Page 3 of Unnatural
“You’re…magnificent.” The word was whispered. It didn’t seem quite right. Not that he wasn’t magnificent. He was. But he was more than that. “Are you made of nighttime itself?” she asked the boy, eyes like twilight, hair like moonglow, a fanciful collaboration of all that was mysterious and nocturnal.
Something about the thought delighted her. Her mind was a more interesting place than she’d given herself credit for. She’d createdhim.With the help of narcotics, true, but even so… She let out a slight laugh, and the boy reared back like she’d slapped him with the faint, breathy sound.
Behind her, a scream rang out, high-pitched and filled with terror. The boy looked sharply in that direction, his fists rising as though readying for a fight. His hands were so large, veins protruding in his muscled forearms. He looked back, hesitated, then before she knew what was happening, he scooped her up as though she were a mere feather, deposited her behind a nearby tree, and then dumped an armful of pine needles over her. He leaned in, putting his finger over his full lips.Shh.He evensmelledlike the night—wind and fire.
He backed away, fading before her. The dream became misty again, the forest blinking, twisting, the boy made of night growing faint. He seemed to hesitate before turning and ducking away out of sight.
He hadn’t attacked her at all.
He’d…saved her.
Autumn let her head fall back to the earth, her lips tipping, eyes shutting as the dream world around her glittered to dust.
***
She woke with a smile. But her smile faded as her eyes opened, the mint-green hospital walls greeting her just as they did each morning. Autumn sighed as she sat up, stretching her back and trying not to catalogue her aches and pains. What was the point? Everything hurt. Everythingalwayshurt. Gingerly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed to sit up, waiting as the head rush subsided.
“Sleep well, sunshine?”
“Better than usual.” She paused as Genie, the morning shift nurse, wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her arm and pressed a button as the cuff tightened. Autumn focused on breathing as what she knew was a slight tightening to anyone else made her grimace in pain. “I had the dream,” Autumn said, her breath releasing along with the machine-induced grip.
Genie looked from the numbers on the machine to Autumn. “Did you manage to escape again?” she asked.
Autumn shook her head, the smile creeping over her face. “No. I got caught this time.”
Genie’s expression registered confusion before she let out a short laugh, removing the cuff and tossing it aside, apparently satisfied with whatever the number read. “And that was a good thing?”
Autumn nodded. “I was caught by moonlight himself.” She stepped down from the bed, wincing as her hips took her slight weight, the flare of pain soon subsiding so she could move.
“Ah. Well, who doesn’t want to be caught by moonlight himself? He was very handsome I’m assuming?” Genie asked, shooting Autumn a smile.
“Handsome?” Autumn frowned, conjuring the boy’s face. “No, he was much more than handsome. He was…”Shestillcouldn’t think of the right word. “Fascinating,” she settled on, picturing him again. She wished she knew how to draw well. She’d sketch him now while he was still fresh in her mind, before he faded away as all dreams tended to do with time. Even very vivid ones. But she didn’t know how to sketch well. Still, she’d take her journal to class and do the best she could.Those eyes, that hair, that scar…Ofcourseher mind had added a scar. That was almost to be expected. She wassurroundedby scars. By sickness. By surgery. It only stood to reason that her unconscious thoughts had hung on to that aspect of her life, even in sleep.
She looked at her arm, where scratch marks stood out. She’d done it before, scratched herself in the night and woken with bloody skin. This time wasn’t so bad.
“Do you need help in the bathroom?” Genie asked. Autumn had almost passed out the day before when she’d leaned over the sink and stood too fast.
“No, but will you stay close by?”
“I’ll be right here, changing your bedding. Autumn—”
Autumn turned, her questioning look turning into a frown when she saw Genie’s suddenly troubled expression. She took a few steps away from the bathroom door she’d been about to enter. “What is it?”
Genie’s shoulders lowered. “Zoey died in her sleep last night.”
Autumn’s stomach plummeted to her feet, and bile burned her throat. She brought her hand to her mouth, giving herself a moment before speaking. “Zoey? No. She was doing so well.”
“We all thought she was too. You know how it goes though. This damn disease…things can deteriorate rapidly.”This damn disease.Genie paused, gazing at Autumn withconcern. “They’re going to make the announcement at breakfast, but I thought…I thought you’d like to take a little time…”
To cry alone.The words went unsaid, but she saw them in Genie’s eyes.Zoey.Autumn’s heart constricted, chest aching as a steady buzz took up in her head. She pictured the tiny twelve-year-old girl with dark curls and a heart of pure gold. She’d dreamed of being a ballerina. An impossible wish that could never come true no matter how long she’d lived. She’d done slow pirouettes down the hall just three days before…
Dance, sweet Zoey. You’re well now. There is no sickness where you are.
Autumn had suffered this same clawing grief and uncertainty so many times before—this familiar tipping feeling that made her want to grab on to something solid and the terrifying knowledge that there was nothing there that would hold her steady. It never got easier. It never demolished her any less. She could only ride it out.
“Thank you, Genie.” Autumn did want to cry. Where no one could hear her. Where she could be alone with her grief. Where she could mourn again when she’d already mourned so many times before. Yet each loss cut just as deep, the scars she carried internally far deeper than any that marred her skin.
Chapter Two
