Page 17 of Galen

I could’ve sworn we were flying.

***

The soft bed beneath me was the first thing I noticed when waking up. Right away I knew I wasn’t in my loft. My firm, lumpy mattress definitely wasn’t that comfortable.

I opened my eyes to a moonlit room. It was blurry without my glasses though. I squinted and looked around, seeing them on the nightstand. After putting them on, I studied the room. The wide, open space had a door to the left and another beside it. Both closed. A short hall seemed to lead somewhere else. To a bathroom, maybe? A closet?

The wall in front of me was nothing but glass, showing a cliff in the distance, as well as dark water.

I was near the sea. Maybe in one of the fancy houses along the coast? The ones I used to look up at while driving through town and wishing I could afford? Whoever lived there had money and alotof it.

The memory of charred meat and rot slammed into me.

Gasping, I clutched my chest, finding a bandage there. Another was on my left bicep. I raised the blanket to see that my right leg was wrapped too. I ached a little but not much.

Where were my clothes? I had on sweats with the right pants leg rolled up because of my wound, and I was shirtless. The pants weren’t mine. They were way too long and baggy.

Footsteps drew my attention to the door.

“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” a stern voice said from outside the room. Light came in through the crack at the bottom, and I noticed a shadow, as if someone was standing in front of the door. “You know better, Galen.”

“Shades attacked him, Alastair. What was I supposed to do?”

Nowthatvoice I recognized. It belonged to the man who had cradled me gently in his arms. The same man who had broken into my shop days before, pressed me against the wall, and stolen that creepy box with the fancy ring.

Oh, shit.Was I in their secret hideout?

“Take him to the hospital and leave him there,” the other man said. “It’s dangerous for him to be here. For him and us.”

“He needed our help. Isn’t that our purpose? To help people?”

“Our purpose is to kill demons, not nurse humans back to health.”

Demons?

“He would’ve died before human doctors could help him, Alastair.”

“Not our problem.”

“And I believe itisour problem. The shades targeted him specifically.”

“Demons attack humans all the time. He’s nothing special. What happens when he wakes up and starts asking questions? No one can know our location, especially not a simple-minded human. You’ve just put all of us—”

“Enough! What’s done is done. I will not hear another word of it.”

“You dare givemeorders, Wrath? You forget your place.”

Silence followed.

I had no idea what to think. My brain felt like it was going to short-circuit as I replayed their conversation in my head. Killing demons? Referring to me as a human? And a simple-minded one at that. Who the hell were they?

The doorknob turned, and the sound pulled me from my thoughts. A large figure stood in the doorway, the light from the hall filtering into the room. My breaths halted in my chest, and my hands couldn’t stop shaking.

“You’re awake.”

I sat up higher in the bed, then winced when I moved too quickly.

“Easy,” he said, walking farther into the room. He left the door open. To make me feel less trapped? He flipped a switch, and lights flickered on. The room remained dim in some places though, keeping a calming atmosphere. “I healed the worst of your injuries and patched up the rest, but you need to rest for a while.”