90 DEADLY DAYS (WEEKLY UPDATES RETURNING THIS DECEMBER)

Chapter 28

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Chapter 28

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A deathly fever strikes. It holds me in his grasp for days at a time, only releasing me for a few hours of lucidity—and then I fall back again.

When I am lucid, I come to with sweat steaming off of into cold air, trickling across every panting orifice of my skin. I'm always shivering, faintly recalling agitated dreams filled with violence and death.

Like real life.

Each time I open my eyes I see a human blur hovering by. It frightens me, and I think I know who it is. For the sake of my sanity I try to forget.

And then I collapse into fire and heat again, into hellish dreams where Luna and Kerry howl my name.

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Cold wind rushes over my cheeks, making them icy to the touch. I curl into myself, hoping to escape that bitter cold, waiting to fall back into my fever. It's become a screwed-up sort of refuge for me. I've stopped fighting sickness, in it I don't have to think. I just...am.

Fever doesn't come to retrieve me. Instead, I discover that I can weakly lift my limbs. I stretch my fingers, marveling at how skinny they've become. They are nothing more than scrawny, starved worms.

The burrow lies empty. Smoke of a recent fire lingers in the air, but that is all that remains of him—the one who dug his fingers into my thighs.

The death soldier.

The recollection makes my face burn with shame. Sometimes, I wonder what the world would be like if men looked into my eyes, at my lips, at my form, and found nothing inviting. If I could shred everything they desired from myself, I would, without question.

It seems I only attract the depraved—the lawless ones with sin engrained in their hot blood. I always ask fate why. Why me?

Secretly, I curse the mother who made me this way.

The one who left me at the mercy of Xaro.

I will never understand how she could rescind her children to the nurseries, knowing of the fate we would face at our coming-of-age.

Sitting up, the revelation that my body is in a completely different state than I left it becomes clear. My tunic is drawn up. Seeing this, I fear the worst. Hot water brims in my eyes. I pull my skirt up further, preparing to see stains of shame. Instead, I catch sight of rags formed into casts around my wounds.

The gash where the sea beast's jaws dug into me is wrapped in a clean gauze. I brush trembling fingers over it, eyes wide with confusion. I drag my tunic higher, noticing that my ribs are caged in a makeshift, cloth cast. My rib isn't floating in God-knows-where anymore. I press to be sure, eliciting tender pain. The pain is no longer like a car crushing into me. Every other sore, slash, and flesh wound is smeared with a green paste. It's tingly and smells sharply of eucalyptus and clean sheets. My hands fly to my face, finding the cut on my face smeared as well.

Again, I don't know what to think.

I truly don't.

Doesn't this mean that my enemy has some good? But then, Butcher said he would keep me alive to serve his own purposes. Perhaps this is part of that process.

No, not perhaps—it is! I won't give him the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Not after he violated me.

I gaze around. I am wrong about there being nothing left of Butcher—in the corner of the burrow, closest to the shaft, lies his pack. What a big mistake. But then, he must have thought I would be out of it for a while longer. He doesn't seem to be the kind to be so careless.