The Luna Sage

Chapter Two: Into the Fire

I tossed against the fog and darkness that swarmed me.

I tried to force my eyes open.

I tried to move my arms, finding my elbow obeyed, but it hit something solid and my eyes sprung open at the noise of a sharp intake.

I was met with blazing green eyes, filled with a mix of rage and confusion.

"I'm not dead?" The words slipped out, and I tried to sit up, pushing against the bed I lay on, instantly regretting it as pain bloomed in my right shoulder and fell onto my back, gripping it and hissing.

The woman beside me just stared at me.

She held her stomach with one hand, almost absentmindedly at this point, and a brown clipboard in the other.

I tried to move away from her, sensing what she was before my ears were filled with booming laughter of pure delight.

It sang across the air, a beautiful sound I found myself laughing with.

Her fiery long red curls bounced as her hand pressed into her stomach and she started fanning her soft lightly tanned skin with the clipboard I realised was filled with paperwork and charts.

"Oh I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting that from you." She chuckled wholeheartedly in a sweetly accented voice I'd only heard in an old movie once. It soothed me.

Her hands moved, blood-red nails reaching out to expertly grab my wrist with two fingers and a thumb, turning her attention to the charts and scanning the pages before tossing them at the foot of the bed. I started to dodge but found I didn't need to since it smacked into the bedframe below my feet and slid into the holder on the other side.

"I've thrown a few folders in my life," the redhead announces proudly, moving from my wrist to move the gown to the side on my right shoulder.

She peeled off the taped gauze that wrapped over my shoulder, checked the wounds underneath and then pulled it off fully.

"So, before you start askin', I'm Bev." She said, absentmindedly, as she walked around the bed to my right side, grabbing a silver tray on a rolling cart and pulling it towards her. Her other hand pulled the roll bar down from the side of the bed and then plonked herself onto the bed beside me.

She grabbed some cleaning wipes and started working on my shoulder. I didn't look, I just gritted my teeth and looked out the window to my left. I couldn't see anything but the tops of trees and the sky.

It looked like it was maybe midday, but the roof that just peaked when I leaned up before being pushed back to bed by Bev, gave me no indication of where I was or how long I'd been there.

As if hearing my thoughts, Bev started speaking again.

"Been out for three days. We weren't too sure how well you could heal, so I gave you stitches, which I removed this morning. Your knee was dislocated, but we reset it, and it seems to be going fine. You still have cuts and bruises, but they're in the final stages of healing." She wiped my shoulder with a strong-smelling rag, making me scrunch my nose, and then hiss from the sudden sting.

I tried to stay as still as possible, feeling the unnatural tension that erupted from her, she kept speaking.

"You look like it's not your first fight, so I guess you should know, you heal a lot faster than a human, but still keep an eye on your shoulder." She relaxed into a familiar routine, working away and leaning close at the last bit.

I saw rage in her eyes flare and blackness began to swarm.

I nodded quickly, swallowing fear.

Continuing her work, she applied an ointment that smelt of antiseptic and then taped a new bandage over the already sealed wound. The area was still puckered and red, a star-shaped cut into the puckering. A week or so and it'd be gone.

"Come back in about a week, so I can check it, or earlier if you're concerned." She said absently, pushing the tray away and turning to pull the covers off me and inspect my leg.

I was wearing a clean light blue medical gown that reached above my knees, medical lines poked out from the sleeves that touched my forearms when I bent them, and they led up to two bags that hung from a metal pole behind my bed. The room had a TV hung off the roof, but a blue curtain obscured my vision behind Bev.

I could feel they had put me in at least underwear from the uncomfortable tightness I felt around my core.

Bev busied herself and started to prod gently around the slightly swollen and black bruised knee.

It looked worse with how pale my skin was.

I pulled at the ends of my dusty white hair, devoid of the dyes and colours I'd tried to use to cover it throughout my escape.

Of course, nothing stuck, my hair never absorbed the mixtures I made and within a day or so, all the dye would run clear, leaving me with my silver mane of curls.

The only thing that stuck to it was dirt.

"Looks good," Bev muttered suddenly, pulling the covers off and standing to face me, hands on her hips.

I looked up at her as she held out her hands, palms up.

"Wanna try standing for me?" Her voice rang softly and a gorgeous smile spread across her ruby lips.

I found myself reaching out and turning in the bed to face her.

She helped me scoot forward, still holding one of my hands as my feet touched the icy ground.

I gritted a hiss and forced myself to put weight on the legs I could barely feel.

It was numb with the course of healing magic, just strong enough to knit the bones right and give me about another week of limping.

Surprisingly, they held, much to my surprise, minor pains that fought through my numbness shot up my left knee, but it held.

"Good, good," Bev muttered, reaching for the chart. She eyed me for a second, a brow raised before I nodded, and she slowly released the arm she'd been holding to support me.

I wobbled, but she was back before I could even correct myself, arm looped around my forearm and holding me steady. The chart had ended up on the bed, and she was writing in it with her free hand, snapping it closed to a cream-coloured folder cover before I could peek into it.

She turned to me, extending her reach to just hold my hand.

Her eyes turned dark, and I realised it was too late, unable to run, her hand gripped mine painfully.

"You have someone waitin' for you." She smiled, pulling me behind her, all the sweetness I'd felt from her gone. Now it was a brutal coldness I didn't think a doctor could house.

She's a she-Wolf. My Soul-Self whispered.

I gulped and hobbled feebly to follow her, she shoved the curtain back and pulled me through a door, taking me out of the room I was in. We stood in a hallway, multiple other rooms dotted the walls, but none had two large men standing before them like the one we exited.

Bev nodded at both the men, who nodded without even meeting her gaze, only glaring at me angrily as I was pulled along, down the brown wooden hall.

We continued for a few more minutes before stopping abruptly at an elevator door.

My breath hitched at the sight of the cream-chipped painted doors, a memory threatening to spill over.

Nails dug into my wrist and I wince in pain, staring up at Bev who had pulled me from my thoughts.

"Don't you try anything Witch, I will kill you." She hissed angrily, throwing me into the elevator as soon as the door slid open.

Tears spilled and I couldn't find the strength to wipe them away as she stepped in next to me and slapped the top button marked Pent.

"Wait, this isn't a hospital either?" I asked, biting my lip instantly when the words slipped.

I prepare for pain, closing my eyes tightly only to spring them open when Bev starts laughing her musical laughter again, soothing my mind.

"Mother of f**k girly, you sure are lost, huh?" She muttered, shaking her fire head of hair in disbelief. "No, we're not in a hospital. Or heaven." She said after a moment, her voice turning hard again.