had first been numb, so numb that she could scarcely remember what it had been like to feel anything but numb. It was as if she had spent the last century floating in mid air, unable to feel or move a single part of her body. The numbness had been startling, but soon Jessabel grew used to it, becoming familiar with the sensation of buoyancy. Slowly, slowly, she began to let herself go under.

Until she started to breathe once more.

Then her body felt starved – starved and crazed and desperate for any whiff of oxygen, wanting more and more and never being satisfied. Her once numb ribs arched into the air, almost trying in vain to reach the oxygen her lungs so badly needed. Her lungs began to ache. Everything began to ache. She inhaled frantically, her lungs making hoarse noises as she inhaled and exhaled, drowning in order to stay afloat.

And then she became hot. Very hot.

Fever wrecked havoc on her already damaged system, making each breathe as difficult as the last. Her body burned and sweated and trembled. She no longer felt numb – she could feel it. Feel the sensation of sand paper against sand paper whenever she swallowed, the blistering of her skin, the dizzy spells that knocked her out for what felt like years and years. The heat was unforgiving.

But all of that has passed. Now she was cold. Oh, so cold.

Pain stretched along her throat and into her lungs, and it was type of pain that varied each day. Will it swell up again anytime soon? Jess wondered. Or will it be bearable? Please let it be bearable. But she had no say in that, anymore than she had a say on why she deserved this.

Her thoughts and memories had been scrambled to the point where she could only remember names. Though she could never remember what memories were attached to those names, and why those names had been so important to her. Gwyneth, Nathan, Vera. James, and Vanessa, and Mei. Led, Baby Led. Kyle, Theodore and Renee.

Renee.

Somehow that was the most important name of all.

Jessabel had no concept of time whatsoever, so it might have been years or just a few minutes until she opened her eyes. She couldn’t keep them open for long, but just enough to note that the ceiling was white and that everything was beeping. A wave of narcotics hit her once again, lulling her into a state of unconsciousness.

The next time she awoke was due to shouting.

“No! You listen to me.” The woman’s voice was sharp and angry, and also undeniably familiar. But Jess had trouble attaching her voice to a name. “Do you see that girl lying on a hospital bed? Do you see her? Does she look ready in any way for your pointless questions?”

The voice of the answering man was like a growl – it rumbled out of his chest, deep and sharp. “I’m here to do my job, Ms. Griffin.”

That jolted her. Griffin was another name she remembered. A name attached to her own.

Mom?

“Can’t you come back in a few more days?” her mother snapped, more pleading than irritated.

Beep, beep, beep went the machines around her head. It reminded her, very briefly, of the time she had woken up in this exact predicament. Except it had been because of a shot wound caused by a monster.