"Stop sticking your nose...in places it doesn't belong."
Vica twisted back around with the wet rag in her hands only half-wrung. The cool water sloshed against the sides of the wooden bucket in the silence. Constantine? Awake? Finally, after four days he was finally able to stay awake long enough to string together coherent words, even if his voice was so raspy and weak that it sounded as if his throat had been ripped out.
"I can do what I want," she said, and turned to resume wringing the rest of the water out of the rag. "Are you going to stay awake this time?"
"Probably not." He coughed, and his body jerked as if even that small movement tore into him. "It's better to sleep until there aren't small blue men crawling all over me and trying to gouge my eyes out."
"Mattheus told me the
