The Awkward and Terrifying Explosive Adventures of the Recreaze-Vallia Family

Chapter Nine

Ariah 

I groaned, the world coming in and out of focus. I had lost consciousness somewhere in there, and from what I could make out in my spinning, whirling vision, I was no longer in the same room. I groaned, loudly. Halyix clearly knew I was here, so there was no point in remaining silent.

Or was it the Halyix? Did the family really think I had betrayed them?

My head hurt too much to think my way around the mind games. I groaned again, trying to keep my eyes open long enough to focus on something. I ached all over, and my head was pressed against something hard. Gingerly, I tried moving my right arm to feel my forehead, and screamed with pain, my eyes watering. Something was definitely broken. My left arm was fine if a little sore, and I felt around my forehead. Dried blood was caked on my left temple and all over my hair, and blood soaked my clothes around the midsection, but apart from the cuts on my head, the only real injury seemed to be my right arm.

My dominant one.

Oh, hell.

"Ariah," someone hissed. The room swam in and out of view, and I squinted my eyes, focusing on a pair of silver ones. Castor. What was he doing here? I tried to ask him but it came out more like a series of grunts.

He muttered something under his breath before lifting my arm around his shoulders and hoisting me up. I tried to stand, but my knees buckled. It felt like I had pulled a muscle at least somewhere in my body.

"Ariah," Castor murmured in my ear. "You have to stand. You have to walk down the hallway."

I dug my fingers into his shoulder and struggled to my feet, barely managing to keep my balance. "Where..."

"Don't ask questions. Just hurry, and stay silent."

I bit my lip, trying to hold in my grunts of pain, and hobbled to the door with Castor. “Can’t you go any faster?” he muttered. “We’re on a time limit here. I mean, we’ll probably die.”

“I’m pretty close to death as it is,” I gasped.

He swore and hoisted my arm further up on his shoulder, maneuvering himself so he could open the doorknob. I leaned against the door jamb, trying to regain my breath as Castor poked his head out, assessing the hallway. “Come on,” he whispered.

In eerie silence, we made it down the hallway and out another door into the open outdoors. I didn’t question how Castor knew where he was going, and I didn’t question him as he led me to a car and shut the door, getting into the driver’s seat. I didn’t speak at all, in fact. I had passed out in the backseat, blood pooling at a freshly reopened wound at the crown of my head.

I found a bright spotlight shining in my eyes and tried to jerk my head back at the sudden brightness, banging it against something hard. “Ow,” I groaned.

“Please keep still, Miss Rainen.” The spotlight shut off—it had been a penlight, held by a woman in a doctor’s coat, blonde hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck.

“What…”

“We don’t want you to gain any new injuries, not when you’re just recovering from yours,” she said with a grim smile. “I’ll let you assess the damage for yourself.”

I pulled my shirt—I was now wearing a clean grey one—up slowly, brushing my fingers over the scarred skin of my stomach. I reached a hand up to my head, noting that my right arm felt just as good as it had a few days ago, and instead of a giant bloody gaping hole, I only felt a few scars, and peeling skin.

The doctor smiled grimly. “We weren’t sure it would work, to be honest.”

I frowned. “We?” I said, then spotted Castor sitting in a chair over her shoulder, looking at me intently. Another realization dawned. “Is this…did you use Project Valkyrie on me?”