(3) Painstaker

Twenty-Six: All Better

It took more force than necessary to peel my eyes open. It felt like glue kept them shut, and opening caused the skin to rip. My throat was too sore for me to make any sort of noise, though I became distracted by the gentle glowing blue that surrounded the entire room. The glow that light makes when it reflects off of the ocean. It was calming, despite the white noise in my ears and agonizing pain ripping through my body.

I couldn't move anything. Not my arms. Not my legs. It was as though my blood had thickened to concrete. Only able to crane my neck, I used that as an opportunity to get a good look at my surroundings. Trails of silver light waved across the walls, contrasiting against the blue. Breathing through my nose, I realized that the room smelt like a beach.

There was a machine beside the bed I laid in. It was a metal box sitting atop of a matching platform. Tubes came out from the sides and connected to veins in my arms. An orange liquid, nearly transparent, was being pumped into my system.

The smell in the air changed to a clean mint. With that scent was a movement to my other side, causing my head to snap in that direction. It was Dara. A band covered her breasts, made of shining black material. The same material covered her bottom in a tiny skirt. With so much skin exposed, it was easier to see her naturally tanned skin. Plump lips frowning, Dara folded her slender arms across her chest and examined me head to toe.

She began speaking. When I didn't answer her, her eyebrows pulled together in a glare, and she said something else. I couldn't hear any of it; my heart rate picked up in consequence. This wasn't okay. I couldn't handle something else wrong with my body.

"I can't hear." It hurt to speak, like nails scraping down the column of my throat. I fell into a fit of coughing, and that intensified the pain.

Dara nodded once in understanding. She disappeared somewhere I couldn't see, as craning my neck too far sent a jarring pain in my shoulder. I remained still, staring numbly at the ocean-like ceiling above me. Oh, how I wished I could let my body float in the depths of the ocean. To allow the currents to pull me away, and eventually bring me down.

I'd failed to get the amulet back. I'd failed to stop Abraham. I'd failed to fight off all of those Dead Wolves. And my hearing... It was one thing werewolves were gifted with; the ability to hear at far distances. It helped with hunting, tracking, and simply existing in the supernatural world. Without that ability, I was placed at a mighty disadvantage.

Dara returned with something in her hands. A notebook. Wow. What a turn my life has taken. Flicking her wrist at the bed caused it to incline me into a sitting position. I winced at the wounds being bothered by the movement. By the time I was sitting at an appropriate angle, she had already written something on the cream coloured paper.

I took it from her, trying hard to ignore the many stitches on both of my arms. Why hadn't they healed already?

'Sam and Flower are safe. I managed to teleport them here. I tried to get to you too, but I couldn't reach you.'

I quickly scratched 'where are we?' In my ugly chicken writing.

'My coven in the mountains. Mekhi and his people are gone. It's safe here for now.'

I nodded slowly, allowing this information to settle. Sam and Flower were safe. I wasn't dead. My hearing was gone. We were in a coven of magic users who helped erase my best friend's memory of my brother who had just risen from the dead. "I seriously need a spa day."

Dara tapped my shoulder, gaining my attention again. She'd written more for me. 'You're badly injured. You'll have to stay here for a while.'