(REWRITING) The Skylar Experiment : Coveting

Chapter Thirteen - Recovering

RILEY

SOMEBODY MOVED ME TO Luc's couch in my sleep, and he jarred me to my senses. I'd almost punched him, nightmare of chains and evil faces merging with his face over mine. Devin, Ben and Jeremiah whispered in the kitchen with dark expressions.

I'd noticed the late hour and several missed calls from Dad. Another kind of fear gripped me. My mind had scrambled for excuses, a reason, anything, and I set out on texting him I hadn't seen the time pass at Adam's. Whoops. 

Luc accompanied me inside the Ford.

I trailed his eyes back to the raw traces on my neck. He'd tried to heal them, but the redness and dozens of mini-punctures wouldn't close any more than his own. Turns out not only were the chains laced with mercury on the surface, but their coils had tiny injecting pumps with some fast-acting agent. It carried traces of that metal again.  

He'd explained that it numbs abilities, giving them time to circle around. They'll have to go away at a natural speed, hidden under collars and jackets.

His fingers wrapped around my sleeve, gently pulling it away from the wheel to reveal the rest. With a lip-gnawing frown, fighting back a new swell of tears, I contemplated the identical darts across his. 

"I'm so sor—"

"Don't say it. Just... don't." Luc opened his hand next to mine. His was larger and surprisingly delicate, with slender fingers and some veins running in the middle. "Look, friendship bracelets. That's a thoughtful souvenir."

I tossed his aside, the hysterics still banging at the door. "Did the mercury kill your last surviving brain cells?"

"There's this circus monkey sitting in my brain and clashing cymbals right now. Hope you don't mind a himbo on steroids."

Okay, so not funny. My breath fogged, and I said nothing to encourage his stupid rambling. Luc dropped his arm back in his lap. He flicked his head against the headrest, closing his eyes. 

"It's not because of you," he said after a minute. "They've always been after me and my sister, ever since they realized we existed and we could heal faster. Last time and the year before that, it was us they were looking for."

And now only one remained. I imitated him, shutting out the forest outside the windshield. How naive was it of me to not expect that a power such as his wouldn't draw conflicts, that it wouldn't be sought after. I was still barely starting to understand the disconnect between his life and that of anyone else's. 

"There's really nobody except you?"

"No contender so far."

"How did they know you could do that?" My lids swooped up and I found him angled in his seat, facing me. 

"This place is a hotspot for Wanderers, so they get that we're nearby. I've confronted them many times in small groups. When I was younger, I was there to heal wounds but I could also get hurt myself. Takes one hunter to witness it, slip through the cracks and warn their buddies."

I shook my head, refraining from cursing. Who the hell threw an underage boy in these fights even if he was valuable to keep others alive? He had been a kid. Obviously, it wasn't my place to judge what they needed to do to survive, but this was egregious. 

I massaged my neck, sighing. "The injections didn't really stop you once the frequency was turned off," I pointed out. 

Luc offered a lazy, crooked smirk which did nada to alleviate the palpitations when I wondered about the dots riddling his chest and legs. Those clothes had been ripped beyond repair. "Because I grew up big and strong. I'm just too awesome."