Transversals

XIX. Wine, Blood, Glass, Bandages, Wings

I put my swords down and stood up, panting. Will got up behind me and Lana put her swords back in her sheaths, listening for anything. She turned to me, eyes wide with fear. "Are they dead?"

"No," Ben roughly responded behind us, still holding his black and blue arm with his swords sheathed at his sides. He stopped to breathe and regain some strength. "It's a memory tamper, Inegnist technology. Everyone's recollection of the past ten minutes has been wiped, but they're not going to stay knocked out forever." Ben paused to cough and grimace, eyes narrowed and face still covered in blood, clothes and stained with wine. "We need to get out of here."

I turned to Will, who then proceeded to hold his hand over his mouth like he was going to vomit. I set a hand on his shoulder. "You good?"

He simply nodded, and then proceeded to run and barf into a freezer at the end of an aisle. "I'll drive," Lana said, offering an arm to Ben.

I got Will and followed them out the piled up bodies of people all sleeping by the doors now. Lana stopped short of the automatic door, unsure if it would actually open, but it did. The people who had fallen against it awkwardly spilled out and the four of us maneuvered around them carefully. I shouldn't have wanted to laugh, but it was kind of funny to see them just sort of...flop out.

I looked up, eyes falling upon Ben's slightly extended wings. "Ben, put your wings away," I said to him as we approached Will's car.

He glanced back at them and said "Oh," proceeding to fold them up. He abruptly stopped in his tracks and grunted, wings shivering in pain a brief moment, still extended.

Lana stopped walking. "You okay?"

"Fractured wing," he grumbled, forcibly closing them and shuddering in pain again. "Let's just get home."

Lana guided Ben into the backseat and Will collapsed into shotgun, forcing me to take the seat next to Ben. He hunched forward, cradling his black and blue forearm. It tremored just the slightest and Ben dipped his head, biting his lip.

"Cold," he moaned. "Really cold."

I started pulling my shirt over my head, but Will was a step ahead and handed his sweater back, in a simple button-up undershirt over his thin frame. Which was better than me in just a camisole and bra.

Ben took the sweater with his good hand, shaking still, and tried to wrap it around his arm. I scooted over and did it for him, wrapping and tying the sleeves tight.

"Oh my god, your hand," I said, taking Ben's supposedly good hand in mine. Actually it was full of cuts and still had pieces of green glass lodged in it from crashing into the wine aisle, bleeding and shaking and probably hurting a lot worse than usual with the alcohol soaking into the cuts.

"It's nothing," Ben said, examining the embedded pieces of green glass with simple distaste. "I broke my impact with my hand is all."

I disreagarded him and gasped, finding a bad gash on the back of his left arm still bleeding. Turning his face towards me to examine any more possible damages, he kept an expression of stone. Borderline annoyance, actually, despite looking to be in quite a bit of pain. It was a touch unsettling.

"Quit it Mom," he grumbled.

I frowned at him and stopped my examining. "Attitude now? Really?"

He rolled his navy eyes and let me continue my inspection, heart sinking deeper and deeper into my stomach. Bad cut on his forehead, scratch along his cheek. Bloody nose. I noticed he breathed shallowly and winced during an occasional inhale. Might have a broken rib or something, he did get squeezed like an orange. And a wing bone was bothering him on top of it all. Ben probably shouldn't have forced his wings closed, I realized.