The Night Children

Chapter 20

Edited. 

I was staring at corpse. Bluing lips, thinned eyelids, sunken veins, cheeks drained of blood. She could've been placed in a grave and I would've acknowledged her as someone claimed in the afterlife.

The only indicator she remained in reality were the machines who granted her a second chance at living. Drips, cords, pipes and other devices were embedded in her skin, tracing back up into several beating devices.

"Ten minutes only," Lola said softly from beside me with a small smile. With a quick glance to Aleena, she closed the door behind me.

I was alone in a room riddled with guilt. As I crept forwards, a dark, curious part of me wanted to see her leg. Was her flesh still torn? Did the bullet remain wedged in between the sockets of her bones?

Don't be ridiculous, she is fine. You saw Harry take the bullet out, I hissed to myself.

Aleena's breaths were shallow, her lungs creaking in an attempt to gain oxygen. I didn't take my eyes off her as I took a seat next to her bed.

It was hard to gage how vulnerable we were once removed from our advantages. I wondered if Aleena saw me like this, stuck in a semi coma for a week. Did she look down at me and feel helpless? Did she wish she was in my place as I felt now?

I swallowed the rising bile in my throat. Light scratches wove a web across her face, inflaming at the edges from the beginnings of an infection. A purpling bruise was gradually swelling under her right eye.

Hot, guilty tears pricked the back of my eyes. Two words rested in my mind, pressing like hot irons behind my eyelids.

I'm sorry.

I could mouth the words, play them in my tongue, feel them grind in my teeth, spit them out like venom. But I knew Aleena would never allow me to utter those two words. She would never forgive me for lowering myself. 'Apologies a better left unsaid. Words don't count as a sorry. If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done what you did in the first place.' Aleena used to quote those lines on a daily basis. 'Own what you did, you can't take it back with a sorry.'

I couldn't own this; I didn't want to own this. This guilt that stabbed my pelvis, suffocating me. I wanted more than anything to say those words, to acknowledge them. I was sorry. It should be me in the coma. It should be me.

Reaching out with shaky hands, I wrapped my cold fingers around hers. Aleena's were icy in comparison.

I squeezed her hand slightly. There was no response.

So instead of succumbing to my thoughts, I took in a shuddering breath. "Well Ally, it seems we bit off more than we could chew."

Her heart monitor was the only response I got. Tilting my head up higher as if the guilt would seep out of my toes, I felt my lips press together. "I saw him, my wolf. He was there Aleena, he saved me."

I didn't know what to expect. Would her eyes open? Would her honey brown irises narrow onto mine? Would her lips curve into a rare smile?

I swallowed. "He carried me to the Deputy but was shot in the process. I-I think he was shot with the same bullet as you." My admitting's swamped me, whirling around me. This was no longer disappearances. Kids were being shot by the Brookefield Murderer. Their bodies would be colder than Aleena's.

I searched Aleena's face. She looked younger, her face free of any makeup. She was just a girl. Sometimes it was hard to believe she wasn't an emotionless rock.