There was an itch, a hotness all over her skin. She pulled her attention to it and realised that it wasn’t on her skin. It was in her skin, within her body, coursing through her system. The blood in her veins was burning, running hot, trying to burst through the paper-thin layer holding it in.
She sucked in a lungful of air and winced as her fragile ribs expanded. The beeping of the machine near her head infiltrated her consciousness as she sank back down to the dark.
***
In the darkness he howled with hot frustration. He was so close. It was almost time to wake up. His plan was perfect, ready to be enacted. His motivation: revenge. He could wrap it up in any packaging he liked, tied with a bow, notions about saving mankind, philanthropic deeds, but, in the end, it was revenge, plain and simple, that spurred him on.
Now he would have to deviate from his plan. Find what they had stolen from him.
How was he going to get it back?
Sometimes in war, there are casualties. In the darkness, he repeated this phrase over and over again.
When the time was right, he would have to kill an innocent.
One life to save so many others.
He had no choice.
***
Day Five:
A soft weight settled on the edge of her bed.
‘Kara?’
Kara forced her eyelids open, the neon light in her room overpowering. Then slowly, ever so slowly, shapes began to form, blurred and misaligned. There was something wrong with her eyes. She couldn’t see.
Day Eleven:
‘But why can’t I focus properly?’ her voice croaked. She sipped the glass of water the nurse held for her, letting the cool liquid ease her dry throat.
‘Your body has been through a very traumatic experience, Kara. It’s going to take time to . . . readjust.’ The doctor scanned the chart, his pen skimming the page, checking her vitals. He didn’t make eye contact with her.
Kara wanted to kick the table that the nurse had wheeled across the hospital bed. It contained her breakfast tray. A bowl of something resembling porridge and a sliced apple, slowly browning, was supposed to tempt her to eat. No chance.
She hated porridge. Why were these people so stupid? None of them were telling her the truth. It wasn’t typical to be sporadically blind, her vision wavering in and out of focus at odd intervals. It wasn’t commonplace for her hearing to pop, her eardrums thumping with pain, paralysing deafness overcoming her. Smells that churned her stomach to the point where she gagged; this sort of stuff was not normal. She was not normal.
And her skin . . . How could the doctor explain that? Flares of searing heat across her body. She wanted to scratch, rake the cells from her skin, if it meant for one minute an easing of the torturous pain.
‘Why have you reduced my morphine?’ she asked, her jaw tight in an effort to keep her tone even.
‘I spoke to you about this, Kara. We need your body’s defences back online. You have to start coping with recovery independent of the morphine. It’s going to be a slow and, at times, painful process, but you can’t rely on a drug to get you through this.’
Why not? she wanted to ask. Why can’t I rely on a drug? What’s the point of modern medicine if you can’t rely on it?
Kara kept her lips closed tight, envisaging flinging the food tray towards the doctor’s head.
Day Twelve:
‘Really, Mrs Bailey, I can’t see anything to be worried about. Her recovery has progressed excellently. In fact, I’ve rarely seen anyone heal as quickly as Kara has done.’
The loud conversation butted into her dream, pulling her back to reality. They were talking about her. Kara remained still, her breathing deep.
Rosemary’s voice sounded high-pitched, panicky. ‘Are you sure?’
What was happening?
‘The stitches in her head are holding perfectly, the hair is already growing back and all her fractures are knitting together better than expected. You have nothing to worry about.’ The doctor sounded confident, too confident, like he had rehearsed this speech many times.
Then it happened, a bubble of silence. One minute she could hear everything like normal, then this. It was like a pothole of deafness. She would fall into it and simply have to wait, hoping that her hearing would return. Sometimes it was only for a second, sometimes it was for longer.
‘. . . but in the operating theatre . . . the seizures . . .’ Rosemary’s voice hissed low in a loud whisper.
What seizures? Nobody had informed Kara about any seizures.
‘I told you, Mrs Bailey, your stepdaughter is going to be just fine. Everything is completely normal.’
‘If you’re sure that removing the morphine is a good idea . . .’
Kara felt a cold hand on her forearm just above her wrist.
‘I’m positive,’ reassured the doctor.
There was a soft sucking sound and a jab of pain at the back of her right hand. Kara opened her eyes in surprise.
***
It was time. He opened his eyes.
***
Day Twelve and a Quarter:
Kara’s back arched off the bed as another convulsion shook her. Beads of sweat clotted together on her forehead. Her body was on fire.
This is it. I’m going to explode out of my skin.
All around her the air hummed. She tried to breathe through the bursts of pain, but it was almost impossible. The machines next to her head beeped, sending shrill noise around the room. The nurse tried to still her limbs, tried to push Kara’s head back against the pillow. Rosemary stood at the end of the bed, her eyes open wide, her face the colour of a boiled dishcloth.
‘Please,’ Kara moaned, her teeth gritted tight, biting the inside of her cheek. ‘Please.’ She didn’t know who she was talking to or what she was asking for, but it was the only word she could articulate.
She wanted only one thing: for the pain to stop.
***
He blinked. Everything was blurred, his vision correcting itself slowly after such a long time inactive. He mentally scanned his body. His limbs felt as if they belonged to someone else. A dull ache radiated through him like a second pulse.
He flexed his muscles. They burned with the pain of inaction. He could feel the cold stillness of the long sleep; it had been many months.
He remembered that night, an age ago. All that blood before passing out into oblivion. That had been the first time. The second time, there had been no blood, just a clean free fall and the thump of a body.
The memory upset him, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.
He switched his attention to his surroundings.
How was he going to get out unnoticed? It was important to get away without being seen.
He let his mind wander for a moment, imagining what he would do when he found what they’d stolen from him. He wondered if the blood had taken hold? If it had overridden the host body?
He felt a flicker of apprehension. Should he be held accountable for this as well? He had to get out of here. He strained his bicep, trying to move his arm. It barely twitched.
Patience. He was not ready yet; his body needed a little more time to wake up, to remember how to move, to remember the speed, and strength, a hundred per cent, no, a thousand per cent, stronger than anything he had felt before.
His body was readjusting, his senses reawakening. There were some issues: his eyesight was taking time to realign; he could hear well enough, but every now and then his hearing would muffle.