Page 128 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

Ambra sags back against the bed, which is at least more comfortable in the reclining position, and tilts her head to look at Chloe, before mouthing, ‘Is he okay,’ through the mask.

Chloe nods, slowly. “They’re just keeping him in one place, they’re not doing anything to him.”

Ambra at least believes that Chloe would tell her the truth on that.

“We’re not monsters,” Mel drawls, and Ambra wishesshe had her phone with her so she could throw it at him.

Maison’s jaw ticks, like he too is at the end of his patience, before he turns to Ambra instead. “Besides bringing Gurlien directly here, is there anything we can do to help your healing?”

“No,” mutters Mel, and he’s still not wrong, but Ambra dislikes that still. “She needs time, rest, and when she can breathe on her own without choking on her own blood, food of some sort.”

All of those are exhausting, and Ambra closes her eyes, ever so briefly, as if that would stop the pain and the ever-present swirls of the wards above her.

It doesn’t, so she sighs through the mask.

“Nalissa’s death is definitely spreading around,” Chloe says, and Ambra jerks with remembrance.

Right. She succeeded with that.

And she hadn’t even thought of it since waking.

Ambra coughs through the lump in her throat, before grimacing at it.

With the worry about Gurlien, she hadn’t even had a chance to feel the lack of the leash towards Nalissa. She hadn’t even had chance to poke at it like she had with Korhonen and Johnsin.

And now there’s just Boltiex left.

And Gurlien is out of range of the leash.

The three are staring at her, and Ambra must’ve let something sneak onto her face.

So instead of speaking, she runs a finger under the leash around her neck, tugging it, trying to indicate it.

“That’s the other reason we kept you tied down,” Maison says with a grimace. “They tried to take you, but the Necromancy prevented it.”

Oh.

Ambra settles back down against the bed, and there’s not even a bit of soreness around the leash that there should have been at an attempt.

“I don’t like the idea of restraining you either,” Maison says, and there’s half an apology in his voice, an apology for her.

Ambra nods, at the sense it makes, even though the fear of it twists inside of her. Exhaustion creeps up her, despite everything, pulling at her bones and her eyelids.

Without another word, Chloe and Maison filter out, their faces grim, and Mel settles back in the chair.

They’re not letting her be without someone keeping watch.

It should rankle her. It would’ve rankled her.

“I know what it’s like,” Mel murmurs into the oppressive silence, and she barely has the energy to tilt her head towards him. “Getting injured in a human body. It’s limiting and haunting.”

She can’t speak back, just blinks at him.

“My first injury I thought I was going to die, and it was hilariously minor.” His face is serious, and there’s some trace of something Ambra can’t quite interpret. “You get used to it.”

“How long?” Ambra rasps out, and the mask muffles her tone.

“I’ve been in this body for almost two years,” he says, just as solemn, and the possibility is dizzying, to be like this for that long. “Don’t count your time in stasis, believe me.”

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