Page 91 of Lies That Bleed
I waved my good hand at him. “I hereby absolve you of any wrongdoing.”
Tetra walked over with her cane and slipped something into my hand then. I knew what it was the second my fingers wrapped around the pill.
The tiny white pain pill I had smuggled in for her bad flare days. “No, you need this,” I muttered, trying to hand it back.
She shook her head. “Trust me… you’re gonna need it.”
The medic’s gaze fell to my hand which held the white round pill and he nodded. “If that is what I think it is… your friend is right, you should take it. We don’t get the good stuff here.”
Rebreaking an already broken wrist that had healed wrong sounded like hell, and we’d already been told we would graduate, so I didn’t see the harm in taking the edge off. Without another thought, I popped the pill and swallowed it dry.
We sat around and waited another fifteen minutes until it kicked in.
‘Medicines like that, and even alcohol, won’t last long in your system because of your rapid healing,’Liana told me.
Good to know.
My body suddenly felt very heavy. I was sluggish in my movements, walking over to where the bone breaker sat.
I laughed to myself.Bone breaker.
“Okay, I think it’s working,” Kohen said with slight amusement at my laughing to myself. Everyone else had mostly scattered around the base checking things out but Kohen, Tetra, Alek, and Jace stood around me, watching with concerned expressions.
I pointed to Jace with my good hand. “Why are you still here? You don’t care about me.”
Tetra covered a snort-laugh and I realized I said that out loud. Crap, this pill was strong.
“That’s not true,” Jace said with a frown.
“This is going to hurt,” the bone breaker said, slowly stroking the skin on my wrist as if he were pinpointing the exact place to break it.
“You don’t deserve me,” I told Jace bluntly. “So you should probably move on now. It’s getting a little pathetic.”
Alek’s eyes widened at my bluntness just as Jace threw up his middle finger at me and stormed away.
“Maybe half a pill would have worked. I forget my tolerance has built up,” Tetra said with a wince.
Oh who cares? Poor cheater got his feelings hurt.
Kohen was watching me like a loyal little dog, waiting to make sure I was okay. “And you!” I pointed to him just as the bone breaker snapped my wrist hard and sent pain shooting up my elbow. I screamed,the agony stealing my breath as I peered down. The bone breaker then made a little jerking motion and I gasped as another wave of hot sharp discomfort rocked me.
“That’s good,” he said, relieved. “It’s straight now.”
With agonizing effort, I wiggled my pinky and it did indeed move. The medic then went to work casting my arm. He pulled long wet strips from a package and wrapped them over gauze. I hated the fact that they were yellow. It took about thirty minutes, but by the time he was done my wrist was in a yellow plaster cast and I felt ready for a nap.
“Yank thoo,” I said, and then frowned. “Thank you,” I said slower this time. My brain felt scrambled.
The medic nodded. “With your advanced healing, that can get cut off in about a week,” he said, and then left the tent.
“Alright, everyone gather round!” Instructor Ashendell called outside the tent. “We have a train ready to take you back to campus. We’ve also cleared the debris off the old tracks and repaired them. And I have a team looking into the Luskin attack.”
Tetra and Alek made their way outside and I tried to stand, but then fell over. Kohen caught me, pulling me up against his warm body. It was like I came alive in that moment. Even heavily drugged, I felt every nerve ending in my body wake and respond to him. The pressure on my lower back, the way his hipspressed against mine, the splash of his breath on my face…
I looked up and he was peering down at me with a ravenous hunger.
“A coin for your thoughts?” I said, managing to get the words out in the right order.
He swallowed hard. “I’m wondering if by telling you about our future together, I have somehow compromised it. I’m coming to terms with the fact that it might all just be a dream now, a dream that I will have to live out in my head and never actually know in real life.”
