by Tee, Marian
"Hales!"
More snapping, and the club stops moving as I refocus on Nia. "What?"
"Tell me more about your god. Did you guys get into a fight or something?"
Her question leaves me aghast. "Of course not. I'm not stupid. And only stupid people fight with gods, and..." I give her a smug smile. "My god is nice." I see Nia's lips twitch, and feeling like she doesn't believe me, I say insistently, "It's true. My god is different. He's very, very nice, and he kisses nice, too!"
Nia's jaw drops.
"Actually..." I sigh dreamily. "He does everything nice. Like when he touches my—-"
Nia hastily covers my mouth. "I get the picture."
I quickly push her hand away. "But I'm not finished! I want to—-"
"I know you want to," my roommate says soothingly, "but maybe your god would like to keep that a secret?"
My brows furrow. "Really?"
"Really."
"So I can't say then that when he touches my—-"
"No," Nia practically yells. "You can't."
I sigh. "If you say so." The ice bucket on our table suddenly catches my eye, but when I lean forward to get myself another bottle, Nia quickly swipes it out of my hold, and I let out an outraged gasp. "Hey!"
"I think you've had enough."
I vehemently shake my head. "No, I haven't." I try snatching the bottle out of her hand, but Nia retaliates by calling for one of the servers to clear our table.
"That's not fair!"
"I think—-"
"We should dance?" The thought perks me up, and I jump to my feet.
"Hales—-"
"You're right, let's dance!" I grab Nia's hand and start dragging her towards the dance floor. It's swarming with people grinding their bodies against each other, but while this sight is something I'd normally steer clear of—-
Right now, it looks tempting.
I want to grind, too.
I want to feel another man's body.
I want...
I want to recapture that feeling of being with my god—-
Nia tugs my hand, saying, "I think it's time to go home."
"No!" I toss her a stubborn look over my shoulder. "We are going to dance." I turn back around, but this time I bump straight into something.
Oops.
I look up to apologize, but instead I find myself staring into a pair of red eyes.
I've seen these eyes before.
But before I can even remember where or how, I feel something slide into my flesh, and when I look down, it's almost as if my whole world is suddenly moving in slow motion, and it feels like an eternity passes with every second that ticks by.
Is that a knife handle sticking out of my stomach?
Is that a man's hand pulling it out?
Is that why there's this searing pain—-
Something - someone - suddenly shoves me off, and as I lose my balance and fall against Nia, I see the red-eyed man swiftly turn his back and walk away.
"Hales?"
I look up at Nia. "I think I've been stabbed."
Chapter Thirteen
Nia is the bomb when it comes to emergencies.
The thought repeats itself somewhat hazily in my mind as gradual loss of blood reduces me into a silent spectator, and all I can do is watch as my roommate calmly calls 911 while asking the staff for their first-aid kit.
I'm loaded in an ambulance in no time, and I faintly hear Nia snapping at the EMTs to stop gawking and start moving. I had this vague idea she'd take me to the nearest local hospital, but when I hear the doors open, the first thing I see outside are the familiar ivy-covered walls of Rosethorne's infirmary.
Huh.
I wonder why Nia chose to take me here. I want to ask her, but as soon as I'm transferred to the ER, that's when things get a little woozy, and the room around me starts to spin.
When I wake, I'm in the same room I was previously confined, and I see Nia and Keia standing next to each other on one side of the bed. The pain is gone, but I also don't feel like myself, and when I start to speak, it's like hearing my voice come out from someone else's mouth.
"Am...I...on...painkillers?"
The redheaded physician nods. "Just to help you sleep better for the rest of the night."
How weird. Even though I see her lips moving in tandem with her words, it's as if her voice is...dubbed.
"I...feel...weird," I hear myself say in a voice that still doesn't sound like it's coming from my own throat.
"It's the painkillers," Keia explains. "It contains herbs you can only harvest in Mt. Olympus. It's more effective than any human-made medicine, but it can also make you feel loopy for the first hour or two"
"Ah." I start to smile...and find myself subsequently surprised at how much effort it takes to make my lips curve. The realization makes me start to frown, but this, too, turns out to be a challenge, and I can't help wincing as my temples give a warning throb.
"You need to relax," Keia advises gently.
"She doesn't know how," I hear Nia mutter under her breath.
"Shut...up."
"See what I mean, doc?" But Nia's tone is more relieved than exasperated, and I make a mental note to tease her about this once I'm feeling better.
"Does your head still hurt?"
I almost shake my head but catch myself in time. No movement, no pain, and so I make myself answer verbally in the negative instead. "I'm...sorry," I also remember to add after a moment, "that...this...is...getting...to...be...a...habit."
"I'm glad you noticed that," a familiar voice bites out, and the moment I hear it, I'm unable to control myself from jerking—-
Ouch!
Keia lets out a sound of frustration just as the professor comes to stand at the foot of my bed.
"Now, look at what you've done!" The doctor lifts my hospital gown up to check if I've reopened my wound, and I see the professor's jaw clench.
"How bad is it?" I hear him demand.
"It hasn't hit any vital organs," Keia informs him as she pulls my hospital gown back down, "but it should still take about ten days for her wound to completely heal." She then looks at me, saying warningly, "If you don't want your wound to start bleeding again, you need to refrain from making any sudden movements."
"We can always tie her to the bed," the professor suggests silkily before I can even answer.
Nia lets out a snort of laughter while Keia is visibly fighting back a smile.
Aaargh!
I want to glare at the doctor, but the moment my brows start to push together—-
Ouch.
This time, the throbbing in my head is a little too much, and I just don't have the will to fight it. "I...give...up," I mumble as my eyelids fall shut. "I'm...going...to...sleep..."
I hear the professor ask to speak with Keia in private, and a moment later, Nia whispers, "They just left."
"Good...riddance," I manage to mutter even with my eyes still closed.
Nia insists on staying with me for the night, and Keia lets my friend have her way even though it's strictly against the rules. I find myself drifting in and out of sleep for the next few hours, and every time I climb out of sleep, it's to feel my chest hurting even more than the part of my body that's been stabbed.
I know it's so, so stupid of me to care, especially since all of my life I've been allergic to the divine, but each time I wake up, I just can't help but wonder—-
Does the god really not know I've been stabbed? Does he really not care for me anymore? Or did he never care for me at all, and he was simply toying with me like gods often do with humans?
I'd really like to know the answers to those questions, dammit. I need...what's that word again? The one people use when they can't get over their exes but they're too proud to...ah, right.
Closure.
Yes, that's exactly what I need with the god, and it's just proof of how closure means so much to me, that I find myself caring more about it than finding out who it was that stabbed me.
"RISE AND SHINE, PATIENT H."
Nia's unusually chirpy tone is enough to make me groggily rub my eyes open. My roommate is not a morning person, and I force myself to sit up, wanting to know what—-whoa.
My roommate's just pulled close a wheeled meal tray over my bed, and it's loaded with so much food you'd think we're due to throw a party. Croissants, buns, and pancakes. A colorful assortment of fruits and glasses that bear everything from coffee to shakes to lemonades, a platter of cheeses and cold cuts, and there's even a good, old-fashioned American breakfast of toast, bacon, and eggs, along with some hash browns on the sides.
Looking up, I ask Nia warily, "Is this going to be charged to my account?"
A sly smile unfolds over the other girl's lips. "Guess who this is from?"
My god.
The words pop out of nowhere, but I don't even realize I've whispered it out loud until I hear my roommate laugh.
"I know, right? Who knew someone as cold as the professor could arrange for something like this?"
Did she just say the professor?
As Nia starts heaping food on an empty plate, Keia walks in along with a pair of nurses. One's to give me my next dose of painkillers while the other's to clean my bandage.
"If you need anything else, just use the service button."
"Do all patients get this kind of treatment here?" Nia asks curiously.
"Nope." The glee in the redhead doctor's tone makes me a little suspicious, and when I see Nia's eyes start to sparkle—-
Oh no. Not again.
"It's the professor, isn't it?"
"Nia!"
But both Nia and Keia are already snickering while the two nurses with us are looking at me with a mixture of envy and curiosity.
"You should've seen him last night," Keia tells us as soon as the nurses leave. "He was furious for not being informed the moment you were admitted, and before leaving the infirmary, he had the entire staff rounded up, just to let everyone know that your recovery is everyone's first priority."
"Do you have security cameras working here?" Nia asks eagerly. "I wanna watch, please!"
"I've never seen him show this much concern for any other girl," Keia says in a marveling tone. "The professor's known Isabella for years and years, but even if that woman was on her deathbed, I'm betting all the professor would ask is what kind of flowers she'd like—-"
That's still a little too sweet, I can't help thinking.
"—-for her funeral."
There's a moment of silence, and then all three of us are cackling like three catty Circe-trained witches.
The rest of the morning flies by pretty quickly, with Keia - also at the professor's insistence - requiring me to undergo several blood tests and scans. I also take the time to phone my parents and somehow manage to make up an excuse for not being able to come home like I promised.
While waiting for my test results to come in, I ask Keia about how I can report last night's incident to the police, and she tells me that the professor's already been taken care of it.
"The professor also requested that you be given sufficient time to recover," Keia explains, "and that's why you'll only be speaking to the detectives tomorrow instead of today."
Nia's back in the infirmary a few minutes before noon, and lunch turns out to be another gastronomically extravagant affair, courtesy of the professor. The same also went for dinner, which so far proved to be the fanciest since the meal also come with a fresh bouquet of roses and a handwritten card.
Don't get stabbed again or I'll kill you myself.
Professor Lucious
The message has Nia and Keia snickering again, and I feel a grudging smile forming over my own lips. Now this is definitely the professor I know and like hate.
While the hours between the professor's expensive meal deliveries are spent with Nia and me reviewing for next week's tests, time eventually slows down to a snail's pace when the lights go out, and the moon reclaims its place in the skies.
I've just been given another painkiller, but this time I don't even feel the slightest bit drowsy, and I end up stirring restlessly in bed.
"Can't sleep?"
I turn to my side and see Nia also lying similarly on the other bed, with one hand tucked under her pillow while facing me. "I want to ask you something," I hear myself say, "but it's going to be completely embarrassing, so can you promise me that you'll at least give me a week before you start teasing me about it?"
Nia's brows shoot up. "It's that bad?"
"Kinda."
"Pinky swear then," she says. "So what is it?"
"How do I summon a god...if I don't know what his name is?"
Chapter Fourteen
The world is bouncing.
From the shadowy ceilings to the entire length of moonlit hallways, everything's bobbing up and down gently, like a boat cradled by rolling foamy waves—-
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
And so it goes until the haze in my mind lessens just enough, and I gradually realize it's not the world that's moving...but me.
A man is carrying me in his arms, and the bouncing motion comes from the stairsteps he's treading silently under the cover of darkness.
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
His arms are wiry but strong, and the chest I'm leaning against mirrors its traits. If I want to see his face, I'll have to move...but there's this faint whisper inside of my head that warns me against it. I mustn’t let this man know I'm awake. The reason escapes me. I just know it's true.
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
It's a struggle just to keep my breathing even, and an even bigger struggle to keep my heart from racing. Tendrils of memories tease my consciousness, but every time I strain myself to get a hold of them, they float away, always just an inch further than what I can reach.
This man who's holding me—-
Something tells me I've already seen his face. The image of it is there. I can practically feel it scratching the back of my mind. I've seen it. I've seen it, dammit. But why can't I remember it? I feel like I'm knocking my head repeatedly against a wall of blankness—-
Knock. KNOCK. KNOOOOOOCK.
But the wall just wouldn't come down.
Even when I give it my all—-
Even when I bang on it with my mental fists and butt-head it until I feel my brain's about to explode—-
The pain is too much, and I'm crying out before I realize what I'm doing.
Up. Down. Up. Do—-
The world stops moving.
He stops moving.
And then I feel myself being lifted up.
Up, up, up—-
Until I'm looking into the bright red eyes of my captor.
A scream of terror threatens to crawl out of my throat, but my lips have only begun to part when everything goes dark...and then I'm spiraling out of my nightmare—-
A dream? It was just a dream?
I crash back into consciousness, and my eyes fly wide open.
A dream? Was it truly a dream?
I shoot up to a sitting position, heart hammering, body shivering and sweating at the same time—-
A dream, I tell myself feverishly.
It's just a dream.
It really is just a dream.
But it's a dream that the past gave birth to—-
Because now I remember.
The man with red eyes who stabbed me—-
It's the same man I remember carrying me in his arms—-
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
The same man who laid me down in a pool of blood.
KEIA DISCHARGES ME sometime after lunch the next day, but I still find myself killing time in the infirmary's lobby for about half an hour before the detectives finally arrive.
Henry has grey hair and is a heavy smoker while his female colleague, Alice, has her dark locks ruthlessly tied back in a chignon. They ask numerous questions about the man who's stabbed me, and I answer with as much detail as I can without t
elling them about my dreams. Until I can be completely sure of what I've seen, there's no point telling anyone about it.
The whole thing lasts over an hour, with Alice also doing amazingly quick work as she creates a composite sketch of my attacker, and when we're all done, I'm more than a little stunned at how professional both of them are.
This is far from my first rodeo with police interviews, after all, and the ones who handled my case back in California had been assholes in uniform. I had a nice face, therefore I was a bitch. I was the only one alive in a room full of dead people; ergo, I must've killed all of them.
Henry and Alice, however, are the complete opposites. There were no wisecracks about my past. No snide comments about my face or figure. They simply did their job, period, and my shock over this must've shown on my face because Alice suddenly smiles at me and says, "Professor Lucious told us to take care of you, and so rest assured that's exactly what we're going to do."
My stupid heart skips a beat upon hearing that, but I manage to keep my voice even as I thank the detectives for their assistance.
Nia and the doctor both nag me about the interview, and I see the two girls exchange knowing looks when I get to the bit about the professor.
Hmph.
These two obviously think it's proof that the professor cares for me, and sure, he cares, alright...
But what he only cares about is getting me in his bed because, like it or not, he still thinks I'm an 'intriguing little thing'.
When it's time to finally head back to our suite, I tell Nia I'd like to spend a bit of time in the library, and just like I expected, it's the kind of L-word that scares the other girl the most. She's already profusely shaking her head even before I finish inviting her, and I barely manage to keep a straight face as I wave her off.
I turn to Keia, intending to say goodbye myself, but the older woman forestalls my words by asking if she can speak to me in her consultation room.
"Uh...sure." I follow her inside, and as soon as she closes the door I ask right away, "Am I dying?"
The redhead quickly shakes her head. "No, of course not. Seriously, Halyna. Be a little less pessimistic, will you?"
