Dust (Of Dust and Darkness) (21 page)

             
And that saddens me. Did I not open up to anyone enough to make them realize the difference? Not even Poppy? All th
o
se years we spent together as close friends and roommates…does she not know me at all?

I’m not sure what time it is when I awake, but I don’t see anything topside to make me believe Jack has come yet.  As I rise to sit up, a blood-curdling scream
comes roaring out of me
.

             
Oh-my-
Mother
-
Nature! MY WINGS!

             
Every part of my wings, the cartilage, the veins, the nerves that connect to my spine…I’ve never felt such excruciating pain! Tears rush out and I’m screaming, moaning, and heaving uncontrollably. Anything more than a small breath increases the spinal pain tenfold, so I’m forced to take short, quick breaths, but they’re so jerky it amplifies my pain anyway.

             
I can’t take it…I can’t take it!

             
I throw my stomach back on the ground, scraping skin along the jagged pieces of earth, and probably bruising the bones that no longer have any protective padding. My eyes are pinched tight, but I see my eyelids change from black to
pink
, and hear Jack saying my name as he lands beside me.

             
“Please,” I
beg
between gasps, choking on tears, “Please knock me out.”

             
I don’t wait for his help. Unbearable pain driving my actions, I lift my head off the ground as high as it will go and slam it back on the rock without hesitation. Intense pain radiates from my temple and spreads throughout my head, and all I can do is weakly moan, too exhausted to move anything more.

             
Frantic, Jack yells, “What are you doing? Stop!”

             
Drool seeps from the corner of my mouth and all I can think is how much I want to slam my head again. “Please,” I
plea
with a weak puff of air.

             
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” I hear metal scraping. When his fingers stroke my back I let out a scream I didn’t know I had the lung capacity to give. The adrenaline causes my back to recoil, lifting my head, shoulders, and bent legs off the ground so my body
fomrs
an awkward U-shape. When it collapses
,
my head slams hard into the ground again. There’s an intense shot of pain, then my world goes dark.

There’s a warm glow on the other side of my
pale red
eyelids
, bathing my eyes with a soft, rosy pink
. My eyes flutter as I awake, shaking loose some of the crust encapsulating them. I groan as the grogginess in my head intensifies, the strain behind my eyes the main source of my discomfort. Surprisingly, Jack sits across the way, leaning back against the wall. His arms are crossed and his head hangs low, so I think he’s nodded off.

             
My back aches a little, but the extreme shots of pain bursting through my nerves have ceased. I grumble as I lift myself up on my arms. I never
want to feel that way again. I
like to think I’m tough enough to handle anything Finley’s willing to throw my way, but that…breaking my wings to the point…I just hope my nightmare of no longer having wings doesn’t come true.

             
I slowly sit myself up to the butterfly position, careful not to nudge my wings against even the slightest of touches. A rush
of dizziness hits me as I rise
but levels out a moment later
. Beside me lay a gray cotton
shirt smudged with blood that was protecting my poor head from the rocky floor. I reach up to examine my head and hiss when I find the sensitive cut on my right temple.

             
Across from me, Jack stirs and bobs his head a few times before waking. It dawns on me that he’s bare-chested
,
and that the shirt used to protect my injury came straight
off
his back. I’ll admit the guy
is
pleasingly
fit. His body resembles a few of
the pixies back home, who like
to work bare-chested under the sun. Jack
is
just like them, just a little larger all over.

             
“Sorry,” I say, genuinely meaning it. “I don’t think you’ll be able to clean this.” I toss his shirt towards him.

             
He crumples it up into a ball and tosses it aside. “That’s alright. Maybe if I walk pass Finley in it it’ll convince him I spent the day beating you.” He gives me a weak smile. “How’s your back now?”

             
I look left, then right. My wings are too damaged to open, and the clamp denies me that ability anyways, so I can only see the lower tips. It’s enough to make me cringe. The cartilage that lines my wings is broken in multiple places, as are a lot of the veins and crossveins, and the transparent material that holds the veins together is ragged and parched of nutrients. No shimmer anywhere. No magic. My eyes tear at the thought of never taking flight again. How can they possibly recover from this?

             
My tears cause Jack to jump to his feet and rush over, his eyes strained with concern. “What? Do they still hurt?”

             
I shake my head and sweep the tears away. “No, it’s not that. It’s just…I don’t see how they can come back from this.”

             
Jack squats back on his legs and releases a
deep
breath of air. “I wish I could tell you, Rosalie, but I don’t know either. I’ve never seen a fae with this much damage.

             
“But do they hurt?” he asks.

             
I shake my head again. “What did you do to them?” I know he did something while I was passed out.

             
He pulls a metal container from the satchel and unscrews it, showing
me
a firm, creamy substance with a
hint
of medicinal herbs
strong enough to
burn my nose
when
I inhale. “It’s a numbing salve that my mother makes. It’s got some stuff in it to help fight inflammation too.”  He screws the lid shut again. “Sorry I didn’t get it on you in time. Usually you get twenty-four hours of relief, but I should have known with this much damage you wouldn’t make it.”

             
“You’ve put that on me before?”

             
“Yeah. Both days. Finley made me leave the day they broke your wings, but I came back the next morning and put it on you. And again yesterday. I guess it probably wore off at some point in between
,
but you must have been asleep when it did and didn’t notice. Had I gotten it on you first thing this morning, you probably would have woken up okay.”

             
My jaw slack, I just stare at him for a moment. Feeding me decent rations and not throwing my food and water at me was one thing, but giving me pain-relief medicine? Finley would kill him if he knew. And I didn’t really know what to say to that. Why’s he risking his neck for me? He doesn’t even know me. And he’s a faerie…they look down on pixies.

             
“Which reminds me… Be right back.” He takes off and disappears over the ledge but returns a moment later with the same canteen he gave me before. Handing it to me, he says, “Something a little hardier today. Cream of vegetable soup.” I wish my
hand
wouldn’t snatch it so greedily. “My sister made it.” With a wicked smile, he playfully adds, “She’s as annoying as a little sister can be, but her cooking makes it worth putting up with her.”

             
Yet another society with a strong family dynamic. What the heck was wrong with my Hollow? What happened to make them raise us the way they do today?

             
“I’d say tell her thank you, but I’m guessing you’ll keep this to yourself.” Jack makes his way back to the opposite side and gets as comfy as this rock structure will allow. “Wait. This isn’t your lunch you’re giving me every day, is it?” I motion to hand the canteen back
, my stomach screaming at my arm for doing so
.

             
Jack shakes his head, his cool green eyes fixed on me the whole time. “Don’t even think about it. I get breakfast, lunch, dinner and any snacks I want in between. You get a fistful of seeds in a single day, if you’re lucky. It won’t kill me to miss a meal. You, however…”

             
He stops himself from finishing, focusing in on my ribs for a second before catching himself. Then his eyes dart back to my face with guilt. But I know what he was going to say. That unlike him, missing a meal
can
very well kill me. Ever since
I was thrown down this hole, I’ve
been wasting away rather drastically.

             
He’s right of course, but I can’t take the sadness in his face. My head falls sideway
s
and I notice the pail of water. I sit the canteen on the floor and slowly reach to pull the bucket my way. I’m too weak to lift it, so the bucket scrapes roughly against the rock, water sloshing out in all directions. It takes both arms to lift it towards my lap, and I can’t move it without grunting because I’m literally that weak
from muscle loss
.

             
“Don’t,” Jack says. Just the solemn way he says it is enough to draw my attention. He’s hard to read, almost void of all emotion, but I sense a little sadness in there somewhere. He shakes his head slowly. “Don’t look, Rosalie.”

             
I pinch my lips tight. The bucket is already sitting in the hole my legs make in the butterfly sitting position. All I have to do is bend my head. The lantern is close to enough for me to get a really good glimpse of my reflection. I haven’t seen myself since my last shower in the pit, and even then I was skin and bones, slowly wasting away like the others. I have a pretty good idea of what I look like. I
can
do this. I
can
look and be okay, because there’s nothing I’ll see that I haven’t already seen on a fellow pixie in some shape or form.

             
I fight his hypnotic gaze, so desperate to keep me looking up, and drop my eyes to the bucket. I gasp, my lower jaw unhinging and dropping open.
No, it must be an illusion. This
can’t
be me.

             
“No…” I whisper, still in disbelief. My face has completely caved in. My cheeks: gone. The padding that keeps my eye cavities from looking hollowed out: gone. My hairline: receding a little. I think I can see every bone in my face. And the skin on my face and neck look thin; papery, almost.

             
“Don’t cry,” he whispers. Even this faerie who doesn’t know me can tell I’m about to break down.