The Elementals: The Rise of the Deviants

Chapter 20

Chapter twenty

[Derrek’s POV]

Val and I strode through the infirmary doors last of all the injured students and we leaned against the wall as we waited for a Healer to finish with the other students. I rotated my wrist and flinched slightly at the shooting ache that bolted up my hand. I couldn’t help but grumble, Blake was a pain in the butt and I hoped his hand hurt more than mine was at the moment. Val stayed silent next to me and I loved that we didn’t need to be talking all the time to fill any silences, though she did seem to be in her own little world more than usual.

“Next!” A student Healer called out.

“Just stay here, Tadpole, it shouldn’t take too long anyway” I stood from the wall and turned to see Val hadn’t heard me, she was still caught up in her world. “Tadpole?”

I gave her should a light rub and her head snapped to face me as though I’d scared her. “Huh... what?”

“I said just stay here. I won’t be long,” I repeated with a slight frown.

She smiled and nodded her head, her hair falling from behind her ear, and stretched her back out a little. I blinked, and without asking if she was okay I turned to walk to the free Healer. It was Kayla. “Now, why is it that I always seem to get you to heal Derrek?” Kayla laughed lightly. She had a point, anytime I’d been healed by a student Healer it’d always been Kayla, but I supposed that that was better because I trusted her healing abilities. She wasn’t perfect, but the majority of the time her healing was close to it. “I just healed Blake a few minutes ago, too. I take it those two fractures are connected?”

She raised her eyes to mine and smiled smugly. “They may have,” I replied gruffly.

She unwrapped Helena’s temporary splint then poked and prodded the bones with her fingertips before placing my hand, palm down, over her hand and began to pinch the fracture with the fingers of her other hand. I winced when the bone was healing at first but soon enough the aching turned into a slight buzzing numb feeling. She patted down the top of my hand and within seconds she’d healed the fracture. “Good as new!” She grinned.

“Thanks, Kayla.” I murmured and scooted away towards Val. As I approached her I noticed she was in the exact same position I left her in with her staring into space. “Is everything okay, Tadpole?”

She blinked, offered a smile and stood up. “Yeah, everything’s fine. You all finished here?” I nodded. “Alright, let’s head back to the apartments.”

We walked slowly and silently through the hallways and up the staircases and the niggling feeling that something was bothering Val grew the longer the silence stretched. The niggling feeling grew to confusion and the confusion soon grew to irritation. We stepped into the last elevator and the silence was filled with jazzy elevator music. I tried to catch her eyes but she kept the forward and seemed to have fallen back into her own little world. Part of me wondered if maybe Malum had a connection to her mind like he did before but as I studied her profile I noted that her ‘own little world’ she was stuck in lately was different to the completely blank and dead aura she had before. So I ruled Malum’s control out – for the moment.

The elevator rolled to a stop and dinged loudly before the metal doors slid open. Val stepped forward and the irritation seemed to have snapped, I never was a patient man. I strode to her quickly and grabbed her elbow, pulling her back and turning so I trapped her between the wall of the elevator and myself, our chests almost touching. “Val is something wrong? You’ve been a little out of sorts lately and it’s sort of freaking me out, to be honest.”

Suddenly Val’s expression faltered and pain filled her eyes and she crunched her eyebrows together. She blinked back tear and tried to smile through them. “I’m just trying to adjust back is all. I’m just not feeling myself, I guess.”