Moonlit Retribution

Chapter Ten

Shaking myself, I settle back on the soft surface, my aching joints quite probably sighing in relief. Ríjez reclines beside me, laying down fully and flopping an arm over his eyes with a weary sigh. Poor guy. He was probably up for most of last night, and then with the emotional stress brought on by Dev and that girl…I’d've probably passed out hours ago.

Mella stalks up to us, carrying a simple towel and a bottle of some pills. No needles that I can see. I try not to make my relief obvious. “Here,” she snaps, tossing the bottle to Ríjez. He catches it in a sluggish hold, pops it open, and downs two capsules without the aid of liquid. Snorting, Mella kneels to begin examining his leg, carefully peeling back the cloth of his jeans. Some of the material has been melted onto the flesh, so this has to be painfully cut away. Ríjez is out before all this, and I have to wonder what was in those pills. I have to restrain myself from snatching a few. Then again, I realize that it probably isn’t the pills that knocked him out. Maybe the pain had finally caught up to him. Mella had said it was barely more than a flesh wound, but maybe she was just saying that to keep Andy from snooping.

The quiet is a bit more than I can tolerate. Mella is completely concentrated on peeling away dead skin and applying limited amounts of ointments to Ríjez’s damaged calf. It must hurt pretty badly; he’s moaning in his sleep. I guess the pills can’t dull everything. Mella’s wrapping up his leg in white bandages, and I’m getting a little droopy-eyed from watching the meticulous movements when she says rises and studies my shoulder, removing the tattered sleeve of my jacket to view the ruddy flesh more closely. After poking and prodding and painfully removing the remaining stitches, she says in a low tone, “There’s not much to be done for you. You’ll heal in time, and it looks like the swelling on your neck has gone down quite a bit already. Obviously your vocals haven’t sustained permanent damage. I won’t introduce any foreign substances in your body just yet; I want to see how the healing process does by itself.”

Great. So even though I could just pop a couple of pills and feel better in the next hour, I have to stay miserable for an indefinite amount of time just so she can get some concluding results about the cell stimulation.

“We can’t keep this up, Vessa,” she says softly after a few minutes of silence. I quirk my brow. She glances up from her task, locking her leaden gaze on mine. “I need you more than you can understand. We need you. If you die…” She blinks, sighs, and turns away, stashing away her supplies in the same cabinet that holds the worm things. I don’t think this is the safest way to go, but space is limited everywhere in this place. And this isn’t really what's haunting my mind.

I need you more than you can understand.

Wow…That’s the most heartfelt thing I’ve ever heard that woman say to anyone, let alone someone like me. She isn’t really a “feeler.” Mella’s the kind of person who could look a dying infant in the eye and walk away without remorse. Not that she would, mind you. She’s just good at letting people go, is what I’ve gathered from her behavior. I guess that’s why she became a doctor--she's one of the few who can stomach both physical and emotional wounds.

“We had a small meeting while you were gone,” she says briskly, breaking my reverie, while scrubbing her hands clean. Back to business. “And we’ve decided to do day watches as well as nights. We never thought it was possible for those creatures to be out in the open in the daylight hours. Maybe this one had something else wrong with it, but the autopsy hasn’t come up with anything conclusive. We’re just going to be taking extra precautions, is all.” Wiping her hands dry, she turns to me, a hard, mildly inquisitive expression firming the lines on her face. Not sure of what I can do, I just nod.

Sighing, she turns her back to me, and I am both relieved and worried that this is an early dismissal. Then, she chucks something at my head, and I hastily snatch it out of the air before it can connect with my temple. “What the--!”