Sugar Coated

by Shannen Crane Camp

  “If the lock didn’t alert someone to what we were doing, the noise sure will,” Brynn called to Jonah who stood with the tarp in his hands, ready to throw it behind them.

  “I guess we’d better be fast then,” he yelled back. “Ty, grab onto her in case the harness is too loose,” he shouted.

  Ty didn’t speak, but brought his arms around her waist, pulling her tightly against him as he stood with his back to the open door.

  “I’ll hold on tight,” he called over Brynn’s head to Jonah, who simply gave him a thumbs-up in understanding.

  “Ready?” Jonah called to them.

  “No,” Brynn shouted hysterically, feeling as if she were about to cry.

  “Too bad,” Jonah yelled as he threw the tarp behind them.

  Brynn’s body was immediately flooded with a burning pain that she sincerely hoped wasn’t the ground rubbing her skin off. She felt a sharp sting in her right shoulder and a dull thud at the back of her head as the force of the wind catcher caused her to smack into Ty’s chin. She could hear him yell in pain as stars flashed before her vision.

  Brynn closed her eyes tightly and it took her a moment to realize the harness was digging unrelentingly into her. She could feel the material of her black outfit rip as the straps made contact with her bare skin and tore into her flesh. She let out a loud scream of agony as Ty clung to her tightly, keeping a good grip on her as he promised he would.

  At least we must be off the ground, she thought, still not sure she’d be able to open her eyes both from terror and the sheer agony she was feeling in her arms and legs as the harness designed for only one person tore into her. She was almost certain it would rip right through her, but she tried desperately to ignore the visions of her own dismemberment streaming through her mind.

  “Brynn, it’s working,” Ty yelled as the thundering sounds of the train faded into the distance and were replaced by only the rushing of wind past her ears. “We’re actually in the air…well…sort of,” he shouted, though with the sudden silence he didn’t need to raise his voice at all. “Wait, we’re coming back down pretty fast!” he yelled, completely unaware of Brynn’s suffering. Obviously the harness wasn’t hurting him nearly as much.

  “I can’t breathe,” Brynn managed to choke out, still keeping her eyes closed and trying to focus on pushing air in and out of her lungs. She tried to reach up to the place on the back of her head where she’d hit Ty’s chin, but found that her body wouldn’t respond to her command. “I can’t move my arm!”

  “Brynn, brace yourself. We’re about to hit pretty hard,” he informed her, not hearing her previous statement.

  With almost no warning, Brynn could feel the heels of her boots skimming soft ground underneath her, the dirt moving much faster than it should have been. She finally managed to open her eyes and was amazed at just how wrong they had been about the terrain.

  The sun was blindingly bright as it reflected off of a landscape that was anything, but green. There were no trees to speak of in the flat, sandy expanse around them. In fact, there were barely any plants at all, unless you counted the dead looking brown and sage colored brush that sprang up periodically in the sand covered ground.

  Though only her heels had been skimming the ground before, Brynn could tell they were quickly lowering to the land that was still rushing by underneath them at an alarming pace.

  “Why are we still going so fast?” Ty asked as the wind catcher gave up its last attempt to keep them afloat and completely dumped them into the sand, making them roll several times before they came to a stop, covered from head to foot in dry, hot dirt.

  Brynn lay on her back on top of Ty for a moment, still trying to breathe and closing her eyes against the pain in her arms, legs, and head.

  “We’re alive,” Ty said, laughing slightly at this revelation.

  “I can’t breathe,” Brynn repeated.

  “Is the harness too tight?” he asked, making Brynn laugh as much as she could with no air.

  “It’s ripping my arms off,” she gasped.

  She could feel Ty shift underneath her, moving so that his head looked over her shoulder.

  “Oh no,” he said, instantly causing Brynn to look down at Ty’s arms which were streaked with a dark crimson that didn’t quite make sense to her.

  “Is that blood?” she asked him, too distracted by the world around her to really pay attention to the mysterious red liquid that had appeared on Ty’s arms wrapped around her waist.

  Her head was slowly losing the pain that had plagued her so much since their jump off of the train and her right arm was beginning to go numb. In fact, everything was growing fuzzy.

  “Brynn, what happened? Why are you bleeding?” Ty asked in the completely panicked and worried voice she was so accustomed to hearing with him.

  “How did we get onto the ground so fast?” she asked, looking around at the sparse desert. “It must be really dry here to have no plants,” she thought aloud.

  “Brynn,” Ty said again, trying to keep her attention on his question. “Where does it hurt?”

  “Where did Jonah go?” she asked, looking at the few plants that did dot the land. “He was so wrong,” she said with a giggle. “He thought there would be trees everywhere…silly boy.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ty asked urgently.

  “Look at how ugly this place is,” she exclaimed, trying to point around her, but finding that the action sent white hot pain through her body, instantly making her recoil.

  “Is it your arms, Brynn? Do your arms hurt?” Ty asked, trying to use short sentences to bring her back to reality.

  “I bet we fell to the ground faster than Jonah because we weighed more. Hopefully he’s not still in the air,” she said, still unable to focus on whatever unimportant thing Ty was talking about.

  “Brynn, you need to listen to me,” he said.

  “Can you imagine how high I would have gone by myself?” she asked, leaning her head back against Ty’s chest and closing her eyes in the too bright sunlight. “You saved me,” she said to Ty. “I’d kiss you right now if I wasn’t facing the wrong way.”

  This made her laugh and she found that once she had started laughing, she couldn’t quite stop. So many emotions ran through her that the only logical reaction at that moment seemed to be amusement. She was shocked by the fact that their plan had worked, elated that she wasn’t dead, and completely puzzled by the numb feeling in her arms and legs.

  “There’s too much blood,” Ty said over her shoulder, sounding as if he were talking to himself more than to Brynn.

  “Yeah, where did that come from?” she asked, trying to focus on reality when the world just felt soft and fuzzy.

  “It came from you Brynn. You just need to tell me what’s hurting,” he informed her reasonably, sounding almost too calm as his hands worked frantically to undo the harness that didn’t seem to want to let them go.

  “Nothing’s hurting. I actually feel really good. I can’t feel my arms or legs, but it’s kind of a nice alternative to being a smear on the train tracks, don’t you think?” she asked, trying to suppress a monumental giggling fit that was threatening to escape her. “Oh, and my head’s kind of fuzzy…I think I may or may not have lost a piece of it when we flew off the train.”

  “Yeah, you slammed it into my jaw,” Ty said, still trying to undo the harness. “How were we supposed to get off of the train together without this harness completely ripping your arms off?” Ty asked no one in particular. “I bet your genius boyfriend didn’t think of that,” he mumbled.

  “I don’t know what you’re so worried about,” Brynn said, continuing to let her head rest back against Ty’s chest. “The sand is so nice and soft.”

  “It’s probably burning your arms and you don’t even realize it,” he answered, sounding upset.

  “I wonder if I can see Aywon from down here. Do you think we passed it already?” she asked, rolling her head from side to side.

  “I’m glad y
ou’re lucid enough to worry about your mission, but not enough to worry about the blood pouring out of you,” Ty said, finally un-strapping the harness and releasing them.

  The second she was free from the wind catcher Brynn had a new concern as she crawled as far away from Ty as she could, ignoring her numb limbs. Her right arm wouldn’t let her crawl normally and so she face planted into the sand before awkwardly reaching her destination.

  She stuck her head in an unpleasant looking spiky bush and threw up, wishing Ty wasn’t there to witness her sweating face and arched back as she stayed poised on her hands and knees, her right arm dangling limply in front of her.

  After a moment the retching stopped and she fell back into the sand, breathing heavily. Just as she had predicted, Ty was kneeling over her only a moment later, his eyes flying over her body anxiously.

  “Oh Brynn, your arms,” he said, placing a finger on her shoulder and wincing at what he saw there.

  “I think I hurt my legs,” she managed to say between ragged breaths as beads of sweat ran down her temples and pooled in her ears.

  Ty ran his hands tentatively down her stomach to her hips where he made a similar face.

  “It looks like the harness cut through your clothes and into your skin,” he told her, opening her backpack, which he had worn on their little trip through the air. “Did you pack first aid supplies?” he asked, searching frantically through the bag.

  “I think so,” she said, feeling even fuzzier than she had when they were lying on the ground together only moments before. All she really wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep after drinking a cold glass of sugar water. “I wish Charlie was here,” she said sadly.

  “Found it,” he remarked, grabbing the collar of her shirt and pulling it down so that her shoulder and part of her arm were exposed.

  “Ty, this hardly seems like the time or place,” Brynn said with a giggle, making Ty blush slightly as he rolled his eyes at her.

  “I might be enjoying this if I wasn’t worried about you suddenly dying from blood loss and heat exhaustion,” he replied, trying to hide his grin as he poured water from her water bottle onto her shoulder.

  Brynn breathed in sharply, surprised at the pain that shot through her where seconds before all she felt was numbness.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, grabbing a length of white gauze sprinkled with rubbing alcohol and wrapping it tightly under her arm and over her shoulder.

  “What happened? I landed pretty far away from you guys,” Jonah said from behind Ty, looking considerably happier than he had right before their jump.

  “The harness cut into her skin,” Ty said simply, not looking at Jonah. “And I think it might have dislocated her shoulder.”

  “Ouch, that’s a lot of blood,” he replied, kneeling down beside Ty and surveying the wound. “Smart to apply that pressure with the gauze,” he said.

  “Thanks,” he answered shortly as he pulled Brynn’s shirt back into place and lowered the other side to begin working on her left arm.

  She ignored the tense exchange between the two boys and looked up into the sky that appeared almost white. She wondered if everything in the desert looked de-saturated and dead and decided she never wanted to visit such depressing terrain again.

  “If the city really is out here, these people are crazy. It’s so ugly,” she said, causing both boys to look at her.

  Jonah looked amused by her statement while Ty just looked concerned. That about summed up their personalities to Brynn: serious Ty and funny Jonah. She winced again as Ty wrapped the gauze tightly around her left arm before replacing her shirt once more. She could see his eyes roam down the length of her body to where the harness had cut into her legs and stop.

  He looked hesitant about how to proceed.

  “I need to wrap her legs as well,” he said to Jonah.

  “And?” Jonah asked, not quite understanding Ty’s dilemma.

  “Well, I’m not going to pull her pants off,” he said in annoyance.

  “Why not?” Jonah asked, still puzzled. Ty just looked over at him like it was the dumbest question he could possibly ask. “I’m sure she’s wearing underwear. It’s not like she’ll be naked,” he explained.

  “It’s not like she’s lying right here listening to every word we’re saying,” Ty said stiffly.

  “I have to do everything,” Jonah sighed, sounding as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  Without a second thought he grabbed the waistband of Brynn’s stretchy black pants and pulled them down, making her giggle yet again at the awkward situation that she was sure she’d find much more horrifying if she hadn’t lost quite so much blood and hit her head against Ty’s chin.

  “See? She’s fine. She’s laughing even,” Jonah said in a voice that sounded far away to Brynn.

  Ty kept his eyes trained on her face, obviously embarrassed by the entire predicament. She was vaguely aware of the large purple spot that had already made an appearance on his chin.

  “Wow, that harness really did a number on you didn’t it?” Jonah asked Brynn.

  She simply shrugged her left shoulder and continued to lie in the hot white sand, wondering when she’d be able to feel her arms and legs again.

  “I think my limbs are asleep,” she informed the two boys, feeling that this information was very important.

  “They are,” Jonah told her while he cleaned out her wounds and wrapped even more gauze around her legs. “And you’ve used up pretty much all of our medical supplies so I hope you don’t plan on getting injured again,” he told her. “Let this be a lesson to you.”

  “You’re so funny,” she told him with a yawn. “Hey guys, I hit my head. I don’t know if that’s important,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Take this before you fall asleep,” Jonah said, pushing a small hard pill past her lips and into her mouth and completely ignoring her statement about her head.

  “Only if you put my pants back on, you creep,” she said with a grin, not sure why she found everything funny and not completely mortifying.

  “Strong words for a girl who can’t even jump off of a train without getting hurt,” he said to her while he pulled her black pants back into place. “Now swallow the pill before I force it down your throat,” he threatened.

  Brynn did as she was told and closed her eyes against the glaring sun.

  “It’s hot out here,” she said, letting the fuzzy feelings take over while her breathing slowed down.

  “I think we should try to find some shade and make camp until nightfall,” she heard Jonah say to Ty somewhere far away.

  “We’ll be hard-pressed to find shade here,” Ty answered, shuffling something around next to Brynn’s head.

  “We might just need to make our own. She’ll be out for a good few hours anyway,” Jonah replied, though he seemed to be getting further and further away from Brynn.

  She wondered vaguely where they were going and hoped no wild animals would eat her while they were gone. Even with the threat of animals in her mind, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from drifting off into a state of completely numb happiness.

  As her mind made one last attempt to stay awake she heard Jonah say, “I’ll wait until she’s asleep to pop her shoulder back into place. It’s not going to be pretty.”

  Chapter 23: Unbalanced

  Brynn felt almost exasperated at finding herself trapped in the confines of the white room once more. There were so many things she needed to do now that they had successfully escaped the train. She wanted to jump up from the hot sand and start sprinting toward Aywon, but instead she was trapped in a nightmare with the Angel who wanted her dead—unless the Angel had actually found her lying alone in the desert after her friends deserted her there.

  Something about the white facility seemed to suggest that she wasn’t in a dream. For one thing, the white walls seemed to be shifting from side to side, just as they did on the train.

  “That’s weird,” she said, then i
nstantly slapped a hand over her mouth.

  She could talk. She had never been able to talk in her dreams before, which suggested even more strongly than the shifting walls that this was, in fact, reality.

  Taking advantage of this newfound power, she sat up in her white bed, surprised that she wasn’t strapped down or drugged like she usually was. Perhaps she was in another hospital that looked like the Angel’s headquarters.

  “Hello?” she called out, letting her bare feet hit the soft, plush ground.

  She glanced down, taking in the padded floor that she had always assumed was tile in her previous dreams, and then noticed the white dress she wore. Not a paper hospital dress, but a knee length dress with a full tulle skirt.

  “That’s a dumb choice for a hospital gown,” she said, even as she twirled around on the padded floor to see how the layers of tulle floated out around her, light as a feather.

  After she had made herself dizzy with the twirling, she decided to locate an exit, unable to get the room to stop spinning after her few turns. She had a difficult time getting her eyes to focus on one thing and wondered if it was the pill Jonah had given her or whatever they had injected her with in the hospital that was making her so dizzy.

  “We must have found Aywon if they found a hospital for me,” she thought aloud, slightly sad that she hadn’t gotten to discover the city with Ty and Jonah.

  Locating a white button on the far wall, she pressed it. No sound was emitted, but she saw a small red light blink into life high above her head near the ceiling. Satisfied that she had successfully called the nurse to her room, she set about figuring out just what was going on with her. She sat silently on the bed trying to bring to light the last thing she remembered.

  “The harness,” she confirmed, looking at her shoulders and underarms, which seemed to be completely healed.

  She lifted up the endless layers of tulle on her white skirt to examine her legs and found them in a similar condition, perfectly healed without so much as a scar to show for her trouble. Brynn ran her fingertips lightly across the smooth white skin on her legs, wondering how advanced this medicine really was. Had they just grown new skin for her somehow?