Page 139 of Change

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bianca

Blood

I was so tired.

I’d thought I’d been tired in the past—when pulling multiple all-nighters studying, stalking the school bullies with Finn, and spending much of the school day defending his honor. But that was nothing compared to the bone-aching exhaustion that threatened to consume me. My face was sore, and my lips were dry and cracking. Even my eyelids ached with the need to keep them closed, if only for a little while.

I was afraid too.

A nagging annoyance bugged me in the back of my head, telling me that if I went to sleep now, it would be a long, long time before I ever woke up again.

But what was the point? My ears buzzed as I curled on my side against the soft ground. I wished that I’d had the foresight to wear more than a leather jacket for this nighttime excursion. Possibly the only thing keeping me from freezing to death was the red blanket that—after everything—still stayed tied around my neck.

Why was this important again? Whose was this?

Gloria.

The others.

How long had I been out?

My whole body shuddered. The haze that had been covering my thoughts shifted. Guilt and horror slammed into me once more.

“Bianca.” One of the strange, buzzing sounds began to make sense. Maria.

I rolled onto my stomach, trying to dredge up the blurred events of before and pressed my head on my folded arms.

“Hey, babe,” Maria’s voice was soothing. “You need to be with us now.”

But even my fingers and toes hurt. It was damp and cold, and I was pretty sure that by this point the tiny stones from the floor had become permanently imprinted onto my skin.

My stomach heaved. Why did I want to get up again?

I pressed my cheek against the ground, my vision blurring. Nothing made sense. It was warmer here—and something red lay splattered across the floor—it was sticky against my cheek.

Red…

My arms and legs shook as I pushed to my knees. An invisible weight pressed against my back, threatening to crush me into nothingness.

The crimson blanket seemed to go on forever. It rolled in waves at my waist and across my lap. It was longer than I remembered, stretching across the mud-and-stone floor, even reaching—at some points—across the cell.

I blinked once, then rubbed at my eyes until my vision cleared.

That wasn’t the blanket at all—at least not most of it. It was blood.

I’d all-but-forgotten about my earlier assailants. However, it was impossible to remain in blissful unawareness with their broken and fallen forms in a line across the cell.

“Bianca, don’t look at them,” Maria was saying. “Look at me.”

But her frantic demands couldn’t hold my attention for long.

“Damn it,” Maria cursed, banging on the bars of her cell.

Ada sat on the floor next to her, one arm wrapped around her knee. “She’s in shock,” she offered.

“Iknowthat, Ada.” Maria growled at the hyena. “My sight and smell are better than yours. God!” She kicked at the bar.