A Slave to Love

Chapter 60: Going Home

"Blade," I poked him awake in his cheek and neck. He groaned, pressing his face against my neck.

"No," he mumbled, "Let me sleep."

"I did. Now let me see you," I said, shoving him off of me so I could sit up.

He rolled onto his back and covered his eyes. "See with your eyes. You don't have to shove me. I was comfortable."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I rolled my eyes, pushing the blankets down before I crawled over him. I started pushing his shirt up and that seemed to wake him up.

"Whoa! What are you doing?" his eyes flew open and he slapped his hands over mine.

"Relax. I'm not planning on doing anything like that anytime soon. I wanted to see if you were okay," I swatted his hands away and pushed his shirt up. "Can I—?" I gestured at his stomach.

He shrugged. "Go ahead. Don't complain if I get blood on the sheets."

"That's gross," I grimaced as he sat up. I unwrapped the bandage from his stomach and tossed it away, making sure to get it on the floor. I winced when I saw his stomach.

He looked down, scrutinizing it for a moment. "Huh. Not as bad as I thought it'd be."

It wasn't a gaping hole, and it wasn't bleeding either. But it was still a nasty looking black scab with bruises around the edges.

"Blade," I said firmly, arms folded as I stared at him.

"I'm not biting you. Can't we just...lie here for a while?" he peeled his shirt off completely. He touched his stomach, wincing a little. "I can hunt when I feel better."

"Oh you're so stubborn," I muttered, banging my forehead against his shoulder. "You've done it before."

"That was different," he protested.

"Not really," I said dryly, "But fine. Since you're being a baby we'll just lie here. But I swear if you don't go hunting I will stab myself with something and make it look like an accident."

He gave me a weird look. "That sounded really...suicidal."

"You know what I meant." I rolled off of him and lay on my back, lifting my arm to my face. "Hey look at that." I grinned, touching my black tattoo. The rash like red around the edges that spread up to my shoulder had faded to a soft pink color.

I reached for his arm, and while his was still a much darker black than my pink was, it was a lot better looking than before.

"Good." He relaxed a little, touching the left side of my face softly with one fingertip. "We're going to stop who ever is doing this."

"We?" My eyebrow rose, "I wasn't aware you were including me in this plan."

He smirked. "Yeah well you're the one who's getting all the warnings it seems, so I figure it'd be ideal to have you with me. Besides, you're my sidekick." 

I didn't smile though. If anything that just made me feel worse. When I told them what happened, I kind of skimmed over details...and didn't even mention my nightmare...

"What's wrong?" he asked, a frown pulling at his lips.

"Um...I didn't really...tell you guys everything," I said slowly, fiddling with my fingers awkwardly as I turned to face the ceiling.

He propped himself up on his elbow, clearly angry but I could see he was reining it in. "What exactly did you leave out?"

"Er...Jill?"

"Jill?" he echoed doubtfully.

"Yeah. She remembers Halloween." I licked my lips, struggling to find a way to explain it. "We don't know why but she remembers."