Page 42 of Even Angels fall
I growl the last word.
I really have no idea what is wrong with me today, but I see him turn on his holo and tune him out again as soon as someone answers him. He’ll deal with this.
I need to deal with this hand.
24
Angélique
Idon’t know what is happening.
Elhyor is the one who pinned me to that wall, and now he’s, what? Panicking over the state of my hand?
This is so ridiculous, I feel like laughing.
I probably should try to shift, though. Maybe it would solve the problem altogether.
Except shifting hurts. It might even hurt worse than what I’m dealing with right now.
The first shift is all adrenaline, so you don’t remember the pain, but I’ve been told that all the following shiftings happen in blood and pain.
There’s also the problem of surviving with everyone knowing I’m the embodiment of the devil on earth.
I’m pretty sure there would be nowhere I could hide if it’s known by the world that I have black wings.
I can deal with a broken hand. It’s my left hand, anyway, and I’m right-handed.
There are a few things it’ll take time to get used to doing again with a deficient hand, but I’ll survive.
But why is the bleeding not stopping?
From the corner of my eye, I see Elhyor remove his shirt before he pushes my hand and my bloodied shirt away. He’s rolled his shirt at its bottom and its top, making it look like two rolls next to each other.
Before I know it, the weird contraption he’s just made is wrapped around my hand and secured tight. I don’t think I can feel my hand anymore, but the flow of my blood seems to reduce a bit, and instead of getting drenched in a matter of a few seconds like mine had, the gray fabric only turns partially red.
I feel the breath Elhyor finally lets out against my cheek more than I can hear it, as it dawns on both of us that the bleeding has stopped.
But it only lasts a second before an old man with white hair barges inside of Notre Dame, looks at my hand, at the discarded daggers on the ground and my hip, tells me to open my mouth, drops a pill in it, passes a weird scanner over my hand, and smiles.
I guess it’s an easy wound if he smiles.
Then he removes my makeshift hand dressing and sprays something on it. I don’t see what it is, and like for the pill, I don’t complain, even if it stings like a bitch.
In front of my eyes, the spray brings the sides of my wound together and it closes over with an angry red scar.
It still hurts, but there’s no blood gushing out of my hand anymore, and it feels like there’s a thin film protecting the wound on both sides of my hand.
Other than ordering me to open my mouth, the man—the doctor, I should say—hasn’t talked since he arrived.
“Five hundred,” he says as he holds his hand to Elhyor, in a “give me” gesture.
Elhyor doesn’t even question the man, and I see five hundred euros switching hands, just like that.
I could have survived weeks with that. I don’t care about my hand; I want that money instead.
Yeah, I know. I’m ungrateful.
I wait until the man walks back outside of Notre Dame before I try to join Brice in the corridor.
