Page 80 of Hollow Valley

I stared up at him, debating as the ache burned all through me.“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t.But you’re not going to survive without some help.”

“Fucking hell,” I muttered.“How do I take it?”

“Put it on your tongue and let it dissolve.You’ll feel it working almost right away,” he assured me.

I took the green tabs from him, and they reminded me almost of fish food that I’d fed my goldfish as a child.Irregular shapes of semi-translucent shades of green.

“If I die, my lion will blame you for it and take it out on you,” I warned him.“Just so you know.”

“Thanks for the heads up, but I promise that I’m only trying to keep you alive,” he said.

The way he smiled at me, I wasn’t sure if I should believe him.But my options were all so limited.How much longer could I go on without treatment for my broken bones?Especially now when I could hardly even hold myself up?

I popped the two tabs on my tongue, and they tasted like vinegar and copper.

Jordy went over to the fireplace, throwing in a few logs from the nearby rack, and the fire blazed and crackled.

“How are you feeling?”Jordy asked as he walked back over to my bed.

“Warm,” I said, but I also felt the pain slowly subsiding.

No, that wasn’t the right word.It was like it was still screaming outside the windows of my mind, but now I could slam them shut and pull closed the curtains, blocking them out.

Tension was slowly unfurling through me, with ice melting in my veins, turning into a sweet liquid, like warm honey, flowing all through me.

Jordy knelt on the bed beside me and helped me take off my jacket.I felt the tug of my left arm, even heard the jostling of my bones scraping against each other.But it didn’t hurt.

With my jacket off, I started fumbling with the buttons of my flannel shirt, clumsily using my one good hand, and already, my eyelids were feeling so heavy, I had to fight to keep them open.

I slipped out of my top layer, but I still had a long-sleeved thermal shirt, a tank top, and a sports bra underneath.I couldn’t hold myself up anymore, though, and I fell back onto the bed.

“Ripley will eat you alive if you hurt me,” I mumbled groggily.

“I promise I won’t hurt you,” Jordy said, and then I lost consciousness.

49

Remy

It felt less like waking up and more like slowly surfacing from some strange, dense fog.Vague memories of pain, of sharp blades and bright lights, of longing and despair, evaporated the moment I opened my eyes, blinking up at the snow-covered skylight above me.

I craned my neck slightly to get a look at myself, and even that caused burning pain in my shoulder.A pillow and blankets were propped under my injured arm, and I appeared to be naked, other than the bandages wrapped snuggly around my ribs and chest.The blanket was pulled to my waist, so I couldn’t be sure about my bottom half, but it felt free of the constraints of my long underwear or socks.

“Good, you’re awake,” Jordy said.

He sat at a small table near the fireplace in one of the mismatched chairs.A fire crackled beside him, making the one room apartment almost too toasty, and he had the sleeves of his sweater pushed up high on his forearms.

In front of him on the table was a tea tray with two cups and a plate of biscuits, and he had a book splayed open.He tilted in his chair to look at me and slipped a bookmark in between the pages before closing it.

“Did it seem like I might not wake up again?”I asked.

“It did seem a little touch and go, if I’m being honest,” he said, but the way the firelight glinted in his eyes, I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

“Where’s Ripley?”I asked, since I couldn’t see her or hear her.

“The lion?She’s over there, sleeping.”He pointed to the corner, and even if I strained my neck until it hurt, I couldn’t see her past the roughhewn footboard.