Winter & Wing

Chapter Five

"Hey, Dove?"

"..."

"It's fine. We don't have to talk."

"..."

"I'll be right here."

***

"The first year we came here, you know how I was. I cried most nights when we talked with each other. I wanted to see you, and I wanted to go home. I kept replaying that night our village was destroyed in my head. I still see the dead bodies, the trees and our homes on fire... You know how many nightmares I had."

"Yeah."

"There was never a set routine in the day, and sometimes the day would feel so long that I wonder if it bled into the next. The other girls would talk to each other, and sometimes I'd listen, but I was never invited. I was always the smallest. I was the crybaby. They wanted nothing to do with me if they could help it.

"Every morning, we'd get our medication. Every week, we would be thoroughly examined. Every month, there would be testing. The testing is what got to me, I think. Sometimes I'd be put to sleep, and I'd wake up with these big stitches on my stomach or my back-"

"So they did that to you?" Lonan says, gesturing at my stomach. "I didn't want to say anything before, but..."

I glance down, remembering now that my chest wrap and my skirt don't touch. My stomach shows, and it shows the ugly crisscrossed scars that have been torn open again and again. I often forget about them because the mutilation has been ongoing for so long.

"Yeah."

"Why you and not me? None of the boys were handled like that. We had games, and sometimes the elder hybrids would come visit us and tell us stories, and I actually had some guys I'd kind of consider friends... why was it so harsh for you? Why so different?"

I shrug. "At one point they debated taking my wings so that they could examine them more thoroughly, but Beatrice actually fought against that idea."

"That's a little surprising," Lonan says.

"She was worried taking my wings would completely break me. They didn't want me completely insane."

"Do you feel insane?"

"Sometimes."

"What would you do during the day? Whenever I'd ask you what you did, you'd always say nothing."

"The other girls ignored me a lot, so I'd draw in the dust and the dirt. On the walls. If I..."

"What?"

My throat tightens as I understand now how sick this is. How twisted.

"If I bled through my stitches or bandages, I'd paint with it."

Lonan's jaw drops. "Your blood. You'd paint with your blood."

"It'd distract me from how much it hurt."

Lonan slams his hand on the ground, and I flinch. He squeezes his eyes shut. "Don't say all of this like it's no big deal! They cut you open again and again, and not once did you think to tell me about it? Why wouldn't you talk to me? I was always there for you, every day, ready to listen. I was there, Dove."

Tears pool in my eyes, and I do all I can to keep them from pouring out. "How... how would... I don't..." I rub my palms into my eyes. The tears soak my hands.

"I don't understand how you aren't completely psychotic at this point. How are you not driven mad? You used your own blood to paint, Dove. You were that bored. How are you sitting here, talking to me after eight years? Please tell me, you didn't... Did you ever try to... to end it all?"