The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (40 page)

She screamed in agony. She felt like the wolf could rip her arm off at any moment. Blood trickled down her skin, wet and warm.

The creature twisted its head, torquing Valie’s arm hard to the right. She fell back in reaction, naturally trying to keep her
arm attached to the rest of her body. The pain was blinding. She cried out again. Uselessly, she tried to punch and kick the wolf with her free limbs, but to no avail; it just hung on. Not once did it let go, not even to get a better hold. The girl’s body thrashed on the ground futilely, painfully fastened to the terrible beast.

Then, all of the sudden, just as she was about to try attacking again, it released its hold. It unlocked its jaws almost gently from her writhing form and slowly backed away. Valie clutched at her bloodied arm, cradling it to her chest, whimpering. The agony was such that she barely noticed when the dark creature ran out of view.

She laid there hugging her wound for what seemed like hours. The salty, metallic smell of the blood dizzied her, until, finally, just as rain began to splatter the ground, she passed out. 

SHADOW-BORN

When Valie’s eyes opened, she wanted to think she was dreaming. She wanted to believe that the strange way in which the objects of her sight registered with perfect clarity was a side-effect of some hallucination; that maybe she had been drugged again. Perhaps the muted illumination, dully lighting the room from no known source, was part of the delusion. There was no lamp, there wasn’t moonlight streaming in through the closed window. Only black, a strangely transparent black. 

As her vision sharpened even more, other sensations registered in her mind. She was stiff, but tenderly so, as if every nerve in her being was throbbing, begging her not to move, not to breathe.

And there was pain.

A sharp, excruciating pain radiated from her right forearm as it hung near the edge of the bed she laid on. It pulsed like an infectious thing, spreading until all she wanted to do was remove the source.

A sound reached her ears, a strange whine. The corner of her mind that wasn’t obsessed with the pain wondered as to the source until she realized—it was her. Tears came to her eyes as she sat up. Everything hurt. Every part of her being ached to be unconscious, ached to not feel. The sensation intensified. She sat there, unknowing of what to do, of how to stop the pain. When she narrowed her options down to self-harm, she called for Jack, who she hoped against hope was there.

Valie heard hurried footsteps as if they were right beside her. She started at the sudden invasion of sound. It grew louder.
Frightened, she looked around quickly, a painful gesture, but found nothing beside her. It was then she realized that what she was hearing was further away and coming toward her.

Through the open door, a light turned on. For a moment, Valie was blinded, but only for a moment. Her eyes adjusted within a second, registering both the light and the aspects of her surroundings that it revealed in one blink.

“Valie?” It was Jericho, his coffee-colored eyes pensive, caring. “Valie? You’re okay. You’re safe.”

The tears refused to stop. The effort of sitting up was becoming too much. It hurt so much. She felt as if all the blood in her body was flowing downward toward the source of the pain, feeding it, making it grow.

Her new vision began to blur. Jericho’s voice became distant as he begged her to lie down. He came to her side, resting his hands on her shoulders, encouraging her down. She screamed. His touch felt like fire.

Cursing himself, he backed away. Valie slowly fell back to the pillow awaiting her. She whimpered as the black of unconsciousness took her, the only true darkness she would ever know.

The hours passed slowly. Valie woke in fits, each time calling for Jack, each time disappointed by Jericho’s appearance. He would come and, with what felt like the stab of a knife, inject her with a sedative until the next waking. The pain in her arm, rather than lessening, seemed to intensify. The first time she woke with sunlight streaming into the room, she almost didn’t have faculty enough to cry out, the pain was so all-consuming. It was only fear of consciousness that drove her to brave the pain and call.

After a few more hours, until what Valie knew to be around
eleven o’clock—though, how she possessed such knowledge she feared to question—the pain receded enough for her mind to form sentences.

“Where’s Jack?” she croaked through strained vocal cords. She watched
Jericho’s face anxiously, taking in every nuance, prepared to be horrified at its implications. To her confusion, his countenance softened. He reservedly smiled as he drew the sedative from its vial.

“He’s perfectly fine, Valie,” the tired-looking man reassured. “He just needs rest, as you do.” He carefully prepared her arm for the injection.

“Wait,” she wheezed, wincing.

He stopped.

“The others?”

Jericho
breathed in deeply. “None came out without a bruise or two, but all are alive and quickly on their way to recovery. Rest, is their greatest asset. Why? Are you getting bored with me?” The man smiled, the sides of his eyes crinkling kindly.

Valie’s mouth turned up slightly in what would have been a smile had the action not smarted.

Jericho frowned at her cringing. “I’m so sorry, Valie. I would give you more than a sedative, but honestly, I have no experience with someone of your kind, I don’t know how superior drugs would interact within your body.” His words confused Valie momentarily until she realized what he meant. She was no ordinary werewolf.

“It’s okay,” she tried to whisper, but she didn’t think the words escaped.

Jericho stabbed her.

Her nightmares, however, would not let her rest. She tossed and turned, aggravating her wounds and worsening her pain in her body, mind and soul. Visions of Isaac as both man and wolf, filled her dreams. At times, she viewed scenes of him as her father, taking her infantile self to the park, playing with her until he would change into his wolf form. He would chase her until she receded into another scenario entirely. Sometimes her mother was present. Sometimes Valie watched Elizabeth McRae die by Isaac’s hand—or bite. The worst vision of all was of Valie killing her mother with her own hand.

The dreams played over and over, her mind trapped in the induced sleep of the sedative.

When she finally awoke, she waited, her eyes closed, almost afraid of opening them. She gauged her pain as only an eleven out of ten, rather than the previous thirty or so. She decided to
test her tolerance by rising. She did so with pained, sharp intakes of breath, but upon succeeding she refused to stop there. She took the opportunity the lessened pain offered to consider the fact that she desperately needed a shower. Her hair was stringy with dried mud and rain water. Some of the dirt on her face had been wiped clean, but only off of the surface. She could feel the grit in her pores as well as in her damp clothing. She refused to look at the garments she wore, however. The others had apparently been afraid to move her. She still wore the bloodied clothes from her attack.

The sight she most avoided was that of her right arm.

Slowly, each step a concerted effort, she dismounted the king-sized bed and silently made her way to the adjacent bathroom, across the floor from the foot of the bed. It was a slow process, but she made it, each step testing her strength, each step better than the last. She decided she no longer walked like an elephant, even with her shuffling stride.

By the time she reached the bathroom and started the shower, the aching in her muscles had diminished. She felt feverish, but the prospect of sanitation was too tempting to pass up. Undressing quickly, Valie still refused to look at the cloth stained with her blood. She did, however, examine her right arm that had been covered beneath her tainted sleeve. To her surprise it was not bandaged, in fact it barely looked harmed except for four deep puncture marks, two on either side of the appendage, and smaller ones connecting them. The smaller ones were only dark red colorations on the skin, like fading scars. The deeper ones were scabbed over, nearly healed. She remembered Jack once speaking of Lycanthropes’ ability to heal rapidly. She wondered when the pain would be as alleviated as the wound itself.

She entered the steaming water before she could reflect further on her injury and how she had sustained it. The echoes of the pressurized water of the shower drowned out all peripheral noise, helping Valie to banish her nightmarish visions of her mother and father. She did not want to think the thought hanging on the fringe of her mind, though it clawed at her defenses.

Her hair proved problematic. It took three washings to rid it of all the silt it had accumulated. The notion of chopping it all off appealed.

When she exited the shower, she grabbed a towel. After drying herself and patting her hair so it could begin to dry cleanly, she wiped the steam away from the large mirror above the sink.

She froze.

Her reflection was not her own, but her father’s, a sneer spread across his cruel face. Valie blinked, wishing away the delusion. It disappeared. Only her image remained. But all she could see in her reflection were the yellowish, amber eyes—the eyes of a monster that would soon glow bright with chaos of mind. She hated those eyes more than anything. She hated the rage, hate and fear that they incensed.

Valie shivered feverishly as the pain in her arm began to spread anew, finding new fuel by way of her emotions. She was no longer her own. She was giving into the pain with the monster’s words echoing in her head.

It is there that you are wrong, my dear. It is
you
that killed her.

She had killed her mother. She was no better than Isaac. She was just like her father. 

The thought was thought and it tore not only at Valie’s mind, but at her heart.              

When Jack entered the room, he smelled blood. Instantly, his mind went into panic mode.

“Valie?” he called.

No answer.

He threw the clothes Shane had provided for the thought-to-be-sleeping girl onto the bed as he followed the scent, rushing to bathroom.

There, on the tiled floor, a towel-wrapped Valie sat crying, her arms encircling her knees. She rocked back and forth as silent tears flowed down her pale cheeks. Blood dripped from deep lacerations along the knuckles on both her hands, staining the white towel covering her. The bathroom mirror was cracked and smashed, pieces littering the counter and floor. Valie’s blood dripped from some of the shards.

Jack cursed and knelt beside the sorry-looking girl.

“What happened? Valie?” The girl just shook her head. Jack felt her forehead. She was burning up. She bit down on her lower lip in obvious pain.

“Easy,” he hissed. Quickly Jack took her chin, easing her jaw’s grip, afraid she’d bite right through her own flesh. He glanced around. “Stay here.” The girl’s breath caught. “I’m not leaving. Just…don’t move, okay?”

Taking another towel, Jack attempted to sweep all the glass into its folds and set it aside. He ran the faucet to warm the water. He contemplated getting Jericho, but he couldn’t stand to leave the girl alone and he didn’t know if he should move her.

After some inspection, Jack carefully removed the glass from each of Valie’s hands. She still wouldn’t respond, though she relaxed at his touch. He didn’t know what she was thinking and she wouldn’t tell him what she felt. All he knew to do was take care of what he could.

“Come on, sweets.” He cautiously lifted the girl to her feet, making sure her towel stayed secure. Valie, trembling, allowed him to move her to the sink.

Jack plugged the drain, letting the hot water pool. Tenderly, he placed her hands beneath the water, hoping it would both clean and soothe the wounds.

The blood from the girl’s gashes turned the water a quickly darkening red. He drained the sink, but was afraid of repeating the procedure. She had lost so much blood already. 

“Sit,” Jack ordered quietly, frustrated. He gestured to the lidded toilet. Numbly, Valie obeyed.

Steadying the flow of the faucet, the boy took a wash cloth from beneath the sink and wet it with the warmed water. He took Valie’s hand once again and pressed the hot water to the skin. She flinched away from the stinging, but left her hand in his. He patted the cuts and bruises with the compress, a thoughtful expression on his face.

He performed the same care on the other hand, occasionally rewetting the towel with steamy, hot water. He wrung the towel out into the sink and killed the faucet. Digging
around in the cabinet, he found an antibacterial ointment and some bandage. He rubbed the greasy salve over the battered knuckles of Valie’s red hands and wrapped them, careful not to make the bandage too tight, then, put the first aid items back into the cabinet.