Glass Tears

Chapter 5

Dex

My muscles have never felt so sore in my life before. Elizabeth came back after I practiced throwing a knife at a target for an hour and decided to try and help me again. After so much hard work, I still haven't been able to throw the knife hard enough to have it stick into the target. With Elizabeth around, I feel even more nervous, especially since she's already angry enough with me.

"Okay, try to move your elbows this way," She says, showing me the position I should be in.

I try to stand exactly like her and throw again. The knife still falls flat on the ground. I let out a frustrated sigh. I don't even really care about learning how to use weapons that could kill someone. But I need to play along for now and I don't want to make Elizabeth kill me before I get the chance to escape.

Elizabeth already looks about to kill me now when she says, "Let me just show you exactly how to do it again and this time, pay attention."

She throws the knife and it lands perfectly in the center of the target. I don't think that watching her has helped me very much but I will try again anyways. This time I focus, my eyes watching the target, trying to find the exact center to aim my knife at. I adjust my arm's position and hold the knife ready at my head. Then, I throw it as hard as I can at the target.

"Wait!" Elizabeth yells right when I throw the knife.

Suddenly I feel a sharp pain shoot up the side of my face. I feel my right cheek and there's blood dripping down it from a line cut across my cheek. I don't know how I managed to cut myself so bad but I start to feel faint seeing all this blood coming out of me.

Elizabeth takes my arm and starts dragging me out of the room. We're walking down hallways and taking turns and I can't keep track of where we're going. My head feels light the more we walk. Finally, we enter a room and there's a guy who looks like a doctor sitting at a desk to the right of the entrance.

I don't remember anything else before everything goes black.

~~~~

When I wake up, all I see is a blank white wall. I'm sitting on a bed, with blankets covering my legs. I feel the side of my head again and feel a faint, I trace it, feeling it go across my cheek. It's yet another scar to add to my collection along with the one Elwin couldn't get rid of from the Neverseen kidnapping. I let my hand drop and blink a couple of times before realizing that there's a person in a chair to the right of me.

Elizabeth stayed and is sleeping in her chair against the wall. The doctor from before isn't here right now. The room is pretty small, with only two beds and some cabinets to the left of me along with the desk. There're beakers containing colorful liquids on any open surfaces as well as papers with notes scribbled on them. It reminds me of Slurps n' Burps, my dad's shop in the Lost Cities where we sold concoctions that I gave to Stina a lot when I was thirteen.

Suddenly the door bursts open and the doctor comes rushing in.

"Ah, you're awake, that's good," He says, "I have to go again unfortunately but you should be good to go for the day. Here is a bottle of medicine to use that will help any pain that might come from the scar as it's still healing. But it's been cleaned and there should be any more bleeding."

"Thanks, um, doctor," I say awkwardly.

"My name's Simon, nice to meet you," He reaches out his hand to shake mine, "And you're Dexter Dizznee right? I've heard a lot about you around here. With your intense training I should probably expect to see you here a lot, right?"

He lets out a slight laugh at that and I smile. Come to think of it, he doesn't look much older than Fitz. He might be around 18 or 19.

"Anyways, I really better get going now," Simon says, picking up some papers before heading to the door, "Tell El what I told you and tell her to be more careful, will you?"

I nod and he leaves, shutting the door behind him with a slight bang. The door must have woken Elizabeth up because she yawns and for some reason I feel weird looking at her while she's waking up so I look up at the ceiling instead.

We're silent for a little bit before she says, "I'm sorry about that, I should have told you to hold it farther from your face."

"It's fine, it was my own fault honestly I was being stupid," I reply, embarrassed at my mistake that resulted in a long-lasting scar.

Honestly, could I have been any worse at this. I don't remember if I was good at athletic things before but I doubt it with how skinny I am.

"I think we need to work on your upper body strength some more but before we do that, we still have our run in a couple hours. Let's go get some food, it's almost lunch," She says, standing up and already heading to the door.

I follow her and we eat a quick lunch in the cafeteria. Afterwards, she leads me up this cool elevator and we run outside on the sand. If I was feeling sore before it was nothing compared to the pain I feel now. My head has also started to hurt again and I feel my scar, worried that it somehow could have reopened again. I have never put my body through so much in such a short time before.

It did not help that Elizabeth kept berating me, saying I was going too slow and commenting about how weak I am. I mean I get it, I'm no Fitz, but It'd be nice if she went just a little bit easier on me. I said that once to her when we were throwing those knives and she said she could be a lot worse. I'm scared to witness that version of her though.

By the time we walk back to the elevator and she drops me off at my room, I am thoroughly exhausted and ready to just lay in bed and fall asleep immediately. However, Fitz has other plans.

Right after I close the door to our room, Fitz starts throwing a plan at me about what we're going to do to escape tonight.

"Wait, hold on Fitz. I am so tired, there is no way I have the energy to leave here right now. Also your plan has too many holes to even process at the moment," I hold my hand out, "I also can't leave without my memories, Cole is the only one who can fix them for me. Let's just sleep on it for now, please?"

Fitz doesn't say anything and just clenches and unclenches his fists in silent anger. I don't even care right now though. I test a door to the right of the entrance and open it to reveal a big bathroom, with a shower that looks ready to be used to me.

I shut and lock the door behind me before taking the quickest shower possible. Then I change into comfortable clothes and walk to my bed, practically passing out when I get on it and rest my head on the soft pillows. I let out a breath before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.