✧The Earthe of the Elves✧

38

'It's been a long, long time' by Harry James trickles out of the speakers by the ceiling, the calm, old style music floating into the empty air. Nice song, odd circumstances. Knox meets me at the fireplace area, where I've started laying out our things. I've been careful to keep most of my weight on my good leg.

"What happened in there?"

"She was gone," Knox answers, sounding grim. I blink, staring at him.

"Gone? She woke up already? How do we know that they won't come after us again? Wouldn't some cameras have picked them up coming in here?"

"I don't know," he answers. "But I checked, the security cameras are all down, probable their doing. Obviously they have their own reasons for killing us instead of just following us." He pauses. "Let's clean up first."

He doesn't ask me if I'm okay, because I'm obviously hurt. So is he.

"Here," I say, pulling my leather chair over next to his and making him sit down. He winces as I take an antiseptic wipe from a health kit I found and clean the blood off his face.

"What is that?" He asks when I put some antibiotic ointment on my finger.

"Ointment, it'll keep the cut from getting infected," I answer, rubbing it on gently. He probably doesn't even need it, but I do it anyway. His mouth twitches, but otherwise he stays still as I put on a few small bandaids lengthwise over the cut like steri-strips. They didn't have any big ones.

Knox moves his mouth around, causing the bandaids to stretch and bump out.

"These are weird," he says. I smile a little. Knox's gaze falls to my thigh, where blood is making a large spot on my jeans.

"Let's go wash that."

I nod, standing. I try to ignore how each step sends a sharp sting of pain shooting through the cut. We head into the women's bathroom, and I notice that my blood has been cleaned from the floor, the only trace of a fight being the broken tiles from where I was shoved into them. The back of my head still has a dull throb from that. I stand by the row of sinks for a second, contemplating how to do this. Then I turn to Knox.

"Do you mind..." He stares for a second, then his eyes light up with realization.

"Sure, sure, I'll just be around the corner." He goes around the tiled corner, out of my sight but still in the room.

With slightly shaking hands I unzip my jeans, pulling them away from my leg so they don't scrape the cut when they go over my thigh, like pulling a shirt over a face of makeup. After struggling for a minute to get my shoes out of the jeans, I finally drop them to the ground, left in the pair of black underwear I came in. Next I examine my cut. It's diagonal across my thigh, probably only a couple of inches long, but it looks a deeper than I thought.

The cold water handle squeaks as I turn it on, letting the water cool before lifting up my leg, resting it onto the sink and grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser next to me.

My hands are shaking as I bring the wet paper towel to my leg. I've never been great with blood, but for some reason it's different with my own. I'm not grossed out, mostly just scared of how much it'll hurt. I barely touch the towel to my cut, and I don't feel anything, just cold. Blowing a breath out, I apply more pressure with the towel. A zap of pain hits me like someone is poking me with a needle. I grit my teeth and let out a painful groan, pulling the towel back and biting my lip to keep from crying.

I'm supposed to be strong, and sometimes I am, so why can't I do this? Why do I get scared so easily, for things much less scary than other things I've been through?