“Shut up and help me.”
Blackness laid a cold hand on Ellyssa.
11
A feeling of floating, and images of reds, browns, yellows, and white wavered in and out of Ellyssa’s awareness. Colorful hues and shades blurred around the edges. Bright lights burned her eyes and scorched her flesh, especially her leg. Something was burning it. At one time, she thought she’d screamed. If not, she’d wanted to.
Alternating feelings of hot and cold. Sweating and shivering. Angry voices. Intrigued voices. All filtered through. She wasn’t sure whether any of it was real or if it was all a dream. She didn’t care. She welcomed the darkness when it had sucked her away from the confusion. Welcomed the calmness and the blankness.
Ellyssa would have welcome it now, but she was awake. The burning sensation had been extinguished. The pain had not. A thin blanket covered her, and she was lying on something softer than the ground, her head resting on a pillow. Musty air smelled like fresh dirt, as if someone had turned the soil recently. And even though the area seemed open and lit, from what light filtered through her eyelids, it felt dark and enclosed, too.
She listened intently. Everything was silent. Before opening her eyes, she waited for another few seconds to make sure. In the distance, barely noticeable, she heard the shuffling of soft footsteps. Not the clicking of soles against tile, like back at The Center, but muffled and dulled. The owner of the footsteps entered the room and approached her bed. Cool, rough fingers, those of a male, gently grasped her wrist. She fought an impulse to yank away.
Whoever was taking her pulse let go and scratched something down on paper.
Ellyssa searched his mind. No ill-will tainted his thoughts. Mostly concern, and clear images of how she was posing as something once human. A ghastly face, greyish skin, sunken cheeks and eyes, cracked lips, and her hair stuck to her head in thick, tangled clumps. It would’ve been more befitting if a tag hung from her big toe.
Her head began to pound. She broke the link.
The male walked away, but didn’t leave. She felt his presence lingering.
More footsteps, this owner stealthier, entered the room. She heard water sloshing in a glass.
“How is she, Doc?” whispered a deep voice she recognized.
The male who’d just spoken was from the store. What was his name? Rein?
“The fever is gone, and her pulse is steady and strong,” Doc replied, his voice gentle and caring.
Ellyssa wasn’t sure where she was, but she was far from The Center. The way they spoke was different than what she’d come across before. Their cadence was soft and slow.
It hit her. The sounds of the footsteps. The enclosed feeling. The scent of soil. She wasn’t within the custody of anyone from society. She was underground.
Renegades.
She was a prisoner. Her heart skipped a beat. Barely breathing, she lay perfectly still.
Papers shuffled. “I was about to check her wounds. I could use your help.”
After a brief hesitation, Rein answered, “Fine, but it will have to be quick. I have other things to do.” His deep voice no longer soft, but sharp and irritated.
Both men neared her bed, and Ellyssa’s muscles tensed. Pain flared, but not like she had already suffered. Not bad at all. She breathed normally.
“What do you need me to do?”
“It’ll only take a few minutes. Don’t get all in a huff.”
Hands felt down her arms and poked the side of her waist. Fingers glided to the roundness of her hips and pressed against the hipbones, as if trying to flatten them. He moved down to her thigh, pressing against the edges of her wound. Pain flowed. She bit her lip and the hands touching her withdrew.
“Are you awake?”
Ellyssa didn’t answer.
“I know you’re awake, but if you want to pretend, that’s fine,” Doc said.
He slid his fingers under the edge of the bandage and gently pulled away the tape. “Word of warning—this is going to hurt.”
Hurt? She’d felt pain before. Motionless, her chest barely rising and falling, she readied herself.
She wasn’t prepared for what followed. Her eyes popped open, and she jolted upright as her torturer jabbed a fired wrought-iron poker into her wound. Two vises clamped over her biceps. She struggled, but in her weakened state, she didn’t put up much of a fight. The vises pushed her back against the pillow.
“Sorry, but I warned you.”
Her eyes wildly flicked to an older male, about fifty, his hair, the color of an oil slick with flecks of grey, cropped close to his head. He smiled at her. She glanced at his hands. They held nothing more than a soft-bristled brush.
“I know it hurts, but you still have an infection in the wound. It has to be cleaned,” he apologized.
Ellyssa stopped struggling. Movement only intensified the pain. Lips pressed together, she watched the brush moving back and forth over her raw flesh, each stroke igniting another blaze, pushing a scream she refused to voice. He wiped away the red streams that trickled down her thigh with a blood-soaked gauze before they could drip onto the blanket.
Pain and blood were not to be a source of weakness, but watching the doctor work on her own flesh, along with her throbbing head and rolling stomach, was more than she could take. She lay back against the pillow and focused on Rein, separating herself from the pain.
Rein let her go and crossed his arms over a muscular chest that pulled tight the thin cotton of his black T-shirt. Deep lines creased between two of the most spectacular eyes she’d ever seen as they glared at her. They were a deep, dark green, like jades, set into a tan face. Chestnut hair stuck up all over the top of his head, like he’d just run his fingers through it and called it groomed. So unlike the neat, trimmed hair of the people at The Center.
Watching him made her chest feel all funny, fluttery-like.
When their gazes met, his face twisted further in anger, or maybe it was uncertainty, emphasizing the planes of his cheeks and chin. She glowered back at him, matching his fury, ignoring the stinging that had replaced the inferno while the doctor cleaned off the brush.
“Rein, that’s enough. You’re going to scare her.” Doc patted her hand. She pulled away. “Just ignore him,” he continued, without missing a beat. “No one’s going to hurt you. You’re perfectly safe.”
“You have to watch her, Doc. I told you what happened at the storage.”
Shrugging and cocking an eyebrow, the doctor said, “Are we going to have problems from you?”
She shook her head once. She wasn’t in any condition to do anything. Yet.
He beamed, and small lines formed at the corners of his eyes and mouth. “There. You see? She isn’t going to pose a problem.”
The tendons in Rein’s neck throbbed as he clenched his jaw. “Fine. Have it your way.” He turned and stormed out. “I’ll tell Jordan she’s awake.”
Still smiling, the older man peered at her. His eyes were a light brown, the color of sand, and gentle, with a touch of humor. Except for the color, his eyes reminded her of the way Leland had looked at her when her father wasn’t around.
“I have to finish cleaning your wound.”
She nodded once and gritted her teeth. It still didn’t prepare her for the burn as the doctor mildly scrubbed the infected area. Without Rein to focus her attention on, tears squeezed from her closed lids and trailed down the side of her face, wetting her hair. After a few seconds though, sweet endorphins were released, and the pain dulled. He spoke to her while he worked.
“Most of the infection is gone. But it was bad. The pus was yellowish-green, and your fever was high. I don’t have the proper instruments to measure it, but I would say it bordered around forty degrees Celsius. Luckily, we still had aspirin left. That, coupled with cold water, brought it right down.”