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Chapter Twenty

She refused to lift her head.

Despite the growing bustling around her, Sang kept her stare firmly locked on the dead grass surrounding her. It was dry and brittle, nothing like the plush earth it'd been before. In the background, the boys' voices were loud. It was all brash words and commanding gestures as they worked to categorize the destruction she'd wrought over their home.

"Sang—"

Their home. She snuck a shaky hand out from her death grip on her waist, her fingers tentatively sneaking forward to pluck at the dead vegetation. It came up easily enough, but before she could examine it further, the dull grass crumpled beneath her fingers and trailed back to the earth in a slow descent of ash.

"Sang," Sean's voice was louder now, more urgent. She could feel him kneeling right in front of her, "Pookie, I need you to look at me."

She'd just barely lifted her gaze when a bark cut across the clearing, "Doc! Back up—"

Wincing, Sang ducked her head back down. She made sure the tangled mess of her hair fell over her face to hide any pain that may have escaped at North's warning. There was another brutal growl from one of the boys, but she refused to move any more than she'd risked earlier.

Her hand jerked back to her chest, wrapping back around her waist in a poor imitation of a hug.

"Shut up, North," Dr. Green snapped, his hand falling on her ankle in defiance. The flesh burned against her own and it was all she could manage to not yank her leg back. She could feel the faintest trace of his power sink into her skin and probe, "Sang, I need to see your eyes. You were suffering from a pretty nasty concussion earlier—"

Yes, she remembered. The way her mother's hand tangled in her hair, using it as leverage to wrench her head back and slam it into the carpeted flooring.

Over and over again, over and over— she couldn't think about it anymore.

Already she could feel the slithering of power eating away at her veins, unhappy with her turmoil and seeking to surge out of her skin. It felt stronger, more intent, almost searching.

It roiled under her flesh and cold heat burned at the seams of her soul.

"It's fine, Dr. Green," she managed to offer. Her fingers twitched against the torn edge of her tee shirt as she shoved that insidious power back under her control, "It doesn't hurt anymore."

It was true. Nothing felt wrong with her anymore. The pain she remembered suffocating in before she passed out was gone, only a bit of soreness was left in wake of the trauma. Even her broken arm appeared to be healed to an extent that she could manage— it was still uncomfortable, but it didn't burn the way it had when her mother had thrown her to the floor.

Instead of pain, she just felt tired.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Sean sighed, his hand retreating from her ankle and taking its healing glow with it, "Well, as strange as it is, you aren't wrong."

There was a sad sort of desperation in his tone, and with a slight tilt of her head, she braved a glance in his direction.

It was a mistake.

The sight that greeted her had her sinking back into herself. The blood that had dripped from his temple earlier had been wiped away, leaving a long smear of dried crimson over the majority of his forehead. His shirt was untucked and ruffled, smudges of ash from the dead grass coating his shoulders and arms. He was dirty, a heavy layer of exhaustion hugging at his shoulders as he watched her.