“How bad are your ribs?”
She gives me a murderous look. “Fine,” she replies curtly.
“Ez?” Elias asks and she sighs, loud and long.
“Not that bad,” she amends.
When it’s clear the three of us aren’t going to let it go, she grabs the hem of her shirt and tugs it up until the side of her bra is showing. There’s already a massive fucking bruise growing and it’s been under half an hour.
“It looks like he fractured a damn rib,” I snarl, reaching out to gently probe the area.
She hisses in pain and Soren smacks his hand on the counter, absolutely furious. “They’re supposed to protect you, not fucking beat you!” he thunders.
Despite her protests, the four of us climb into her car and I drive us to the hospital while she gets checked out. When a skeevy doctor tells her to get undressed so he can inspect her fully, Elias beats us to the punch, chewing him out before demanding another doctor. After that, Soren and I refuse to leave the room, but turn our backs when she takes her shirt off, sitting in her shorts and bra for the doctor to examine her.
She goes for an x-ray, Elias with her every step of the way despite her protests, and an hour later the doctor returns to show us the scans. I’ve been at this a long damn time, and it’s clear there’s evidence of other healed fractures in her charts as well.
I was right, we should have just taken her away from this place.
An hour later we’re at our house, since I can’t promise Ren and I wouldn’t kill her brothers right about now. She’s lying on the couch with an icepack on her side while Soren and I argue with Elias.
“Look!” he finally shouts. “Do you think I fucking like this either? No! But don’t bullshit me and pretend you don’t know what it’s like out there right now. If something happens, nobody is going to play fair and they aren’t going to attack her one on one. No pulling punches and no letting her catch her breath. She needs to know how to fight through the pain, how to deal with multiple people attacking her at once, if anything were to happen.”
“What’s going on, Eli?” Ezra asks cautiously, and he turns to her with pain and indecision radiating off of him.
“It’s...it’s bad, Ez. The world is going to shit and it’s only getting worse. I don’t know how much longer Hadeon is going to be safe,” he finally admits and I watch Ezra’s face flash with hurt.
She whispers, “You were still hiding stuff from me, still lying.”
“Ez,” he starts, but she cuts him off.
“No. Just...why don’t you go check on the others. I think I’m going to hang out here for a while.” He tries to protest, but the look she gives him is so cold he stops in his tracks. “Go home, Elias. I love you, but I don’t particularly want to be around any of you right now.”
Pain flashes across his face before he steels himself and leaves without a word. The three of us sit there in awkward silence for a long stretch of time, giving her a chance to wrap her head around things without pissing her off. Soren swaps out her ice pack as I make us something to eat, just needing something to do with my hands to stay busy.
She sits up on the couch as I hand her a plate, sighing heavily, but seeming more like herself. “Alright, start talking. No veiled answers, no hiding shit. What’s going on?”
I share a look with Soren as we both sit down to pick at our food. He nods, and I wish Cai was here to give his approval, but you snooze you lose.
“No one knows exactly everything going on, to be honest.” At her look, I hurry to elaborate. “Just like here, you have TV, right?” She nods. “But it’s closed circuit. Each station only covers a small area and they broadcast what they want. It looks like here they’ve completely omitted global news. I don’t know if your brothers had a hand in that or if it’s whoever runs the station wants to keep people from panicking.
“There isn’t just one giant war between humans and dragons, Ezra; people are getting stressed. Testosterone and hatred are running at an all-time high which leads people to do some terrible things.”
Soren interjects. “In a nutshell? People are starting to panic. No children means a lot of people lost their jobs. There are some that go to extremes to try to get their hands on a mate so they can get the power boost, putting high bounties out. A lot of pent up aggression means people are breaking into fights not only over territory, but anything.”
I sigh, guessing the real thing her brothers were trying to protect her from. “And there is a growing movement that wants to take away women’s personal rights for the good of the species and force them to be breeders. With it being primarily men in positions of power now that the female leaders were massacred, it very well could pass.”
She doesn’t look horrified like I imagined she would.
She looks fucking pissed.
“Are you fucking kidding me!? Some horny asshats are just going to decide women aren’t people anymore, chain them in some lab, and call it good? Let them be raped and pop out babies like a t-shirt cannon at a concert? What the fuck?” she shouts.
Well, that’s a visual I’ll never be able to forget.
“What about women that are already mated? Are they going to just tear them from their homes and expect that from them too? Or are we just talking about the women that haven’t shifted so can’t protect themselves?” she demands.
“You’re shirt’s smoking,” I helpfully point out and she scowls, trying to dial back her rage.
