I ran my healthy fingers over the ones atrophying and stared at them. Without making eye contact with Abraham, I spoke. “After capturing Cinder’s feelings, I held on to them, channeling my energy to send them to Valerie. Then I began to transfer them. Slowly, a little bit at a time. Truthfully, I was shocked how much control I had over the whole process.”
“We have tremendous faculties. You especially haven’t even begun to understand your capabilities. The Rubians are a species not to be messed with.”
Here I was, lying like a pile of bones, and Abraham was waxing poetic.
“I felt my knees go a little weak, but it was the force of the exchange. I’m used to taking on the pain and immediately allowing it to dissipate.”
“I know what you are used to. I’m still waiting for what happened. It was more than the transfer.” He leaned against the wall across from me and waited like he said he would.
“I thought about Blake, and how much she relied on Valerie. You see, Valerie isn’t just a human. Despite the way everyone keeps calling herthe human, Valerie is a person, a mom to a Rubian child, and this has to be an extremely hard time for Blake and her. I couldn’t give her all the pain; she didn’t deserve it. So, I decided to hold on to some and then allow it to dissipate later, seeing as how I had so much control…when I held it in.”
“But.”He said the one tiny word with gritted teeth. “You went unconscious because holding on to the pain yourself wasn’t the task at hand and you short-circuited your own damn powers by trying to control them in a way they were not meant to be controlled. Lord, Tuvy, you really messed up. Do you understand that when you passed out, those emotions funneled in and out of your veins? You stopped the natural process in the transfer, but then when you didn’t send it all to the human…Christ!This is why the tremors started up and the hand is shriveling.”
“I didn’t know it would all go down like that. You have to believe me.” There was no denying that panic had set in. Would I get better? Would I ever be the same?
Yet I had to defend myself against what I had done. Valerie might be angry with all of us, including me, but she was Blake’s mom, and cared. More than my own mother, for sure.
“If you had done what you were told to do, I wouldn’t have to be here. And I’m going to promise you one thing, Tuvy. You willbe the one to explain to your mother what you actually did. Not me. And not because I agree or disagree, but Ezza is Ezza.”
Sucking back fresh tears, my intact hand running over my handicapped one, I stared at Abraham. “If you haven’t noticed, my mother isn’t here.”
He stepped forward, each footfall filled with malice. “No, she is dealing with Valerie, who you have somehow become attached to—”
“Whether we like it or not, we will have a lifetime of Valerie. No matter how much we want to deny it, she is Blake’s mom.”
“Listen, I’ve said all I will say. The serum will help with the hives. But as for your hand and the tremors—those may be irreversible. There is a higher power to what we can do when it comes to blatantly defying orders.You take on pain and let it go.Whether it’s sending it to someone else or allowing it to scatter, you did neither fully. Your body is punishing you.”
He set the serum on the nightstand, turned on his heel, and left without another word.
With Donovan gone, Marley rightfully back with her daughter, and my friends prohibited from coming, I did my best to slide over to the nightstand and pick up the serum. Staring at the label on the bottle, I read the instructions.TAKE TWICE A DAY FOR FIVE DAYS TO INHIBIT HIVES FROM INAPPROPRIATE INTERACTIONS WITH A HUMAN.
It included a dropper to pull the correct dosage, and without waiting, I popped a dose full in my mouth and closed my eyes, allowing myself to feel the cool liquid travel down my throat.
I knew soon I would have to get up and pee and get a drink, maybe order some food. I had to start thinking about myself. As Abraham said, my hand might not heal, and the tremors might not cease. I was alone on a figurative island, and by the time I was allowed to return home, Donovan would likely be on an actual island.
Like I told Prim weeks ago, I was meant to be alone…and I sure was.
Tulya
“Thank you for everything. You didn’t have to do any of it,” I said softly, kissing Marley on the cheek.
“Come on, sweet girl. What you did, even if you didn’t spare Val the whole lot of it, I’d have done it.”
It had been four months since I’d left Rubia. A new year had come, Valentine’s Day passed, and I watched the Easter egg hunt by the pool from my balcony. I’d had two calls from my mother and one from the medic, all three only to check on my progress and to scold me for taking the human’s side.
“Seriously, you didn’t have to, but I’m forever grateful to you.”
Taking my semi-healed hand in hers, Marley looked at me. “You will let me know how Blake is…?” She still got choked up every time she mentioned her granddaughter.
“Of course, and I will call with her on the line. It can be between us.”
I knew from Caro—who checked in every few days—that Blake was living with Magnum and loving the attention from everyone in Rubia except for Cinder, who had taken to the role of wicked stepmother very easily.
“I’m going to work on having Valerie visit. That’s my first order of business when I get back.”
Marley closed her eyes and a tear fell. Her daughter had slid into a deep depression after being forced to leave Blake. She had no way of returning to Rubia without one of us taking her, and so she was stuck waiting…and waiting. It was a pain I didn’t get firsthand as a caretaker, but I did understand as someone who’d held on to memories for months, hoping Donovan would return.
“Your first order is to keep getting better and take care of yourself.”
