Daughters of the King |✓|

Chapter Twenty

I woke up with a start, the bed sheets soaked around me. My head was pounding, screeching.

Up until now, I'd managed to spend my life moving forward, never looking back. I worked hard to convince myself that, no matter what happened, I was fine. If I survived, there was nothing more to be said. But there was something about idleness that could bring memories bubbling up to the surface.

If you stopped running, things caught up to you, and after working on autopilot all through the night to stitch Zelle up and watch over her, something had caught up to me.

Maybe the memories of my past were spiteful because I'd avoided them for so long. Maybe the emotions were out for revenge because they'd been so forcefully repressed. Whatever the reason, seeing all that blood last night had dredged up other images that had been burned into my subconscious. With every throb of my headache, I remembered being on the train the day Gunnar found me, and seeing all those people standing on the platform, watching us leave while the town burned behind them. I couldn't shake the images of the bloodbath at the market town Gunnar had stayed in, the guns going off in quick succession, all those people dying.

I rolled over the side of the bed and threw up all over the floor.

...

"How is she?" I barged into the bedroom we'd moved Zelle into last night.

Bo was standing at the window, and he turned at the sound of my voice. "You're up already?"

"How is she?"

"Did you sleep at all?"

"How is she?"

"She's fine." He put his hands up. "She's still sleeping, and her fever hasn't spiked any higher."

I lowered myself into the chair I'd pulled at Zelle's bedside last night. My headache had woken me up earlier than I would have liked, but I couldn't go back to sleep now. I'd cleaned the floors of my bedroom after being sick, and then dressed for the day, too eager to come check on Zelle and forget about my nightmares.

"You should go back to bed," Bo said. "You couldn't have slept much. You were up almost all night with her."

"I'm fine," I snapped, watching Zelle's face.

She was frowning hard, her thick brows knit together and her forehead creasing. She'd been sleeping fitfully all night, evidently still in pain, even though we'd wrapped her foot with ice.

"I think she'll pull through," Bo tried to be comforting, but it only embarrassed me.

It was too obvious that I cared. Even I was surprised by how much I cared. It's not that I felt responsible for what had happened, even if I was the one who'd led us into the woods. There was no way anyone could have known what lay beneath the bed of leaves.

But I did feel responsible for her now. I was the one who'd sewn her up. I was the one who'd insisted there was no time to take her to a doctor. I was the one who'd grown to consider her a friend—my first in my lifetime—despite how mismatched we were.

She had to pull through. She had to.

"You should go into town," I said to Bo. "See if there's anyone with medical experience or supplies."

He grunted in approval and left, the floorboards creaking noisily beneath his large frame. I barely even noticed it now. The old house, with its many quirks, had become familiar to me and even comforting. Like a true home.

Another first.

Every day, I was becoming something new. Less of an animal.

I watched Zelle's slow breathing, clinging to this smallest of assurances that she was going to be okay, and felt her forehead for any changes in temperature. She was running a low fever, which was to be expected, but so far, it hadn't gotten too high.