Airel: The Awakening (Airel Saga Book One)

Chapter XVI

I WOKE UP SOAKED in my own sweat and gasping for air, feeling like I’d been drowned and then resuscitated. I remember thinking, The boundary line between the real world and the dream has been breached. I was freaking out; it was like I actually died. I looked at my clock. 3 a.m. I felt really gross.

What is it with me and the butt-crack of dawn lately?

My head was in a vise, pounding. I could feel every nuance of every beat of my heart as well as its aftereffects in my circulatory system. With every heartbeat, an evil hand twisted the screw and my headache worsened just a little bit more. I stumbled to my bathroom, being careful to leave the light off. It would be unnecessarily painful. I needed some Advil, a cool rag on my face, and—ew—fresh pajamas. Ones that aren’t soaked with sweat.

I pressed a wet washcloth into my face, rubbing my temples. I looked at my dark reflection in the mirror. I couldn’t see any cause for concern. Whatever was wrong was on the inside.

I felt a little better after washing my face, but I was still dealing with a rampaging headache. I took a couple of Advil from the medicine cabinet and tossed them back, taking a long drink of cool water. I then refilled my glass and took it to my bedside table. 

When I had changed into my ugly backup pajamas, I sat down on the bed and reached for my glass of water.

When I picked it up, it shattered in my hand.

I gasped. Shards of thick glass drove into my palm. I dropped the remains in shock. The jagged heavy base hit the carpet with a thump, and I bit my lip hard to keep from screaming out loud.

Blood ran freely from two major cuts in my hand. They looked deep. I started to get woozy, but forced myself to keep it together. Don’t pass out, Airel. You’ve got to stop the bleeding. I jumped up, dodging the broken pieces on the floor, ran to the bathroom holding my bleeding hand, and got to the sink just in time to catch the first drips before they hit the carpet.

I turned on the cold water. It stung, and I winced in pain as it flushed out the wound. Blood pooled in the sink. All I could think was that I would need stitches and that life was going to suck real bad for the next few hours, and then the next few weeks as I slowly healed. I pulled the largest pieces out with my fingers, but there were a few that I just couldn’t get to. Though I could be brave, I wasn’t that brave. 

I found some gauze, cotton balls, and sports tape under the sink and wound everything around my throbbing hand, making a bandage that looked like something out of one of Dad’s war movies. Not the best, but at 3 a.m. I wasn’t about to wake my parents—at least not now that I had things under control. I just needed a stiff upper lip and time to heal.

I made sure the bathroom didn’t look like a crime scene and then began cleaning up the wreckage by my bed. Now I had to deal with sleep loss, a splitting headache, and the rhythmic throbbing of my poor hand. I had no idea what I was going to tell my parents when they saw my enormous gauze mitten. And what would Kim—Miss Talks-a-lot—think? 

I lay down and tried to be calm, wondering what I was going to do with myself, what was wrong with me.

In the back of my mind, my new friend whispered unbidden, “Why did the glass break?” That was a good question. In fact, it was the question, at least in this moment. It hadn’t been one of those thin cheapie glasses. It was heavy, thick. I could have tossed it across the living room and it wouldn’t have broken—it would have left a dent in the wall. And yet I had shattered it without even trying.

I growled, staring up at the ceiling. “This is how I spend my nights now,” I muttered. “Horror show, sweat bath, migraine, my own surreal episode of The Incredible Hulktress Meets CSI, and then … back to bed.” 

But those words echoed through my throbbing head: “Why did the glass break?” 

That’s when my injured hand got a mind of its own. At first it was a little tickle, a slight discomfort. That gave way to a deep itch and the sensation that something was moving around inside my wounds, like there were worms crawling around on my skin beneath the bandages.

I jumped up and turned on the light, ripping the tape and bandages off, horrified that I was infected with something. What I beheld was more alarming. The cuts were closing up, little fingers of flesh reaching across the divide and weaving themselves together, mending the damage. They left no scars.

Impossible.

I turned the palm of my hand up toward the light, my migraine now forgotten and as good as gone anyway. There was nothing. My hand was fine. But there was something gritty and shiny on my palm. After a closer look I realized that my body had rejected the tiniest shards of glass that had been embedded in it, the pieces I couldn’t get out. 

I looked at myself in the mirror over my dresser, watching one eyebrow cock itself upward like an impish puck. “That’s very interesting,” I whispered.

Then I did something I still don’t believe I had the guts to try. I reached into the trash can, withdrew a dagger-like chunk of the broken glass, and held it up in front of my face. There, between the mirror and me, was a moment like ripples in a pond. The girl in the mirror looked defiant and brave, I felt scared but impulsive, and the shard of glass exuded wickedness. Now I know what it feels like to be completely crazy. 

I laid my hand palm up on the top of my dresser. I grabbed an old T-shirt from the drawer and bit down hard on it. I raised my right hand as high as it would go and then stabbed the glass knife into my palm. I screamed through clenched teeth into the T-shirt.

Blood.

Both hands were now badly cut. My right palm was sliced to ribbons where I had grasped the weapon, and my left was pierced, the glass stuck through it into the top of my dresser. Blood pooled onto the wood. I managed to stay on my feet, looking at my hands, hoping I wasn’t actually insane.

“What have I done?” I prayed that I wouldn’t have to wake Mom up and ask her to rush me to the emergency room for … for stabbing myself. 

I stood there staring at my gaping wounds as they oozed. But then the itching started again, and it was like watching the invisible hands of an expert surgeon reorganize the twisted remains of my tendons, arteries, and whatever else was in there. It itched like nothing I had ever felt, like my hand was tearing itself apart as it put itself back together. I watched in awe as everything was placed in order and healed. My skin perfectly knit itself without leaving a trace.

Except for all the blood. 

All I could think about was the chorus to this song. All it said was “stupid girl” over and over. 

Okay, so I heal quick. Really quick. Whatever this newfound talent was, and however amazing it seemed, it didn’t keep me from getting sick, though. Maybe I have a brain tumor or something. I’d read about that sort of thing happening. People became gifted in weird ways as a result of a trauma and then it turned out they had a baseball-sized tumor in their brain. And a month later they’re dead. 

But what had happened to me? I couldn’t remember any recent trauma. I thought there had to be someone who could help me, someone who knew what I was going through. Then I thought about the possibility that something had been done to me to cause all this. Maybe when I was an infant, They—the infamous They—had injected me with a super drug, some secret government project trying to create human weapons.

“Seriously, Airel?”

I felt a shiver run up and down my spine. It sounded like feathers rustling, or pages turning in a book. I got that same feeling I’d had on my way back from Dr. Gee’s office. That other voice, my inaudible helper—okay, my imaginary friend—the thing that wanted to help me was getting restless, sighing impatiently as if it wanted me to figure these things out a little faster. 

I closed my eyes and listened. All was quiet, and in the back of my mind I heard something like a rumor, like the beginning of an ancient, barely-remembered story being told without words.