Wicked Ones {bxb}

{Chapter 47 : Halpha}

Kailan sat on the bed of his cell, counting the fingers in his lap. One to five and back again.

In the weeks he'd been without his hand, he'd hardly touched any of his food. Any appetite he had before was washed away and he was sure they'd start force feeding him before he could die of starvation. He took the risk, scarcely sparing so much as a glance to every tray of food he was served. The flies could have it—if not for the fact that, like every other form of life, flies couldn't survive in a place like this. It was a wasteland.

The stench of bleach and the fetor of death were one in the same to Kailan now. Synonymous, in the way that one meant the other; death meant bleach and bleach meant death, and every waft of the chemical was like a mourning cry that another Wicked had passed—a lurid half-mast flag.

He had been denied pain killers after the operation, leaving him in a constant and consistent state of distress. The phantom pains came rapidly and often—grueling enough that Kailan found himself clutching at air when the ache grew severe. He was never comfortable, never did he have a day where things were moderately okay. But in Sage's words, the transformation he was supposed to be getting would make him a whole new person. It would take away the pain.

He didn't want to be a new person, he missed his life before he was snatched away. He tried not to think of them—of his friends and Vinny, and all that had become nothing but a painful memory. The fate he had been dealt was nothing from a Hollywood script; thinking back to your brightest moments in your darkest hours was not therapeutic or medicinal. It was painful. Kailan knew now that hope was something of cinematics—that in reality, the best thing you could do for yourself was to expect the worst, because no matter what terrible thing happened next, it wouldn't come as a surprise.

Opening his eyes, Kailan stared to the ceiling. His reflection gazed back at him, half-mast eyes and stubbled face in the glass above.

A little over halfway up his left forearm was where his body stopped—where his stitched and sutured flesh was swaddled in a cotton blanket. It was the only thing he'd asked for after the surgery. A veil, so he wouldn't have to see what they'd done to him. But they had taken more than just his hand. Beyond the white cloth garbs was a dying man—pale, and wasted and pained indefinitely. From sickness, starvation and stress, he'd lost fifteen pounds of fat and muscle. Sage had been threatening to put him on fluids, but still he couldn't eat. Though his ailment was gone, nausea hit Kailan for a whole different reason now. It washed him over, sick and queasy for every peep he took at his pilfered hand.

"Rise and shine, Kailan." He heard Sage purr against the glass of his cell, and then the gentle hush of air as the door slid away. "We've got quite a day ahead of us."

"That we do." Kailan turned his head to the voice to see the doctor at Sage's side, stashing a pen onto the front pocket of his shirt. "A two-part procedure," he explained, "This'll be my second time installing a prosthetic. It should be a fun experience."

"Glad to know I'm in good hands," Kailan rasped dryly, pulling himself upright. He rose and left his cell without dispute. There was hardly any reason for the guards anymore, Kailan had no energy to cause any trouble.

"We're so close. Can't you feel it?" Sage asked excitedly as they walked on. Her head rolled back to watch the lights pass above, and she grinned neurotically. "You'll feel better soon, I promise."

She sounded all too blissful as she spoke, smiling up at the sky as though she were speaking to someone other than Kailan; a strange deity that only she could see.

Again he found himself encased in white. Lights buzzed around him, nurses shuffling to and fro, readying the room and awaiting orders from the doctor.