30
PUTTING IT MILDLY
I’m getting sick of waking up disoriented. Still, memory floods me with what I’d just as soon forget. And if Niall’s blood helped, I must be in sorry shape. Thick white bandages cover my limbs. I lose count of butterfly bandages after 30. Some of the longer cuts have multiple butterflies. My body aches as though I’ve been hit by a bus. The throbbing in my head makes me glad I can’t take in much light through the slits of my swollen eyes.
Yet, for the first time in a long time, I feel calm. The absence of terror is freeing. Distantly, I hear Darcy scratching in his litter box and the sound is comforting. Home.
Jo walks into her bedroom smiling. “Good morning, ma guerriere.”
I smile at her. She crosses the room and kisses my hair. “I don’t know about warrior. But I
