Silver Claws

30. Honesty is a double edged sword

Ouch. Ow ow ouch...

I can barely stop the groan. The ache in the broken bone is shooting up my leg, all the way into the socket of my hip. I peel open my eyes to the empty living room, it looks like midmorning--- gold sunlight filtering in through the windows. The light makes ny head pulse dully, probably because I haven't had much water. My throat feels so dry that gulping makes my eyes sting. A butterfly effect of discomfort.

Dust motes float through the air, and I watch them in a muted daze. Thundering tiny feet patter toward me, I brace for the coming impact. A child torpedo headed right for me.

"Lo-Lo! You hurt your leg!" Ryan shouts in his squeaky kid voice in my face.

My voice croaks "Yeah I did buddy." He crawls in my lap, thankfully avoiding the splint. He's sitting on my stomach, peering down at me with a huge grin.

"Were there machine guns?"

What the hell? "No."

"I have an idea."

"Oh?"

"We could play Xbox!" His voice pitches loudly and makes a sharp pain run into my temple.

"I like how you think short stuff." I shifted slightly, weirdly I felt like I needed to tell Akela, or ask. We'd have to go to Ryan's room, and disappearing on her seemed...mean. She was already stressed, I shouldn't make it worse.

"We should ask Akela if she wants to play too."

Ryan crinkles his nose. "She's not good at Xbox."

"She's not?"

"She said she's never played."

"Its nice to ask, even if she doesn't want to."

He throws his head back and sighs, "Fiiiine."

I can't fight the way my face spreads into a smile. "Do you know where she is?"

"Momma asked her to get clean because she was getting blood on the floor."

Bile rose up my throat, little kids shouldn't say sentences like that. It was creepy first of all, and second what blood? I remembered she still looked like a haunted house actor, but how would she have gotten blood on the carpet...?

Slipping into her thoughts was like stepping into a swimming pool. Only after I was already seeing through her eyes did the thought occur of oh shit she might be in the shower.

Oh well. Forgiveness over permission right?

She's clothed, and dripping, she never dries her hair. She's breathing shallowly, in a way that I really don't like. The way you breathe when you are trying not to move. Her hands are wadding up the fabric of her shirt, revealing three red gashes. Infection lines starting to crawl from the wound into the pale skin like spider legs.

"Hey Akela!" I call, trying to sound less alarmed than I feel. I don't think it works because she rushes down the stairs to the living room, a silent bullet.

She's scanning around for an attack, muscles balled and ready. Her hair is dripping over her shoulders, and I can't tell if it's water or sweat on her forehead. Her blue tee shirt is soaked in the shoulders, her black athletic shorts making her legs look even whiter than normal. Or is she getting pale?

Or am I over analyzing her because every second I'm becoming massively worried about infection getting in her blood, not to mention that seeing her set loose some titanium butterflies in my stomach?

...Nah.

My voice drips sickly sweet. "Will you help me up?" 

She looks at me skeptically, walking toward us in a hunter's stride. Her bare feet don't make a single sound against the wood, muscles still hardened.