Page 6 of Aine
The footfalls grow louder as the man approaches, and I resist the urge to cower as he rounds my body and steps between me and the door. The deep frown on his lips tells me he’s unhappy, and I swallow past the lump in my throat as I face him.
He’s as large as the man on the bed.
My eyes narrow as I scan his face for any animal features. I’m still not sure if I hallucinated everything Jenna said or not, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. I’ll assume everybody’s a beast until told otherwise.
“You should be resting. Jenna will be here soon,” he says, placing a hand on my shoulder and nudging me toward the bed I just escaped from.
His touch is soft as he turns me around, and I slump in defeat as I shuffle back to the bed. I need to know where I am, and I can’t very well do that when I’m trapped inside some room.
A part of me wishes to argue with him and insist he let me leave, but I bite my tongue and refrain. I don’t know this man, and the last thing I need is to make the wrong person mad and end up as dinner.
Again.
“She should be here any minute now.” He grabs my elbow when I wobble.
I wince as I sit but am overcome with relief the moment my weight is taken off my legs. The short escape attempt took a lot out of me.
Thankfully, the man doesn’t stick around and leaves without another word the moment I’m settled. The curtains are left open, too, allowing me to peer out and watch him check on the other patients. He moves quickly, his hands efficient as he pokes and prods at the beings lying in the other hospital beds. Occasionally, he lingers, focusing on a specific wound, but most of the time, he seems to be examining healing injuries and writing down notes.
I’m so caught up in him that I almost don’t hear the sound of the door opening, but the loud squeak of the metal rubbing together is too distracting not to notice. Jenna strolls in with a grin, her eyes crinkled as she greets the man and turns to me. That grin falls as she scans my body, her attention lingering on my legs.
“You’ve popped some of the stitches on your thigh.” She scolds me in greeting, her lips pursing as she grabs a suture kit from the small table next to my bed.
I glance at my thigh, grimacing as I take in the state of my leg. It honestly doesn’t look too bad; most of the skin has still held together. Thereisa visible gap where one of the sutures came out during my attempted escape, but it’s relatively small.
“Sorry,” I murmur, poking at the inflamed skin.
Jenna lunges and grabs my wrist, stopping my movements. “Leave it alone.”
I apologize again, sucking in a deep breath as she prepares the needle. I hiss as it slides into my skin, the metal burning as it’s pulled through my wound. That fucking hurts. Jenna mumbles quiet assurances as she ties the knot and trims the excess thread, her kind words doing nothing to help the pain.
My wound is red and inflamed around the edges, the telltale sign of infection. There seems to be pretty advanced medical care here, at least more than there was back at my old village, but they aren’t miracle workers. Infection almost always leads to death, and I’m willing to bet the mouths and claws of those beasts were far from clean.
“Let me get you a wheelchair,” Jenna says.
I tilt my head to the side, confused. “A what?”
“You’ll see,” she laughs.
She disappears behind the curtain before I have the chance to inquire further, her speedy legs carrying her out of my line of sight. I pick at the skin on my fingers as I wait for her to return, flinching as I tear off a particularly large chunk of flesh. It’s a nasty habit I picked up a few years ago during a period of intense stress, and I haven’t quite figured out how to stop.
Jenna returns with a giant smile, her hands holding the handles of a chair on wheels. It doesn’t take an expert to realize this is the “wheelchair” she was referring to, and I hold back a huff as I look it over.
“I can walk,” I argue, knowing that’s far from the truth.
She’s quick to appease me. “Of course you can. But I want to show you around and that’s going to be a lot more walking than your legs can handle right now.”
She wheels the chair to the edge of the bed before grabbing my elbows and helping me stand. As much as I hate it, she ends up supporting most of my weight as I struggle to my feet. I wobble a bit, still exhausted from my earlier journey, before taking the two steps to the chair and plopping down.
“This is a cool contraption,” I admit, running my hands along the soft, wooden handles.
Jenna nods, moving around me to stand at my back.
“Yeah, the beasts offer a lot more care for their injured than Vik did. He kept us in the dark on a lot of healthcare and technology.”
I cringe at the inappropriate use of our leader’s given name but don’t comment on it. I’m not necessarily eager to defend the honor of the man who sent me into the woods to die.
The chair beneath me begins to move forward, the sudden shifting causing me to grab the handles and lift my feet in panic. I hold on to them for dear life before realizing it’s just Jenna pushing me from behind.