The Psychic Next Door

[First Draft] Chapter 22: Together (Part Two)

The glaring light of the hospital's fluorescents was not a pleasant way to wake up, but I suppose I should've been grateful to wake up at all. My mouth twitched at the amount if times I had thought that in the last two months.

As I stirred, stretching out my stiff limbs, and saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over and saw Polly, sitting in a worn chair at my bedside. The room was I was in had minty green walls, and the furniture was sparse and institutional. On one side was a wall of white curtain suspended off the ground and the other was a wall with a simple door that led out into a hall. I recognized this as a hospital room.

"About time," she said. Her eyes were bright and smiling. "Why were you out so long? I was the one who fought that thing pretending to be my sister and got stabbed eight hundred times,"

"How long have I been out?"

"A couple weeks,"

I leapt forward in bed, and my body protested. It wasn't in pain, but it certainly was stiff from lying still for so long. Polly stood up and reached over me, pushing the button attached to my bed to summon the nurse. "How are you feeling?"

I sat in silence for a moment, trying to get a feel for my body. There was no pain, no lingering ache. But I definitely felt different. Maybe it was because I knew that I no longer had to run from Lillian, and the absence of fear felt strange. I reached to scratch my arm, and my fingers made contact with something strange.

My arm was marbled with puckered skin that ran over it in little rivers of raised flesh. The burn from Lillian's attack, from where I shoved my hand down the Beast's throat.

"Yeah, he couldn't get rid of that." Polly said, watching my gaze.

"He...? Luc! Is he okay?"

"Of course he is! He was the first one to get out of the hospital."

"What are you telling her now, Polly?"

A knock came at the door to our room. Luc walked in, smiling ear to ear, carrying two bunches of flowers-one was overflowing with lilies and the other was a small package of yellow daises. He looked like he had never seen action; his skin was smooth and unscarred and he looked well rested.

"She was just telling me how you've never been better while I've been lying in a hospital bed, scarred and clinging to life," I teased, pretending to pout.

His smile faltered a little, but he still pulled me close to him and kissed me lightly. He handed me the lilies. "Did you just wake up?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Do you want anything?"

I paused; my stomach growled. "Chocolate pudding?"

Polly snorted. "You wake up from a near death experience and you want pudding?"

I just narrowed my eyes at her. "Near death? You guys were way more injured than I was! How did we even get here? Wasn't the building about to collapse?"

"I-" his voice fell to a whisper, as he glanced around the room "-teleported us out onto the street, I healed us as much as I could before the Normals arrived." He nodded to a nurse who passed by the door. "And then after I had rested for a bit in the hospital, I used my powers to heal myself more-not too much at once though so they didn't get suspicious. But it was still the fastest recovery they had ever seen," He finished with a wink.

"Didn't you come to heal us too?" I said, slightly hurt that he didn't think to use his powers on me-my arm was forever marred with this huge burn.

"Why do you think I'm sitting here instead of lying in the bed next to you?" Polly said, motioning towards the curtain behind her.

"Then why was I out for so long?"