I WOKE UP DISORIENTED WITH pain shooting through my forehead.
“Z, don’t move,” Ash said, his arms coming out to hold me down.
“Why?” I whimpered. “What’s going on?”
“What do you remember?” he asked shakily. His eyes were red rimmed. He had been crying, and the tearstains on his cheeks were fresh.
I thought about it for a moment, but my head was pounding and thinking hurt; it hurt so badly. “There was a car crash. We fought Awakened,” I said, slowly, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in my face. “My face…something happened to my face.”
He nodded, his lips pressed tightly together. “I’m fixing it now, okay, baby. I’m taking care of it.”
I finally noticed the needle and thread in his trembling hands, and I knew what he was doing. I felt the fear of further pain pass through me, but I tasted blood on my lips. “Ash. Ash, where is my dad?”
Pain flashed across Ash’s handsome features, and he looked like he was going to cry again. “Zoey, he…he didn’t…he couldn’t…”
“What?” I asked, my voice coming out in a rush. “Where is he?”
“You don’t remember?” he begged. I searched for the memory. Everything was hazy. All I could remember was fighting and the feeling of pain, pain that was still spreading through my body.
I searched through the memories of the fight and it hit me like a ton of bricks: my dad fighting over several Awakened as they tore into his skin. The memory of his limp body being torn to pieces burned in my mind, and I felt the loss wrench through me. My breathing came in short bursts, and the sky above me was spinning in endless circles. I wondered what a panic attack felt like.
“Where is he? Where’s his body?” I managed to say, my voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.
“I pulled his body away,” Ash answered. “I figured we could, I don’t know, bury him or something. I don’t know. Zoey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Tears thickened his voice and he covered his eyes for a moment.
I shook my head, trying to forget, trying to wipe the memory from my mind. I tried to shift my vision to see him, to see his body, but pain ripped through my face as the cut pulled and tugged. “How bad am I?”
He breathed heavily, wiping the tears away from his eyes. “You’re okay. You have cuts everywhere, but they’re going to heal. They’ll probably scar, but they’re okay. But the cut on your face is bad. I need to sew it up.”
“Can you…can you do that?” I asked, shivering. It was freezing, and I could feel a wetness seeping through my clothes.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m going to try, okay? You’re bleeding like crazy, and it needs to be sewn up.”
I nodded once and squeezed my eyes shut. “Just do it. Please just do it and get it over with.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding uncertain. Then, he cleared his throat and said it again in a stronger voice. “Okay.”
He poured some water on my face, careful not to get it in my eyes. That was the least of my problems. The water stung on my wound, and I could taste the blood and water pouring down my face. He hesitated for a moment before slowly starting to sew me up. Each prick of the needle was painful, and I could feel it slip through the tough bloody skin. I looked up at Ash and saw his unease. His hand slipped and the needle plunged into my eyebrow and I winced in pain.
“Ash,” I whimpered.
He paused, the needle in his hands. “Does it hurt too much? God, Z, I’m sorry.”
“Just please keep talking, okay? Tell me a story or something,” I said. “Please.”
“Okay,” he said, going back to work on my cut. “Do you remember when we dissected that frog together in eighth grade?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, whether to block out the memory or the pain in my face I wasn’t sure. “No,” I lied.
“Well, I do. I remember thinking it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen in my life, all those guts. I’m not going to lie; I nearly passed out, which would have been embarrassing. It would not be okay if I just passed out in class.”
He paused for a moment reminiscing before continuing. The needle sunk into the fleshy skin of my cheek and I sucked in a breath, feeling the tugging of my skin. I focused on his blue eyes, falling into them. There was nothing else but his eyes and the rhythm of his voice. “But I remember looking at you, and you were so calm. You did everything so coolly and perfectly. It’s like you knew. You took the scalpel from my hand and handed me the pencil. You told me you needed a new pair of gloves, which gave me an excuse to get away.”