The Seraphim Project

Chapter Thirteen

“Where were you all weekend? I didn’t see you, and I barely ever saw any of your friends,” he said, starting on his own food.

“The misfits,” I corrected him. “I was in the hospital all weekend.”

His eyes widened and he dropped his pizza. “Are you okay? What happened?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine. Remember, I said we were going after Hawk Friday? We found him, but… he wasn’t in good shape.” I stared at my food, suddenly not hungry.

His hand touched mine, and I met his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Will he be okay?”

I sighed. “He’s already a lot better. It’s just that…” I took a deep breath. “Parts of his wings were cut up pretty bad. He may never fly again.”

He shook his head. “That’s horrible. Why would they do that?”

I almost answered him honestly, but I caught myself. I wasn’t sure I could trust this boy, and even if I could, it the more I told him, the more danger he may be in. I paused for a moment, listening to my gut.

Finally, I told him, “Hawk said that it was punishment for running away. Ten lashings for every year he was gone. That’s seventy lashings.” I didn’t mention the part about them being after me. No need for him to know that.

Jason’s eyebrows went up. “How did he even survive that many?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’d never even heard of them giving that many, but I’ve heard of kids dying from a lot less.”

He smiled. “Then I’m glad he’s okay. When will he get to come to school?”

I grinned back at him. “He’s supposed to get out of the hospital this afternoon. He’ll be in school tomorrow.”

“Then I can’t wait to meet him.”

Soon after that, lunch was over, and I only had to survive the rest of the day. It seemed like it took forever, as if time was turning backwards and the teachers were speaking another language. I was just glad I wasn’t stuck in any foreign language classes. I’d never have made it through that.

When the time finally came to leave, I practically ran from the school, taking straight to the sky without even making it out of the school gates first. I heard surprised shouts from below me, and glanced down to see everyone gathered on the grass staring up and pointing at me. Grinning, I waved at them and took off towards the hospital.

I alighted on the windowsill of Hawk’s room and tapped on it. A very surprised nurse opened the window to let me in. I grinned at her and plopped into my chair next to Hawk’s bed. He laughed. He looked a lot better. Friday night—or really, Saturday morning—when he’d finally gotten cleaned up, he was way too pale, and thin enough that I could have counted his ribs. Now he was regaining his color and weight, and it made me feel a lot better.

“Hey. Ready to get out of here?” I asked, taking his hand.

“I guess.” He sighed.

“What’s up?”

He shifted a little. “I’m just not sure about this whole thing,” he said. “School, Kite? For you guys, it was a bit of a stretch. But for me?” He shook his head. “How am I going to get through that? How am I going to learn anything?”

“We’ll figure it out. You’re really smart, Hawk. You can do it. I know you can.”

Just then, the doctor got there. After giving me various medicines and instructions on when to give them to him—I had him write them all down because I was never going to remember them all—we were heading down to the front of the hospital to wait for our ride.

One of the nurses insisted that Hawk ride out in a wheelchair. He tried to protest, but she wouldn’t have it. Finally, he relented and allowed me to guide him into it.

I pushed him out, laughing the whole time. It had been too long since I’d laughed this much, and it felt really good. We waited just inside for about ten minutes until the policeman from before came to give us a ride back to school. Hawk’s wings were still tightly bound, and he wasn’t supposed to fly for about another month. But of course, that was judging from bird standards, and Hawk healed considerably faster than a bird.

We sat in the middle of the van. When we finally got back to school, I thanked the officer and took Hawk to his new dorm room. Everyone stared at us as we went by. Not only had they not seen him before, but he was still pretty banged up, with bandages around his wings being the most obvious thing. He ducked his head and held onto my elbow as I led him through the school.

We ran into Jason on our way into the dorm. “Hey,” he said, smiling at me. “Is this Hawk?”

I nodded. “Yeah, this is Hawk. Hawk, this is Jason. He’s… well, my friend, I guess.” Jason held his hand out to Hawk.

“You guess?” Hawk said, his brow wrinkled. He didn’t take Jason’s hand. I wasn’t sure if he knew it was there. Sometimes I almost forgot he was blind, but sometimes, it was painfully obvious.

“I think she just means that we’ve only known each other since last Thursday, and we haven’t really talked much yet,” Jason said.

Hawk still didn’t look sure. I nudged him and pushed on his hand a little, and he finally seemed to realize that Jason’s hand was still hanging in the air. He reached out towards it, and Jason met him in the middle.

“Nice to meet you,” Jason said. “I may not know her very well yet, but I do know that Kite was really worried about you. I’m glad she got you back. See you later.”

With that, he just walked away. I stared after him for a moment before leading Hawk into the dorms.

“You’re friend?” Hawk asked. His eyebrows were raised.

I sighed. “I kind of got sent to the principal’s office my first day here, and I think he’s like an aid there or something? I don’t know. Anyway, he was just nice to me, and I kind of needed that, since I was so stressed and things with the misfits were getting really tense.”

We were silent for a time, and had almost reached his room when he said. “You got sent to the principal’s office? What for?”

I rolled my eyes. “Like I said, I was really stressed, and this girl was calling me names behind my back. I told her to stop. She didn’t. I pinned her against the wall and made her cry. I guess that’s not socially acceptable here.”

He broke down laughing. “That’s too good,” he said when he could finally talk again. “I wish I could’ve seen it.”

“I wish you could have too.” I opened the door and led him into the room. After showing him where everything was, I told him how he could contact me if he needed me. They’d gotten us cell phones, and I was on his speed dial.

That night, when I went to sleep, I was finally content and really looked forward to the next day.