Page 40 of Fighting Gravity
“And I’ve paid it back. This,” I pointed at the white clinical building behind me. “This was the end. I’m not doing it anymore. This crossed a line.”
“I say what crosses a line,” he hissed, backing me against the wall. As a couple of pedestrians walked by, he put an arm up beside my head like we were about to start making out. I rolled my eyes, the smell of his expensive cologne burning my nostrils. “How are you gonna pay up when you’re busy in school, huh?”
“Fuck you. Nothing is worth all this, Switch.” I glanced up at the security camera above the clinic entrance. “You really want to argue that right now? Here?”
He sniggered again, his tongue darting out to lick the side of his mouth. It was something he did when he was pissed and about to do something stupid. So, I braced, balling my fists in my jacket pockets and looking him right in the eyes.
Leaning in to speak in my ear, he said, “I can do whatever I want, sweetheart. I fucking own you.”
His voice made my skin crawl. When he stepped back, I closed my eyes, certain something was coming.
And I was right.
Switch had only hit me once before and it was with the palm of his hand. It stung, but the guy was a pussy. I only cried so he thought his punishment worked in teaching me a lesson. This time? This time was different. When his knuckles met my cheek, the world spun a little and I couldn’t quite tell which way was up or down. Next thing I knew, my palms were scraping the ground.
I hated losing days. I’d done it plenty of times and each time was a shock. As I pried my eyes open, I had a feeling I was going to wake up and find I’d lost another one.
I tried to backtrack as my eyes opened into slits. I remembered the fight. The hollering of hundreds of alien onlookers as Norm fought gross, alien monsters in a sandy pit. He did it skillfully and with no weapons because that was cage fighting for you. Spike didn’t want him to have an advantage.
Then I remembered breaking off my collar and rushing the alligator-porcupine with a bloody rod. What a stupid plan. I should have known better, but my training never exactly taught me how to fight rabid alien animals with poisonous barbs on their backs.
The pain when the spines pierced my abdomen was a bee sting to the searing agony that followed. I recalled clinging to Norm for dear life. I pleaded with him. Held him so he’d stay with me when he tried to walk away. And then everything became a big blur. I heard Sour Face’s snarky comments. I heard Norm barking at her in his language. The pain continued, touching every inch of me and pulsing like waves of electricity. My ears were ringing. My stomach was turning. My back felt like it was breaking.
And then darkness. Everything stopped. Voices became muffled echoes underwater. My skin could barely feel and my lungs could hardly breathe. Part of me thought I’d died. It wouldn’t be the first time.
But then I was opening my eyes to a dull light overhead. There was something on my face. A mask of some kind, but at least there were no tubes down my throat. Testing my fingers, I managed to wriggle them and then weakly raised my hand to clutch at the mask. I pulled it down under my chin and took in a deep breath. The air in my throat felt like sand and I almost coughed. Almost. I whimpered instead because my body felt three hundred times heavier as I came to.
I closed my eyes again, sinking into the dark for a bit longer until I felt a hand on my shoulder. My brother’s voice spoke to me in my head, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I just knew it was something funny to make me feel better and I laughed internally, reaching up to put my hand over his.
Only it wasn’t his hand. It was bigger. The skin was firmer and when the hell did he lose one of his fingers?
Opening my eyes again, I felt reality grip me and slowly turned my head to find myself staring up at Norman’s inhuman face. And for some reason, I didn’t want to spit in it. We stared at each other for a moment. He said something to me, but my ears weren’t quite working right yet. He sounded far away and since I couldn’t hear him, I didn’t answer. I just closed my eyes again, trying to wash the dryness in them away before prying them back open. He moved away from me for a moment and returned with one of those clear pouches. I hated the stuff, but I felt too parched to care about the bland, thick nature of it.
Sliding a hand under my head, Norm lifted me and slipped a small tube between my lips. I sucked until the liquid spilled into my mouth and then I swallowed down through a swollen, raw throat. I must have been screaming because it was the same sensation I had when I went to the Metallica tribute concert in high school.
I gulped down what had to be half of the pouch before Norm took it away and laid my head back down. He spoke again and slowly his voice came into focus.
“…To see what they look like,” he said, that deep tone of his more comforting than it had a right to be.
“To see what what looks like?” I rasped.
“Your wounds. I should check that the patches are working.”
“Patches?”
“Our medical patches. They speed up recovery from physical injuries. But they can only quicken what your body is already capable of. How fast do humans heal naturally?”
“Depends on the injury.”
“How about three puncture wounds.”
I thought back on my gunshot wound. “A couple weeks? But I’m telling you, every wound is different. I don’t know.”
He sighed like he was already getting short and reached out for the blanket I could now see was draped over me. The moment he lifted the corner, I could feel a cold draft on my very naked body, and slapped my hand down on the fabric to keep it pinned against me.
“Hang on,” I protested. “What are you doing?”
“Have to check your wounds,” he said.
