Beautiful Disaster

Chapter Seven

Seven

Kat’s throat was painful. Kat would have thought death would be painless, but apparently not. She winced as she cracked her eyelids and bright light blinded her. Maybe bright light meant she had made it into heaven. But that didn’t make any sense, because Helen had told her countless times that God wouldn’t allow a monster like her into heaven. Helen had said Kat would be sent back to hell, where she came from.

“She’s waking up,” an accented female voice spoke from somewhere nearby.

“Kat, Kat, can you hear me?” a boy’s voice, so familiar, held so much concern.

Kat’s mind felt separated from her body, like she couldn’t force herself to open her eyes and look to see where the voice was coming from. She could hear him though, Evra, somewhere close by, she just needed to find him.

Her mind returned to her body the instant she felt something touch her hand. Kat’s eyes shot open and her pupils constricted instantaneously to reduce light intake. She looked down at her hand and noticed that the rough feeling was a green scaly hand, now tightly holding onto hers. Her eyes followed the hand, up the arm, shoulder, neck, and then settled onto his face.

“Evra,” Kat managed to choke out. “Where am I?”

“It’s ok, you’re at the Cirque,” was Evra’s reply.

“How did I get here?” Kat tried to sit up.

“Stay still.” Evra put his hand gently but firmly on her shoulder to keep her down. “I’ll explain everything when you’re better. But for now, just rest.”

Kat went to argue, but honestly, she was so tired, she didn’t have the strength. Instead she squeezed Evra’s hand that was still held in hers, and closed her eyes.

“Maybe you should go get some rest too,” the same female voice pushed at the edge of Kat’s mind.

“No,” came Evra’s voice, “I want to be here when she wakes up again.”

∞

When Kat woke again, it was night time of the next day, but she didn’t know that. All that she could tell was that it was dark, and an all too familiar scaly hand was still held tightly in her own small hand. She looked down and her excellent night vision gave her the ability to see Evra seated in a chair by the bed she was laying in. He was asleep, his head resting on the bed next to where their hands were entwined.

Kat tried to gently lift herself up, but with the slightest movement Evra shot upright.

“You’re awake,” Evra mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

Kat stayed still and silent in the bed, watching Evra with great curiosity. What was he doing sleeping beside her?

“Do you need anything? Food, water...” Evra trailed off.

“Bathroom,” was Kat’s croaky reply. “I need the bathroom.”

“Ok, I’ll show you where it is.” Evra stood up.

He watched Kat intently as she managed to get herself out of the bed. Kat froze as it really dawned on her just where she was, who she was with and what she was wearing. She pulled the sheet up from the bed to cover her bare arms. The singlet she had on didn’t cover the black spots that circled her wrists and changed into rosettes up her arms.

“It’s ok,” Evra said. “No one here is going to mind about those.”

Kat didn’t budge, and the look of worry on her face worsened. Evra slipped out of the jacket he had on and placed it gently around Kat’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” Kat whispered.

But she wasn’t talking just about the jumper, she was talking about everything. Though she was a little hazy on the details, Kat knew that somehow Evra had saved her from Helen.

Evra showed Kat to the bathrooms, and on the walk there, no one was around. It must have been in the dead of night. Evra waited outside patiently as Kat went in. As she was washing her hands, she looked up into the mirror and couldn’t believe what she saw. Her cheeks were swollen, as well as her lips, and they were a purple blue colour.

Kat shuddered as she remembered Helen hitting her. But then she remembered how she had felt so happy imagining that she was with the Cirque, and she smiled now knowing that she really was here with Evra. Kat splashed water onto her face as gently as possible and then went outside to meet up with Evra.

As they walked slowly back to the tent where they had come from, Kat spoke up.

“I want to know what happened.”

“Are you hungry?” Evra changed the topic.

Kat thought for a moment. “Yes.”

“I’ll get you something to eat, and then I’ll tell you everything.”

Evra dropped Kat back into the tent, making sure she was tucked comfortably back into bed before he went off to find her some food. Kat became increasingly impatient as she waited for him, wondering how it could take that long to get food and come back. She wanted to hear the story.

Evra returned with a plate of meat and vegetables, and Kat wasn’t sure where he’d found something like that at this time of night. But all she really cared about was that he was back. Kat stared at him expectantly.

“Start eating,” Evra instructed.

Kat did as she was told, slowly taking a bite. Once the food hit her tongue, she realised that was starving, and started eating quicker.

“Ok, well,” Evra started the story, “After you went into your house, I started leaving, but after a couple of minutes I had to go back and make sure you were ok. I didn’t want you to be in trouble so I just had to check. If I hadn’t walked off, if I’d just checked on you sooner, I would have got there quicker.”

Evra stopped, his head now in his hands. Kat stopped eating, putting her plate aside and took both of Evra’s hands in her own, forcing him to look her in the eye. She smiled, letting him know it was ok.

Evra continued. “So, then when I got there, and I could hear her- I just barged in, and she was- Well, then she was pretty surprised to see this.” He motioned to himself. “I told her what I thought of her and I got you the hell out of there.”

Kat smiled. “Thanks.”

She looked down at the plate that had found its way back onto her lap again, and was shocked to find it empty. Evra removed it from her lap and handed her a glass of water, which she took graciously and guzzled down.

Kat gave a huge yawn, her canines showing themselves fully.

“They’re pretty impressive,” Evra pointed to the tiger girl’s teeth.

Kat automatically brought her hand up to her mouth to cover them.

“Don’t do that,” Evra said, pulling her hand down. “Best part about the Cirque; we don’t have to hide who we are.”

Kat smiled, snuggling herself down into the bed covers.

“I can’t believe you’re tired,” Evra exclaimed. “You’ve seriously been sleeping for,” he paused to look at his watch, “52 hours.”

“I love sleeping,” Kat whispered, burying her face into Evra’s jacket that she was still wearing, and inhaled in his scent.

“I’ll go back to my tent now. I just wanted to check you were ok.” Evra began backing out of the tent.

Kat wanted to beg him to stay, but she knew that was wrong and selfish. Evra needed to sleep in his own tent, not on a chair by her bed. Kat then wanted to know where Evra’s tent was so that she could find him again. But of course in the morning, someone would be kind enough to show her where it was, or Evra would come and find her.

“Good night,” Evra whispered as he slipped out of the tent’s entrance.

Though Kat had slept for 52 hours already as Evra had pointed out, she had no trouble finding sleep again. She put this down to the fact that she was happy and she was safe, two things she had never been before in her life.