Disclaimer: I do not own Amelia Atwater-Rhodes characters but I do own the
ones I created. This story has only just begun and reviews are divinely
appreciated.
Alexander wouldn't have noticed her had not he been stalking Jaguar just long enough to spot one of his own, Triste kin. He had his mind made up about Jaguar to stalk him and make a clean sweep of the job. She was Triste though, their lines were dwindling and so he abandoned his mission, extremely annoyed, and searched the rooms.
He opened the last door down the hall and found her suspended in the air by no other than a leech. The leech made a grunt of disgust and tossed her nonchalant across his right shoulder.
Her body collided with the wall to the right of the doorframe I was standing in.
She dropped seemingly lifeless to the ground and as for her attacker shifted away from the situation before I could join the conflict.
I shook her lightly trying to get a response. "I'm Alexander, Triste line to be exact, and I need you to open your eyes."
She batted those lashes revealing disturbing gray eyes with silver flecks. Such strange eyes under those roman like features with such creamy complexioned skin.
Her hair folded over her shoulders as she stood cradling her arm. Brown chocolate on the verge of an almost black the slight curls filled with tiny diamonds and sticky blood.
She let her bad hand fall limp and with the other moved her hair. The diamonds cascaded to the ground like rain. Pointing to the ribbon that crisscrossed across her back with her good hand she asked pained, "Untie it would you?"
I carefully undid the wide piece of silk to reveal her crème skin stuck with jagged glass and pieces of wet silk.
She gasped as I took my fingertips barely brushing over her back to see how bad it really was. It was ghastly; every inch seemed to be embedded with fine crystal up to the neck. The wounds bleed cherry and she replaced her hair as a loose mask around the brutal cuts.
"Thank you," she said absently. What more I could say to her was beyond what further I could do. She was a bit of a mystery so I stood there as she seemed to think on the same exact thing.
MPOV
I really was bewildered on what to do and my body seemed to be going for number one on the not to do list. Sleep.
I shifted to Caryn's house and believe me I would've like to have avoided the embarrassment whole heartedly but these weren't just bumps and bruises that I could hide under a turtleneck and some sweats.
I had trouble keeping consciousness while striding around the living room trying to wake only Caryn.
The steps were more of a problem because every step I took it seemed to pull on the skin across my spine causing spots to come with the jolts.
I was going to fall backwards pretty soon the edges of my vision were starting to blur and I wasn't halfway up the stairs. Damn my pride then.
"Caryn," I called with little more than a whisper. "Caryn Smoke," I panted trying to raise my voice. It was silent as my knees buckled onto a step and I tried again. "Caryn," I yelled and gripped the rail.
The light switched on blinding me as I twisted with the last of my strength so at least I could protect my back as I went down those stairs.
It wasn't long before I was awake again as Caryn moved my hair the strands caught on some of the glass and I moaned woefully.
I was trying to be a big girl about this but it wasn't only the bleeding or the fact I think a few screws had come loose when Theo had rudely plowed his fist into my collarbone or even the mutilation of my arm.
No, Theo had betrayed me.
"Traitorous leech," I said with as much venom as I could.
I was lying on my chest my bad arm twisted entirely the wrong way in more pain than ever and here Caryn just sat inspecting me and looking me over.
"That bad," I said cynically. She opened her eyes wide she looked like a deer, a deer that had seen a pair of headlights belonging to a semi.
I wondered what kind of semi would I be, a little off the subject but before death seemed a better time than any for all those thoughts you were too busy to carry through with before hand. And as for Caryn, she continued to stare deer eyed at me while I seriously considered making like a semi and knocking some sense into that witch.
That was how, I suppose I knew I was going to die because Caryn made no move to try and heal me or move me somewhere so she could get a better position. Instead she just kind of stood there with her deer headed look, gawking at me.
"I can't heal you until all the glass is out," she said softly, "and you may bleed to death before I can get all of it out." She wiped the blood that was beginning to slip into my eye with the frill of her nightgown. "I can't lift you either, I'm afraid I'll drop you and that may be just enough to snap the spine and collarbone."
I talked in whispers my strength was dwindling and I was feeling rather drowsy and very pissed at Caryn although I suppose Theo was really to blame for my disposition.
"So call someone, Vida if you must," I whispered.
"They won't talk to me they won't even pick up the phone when I call. My line, the Smoke line, is the only one that hasn't turned me out." Caryn sobbed.
"Silver, Arun, Light, anyone but Triste," I spouted.
"I don't know their names, I'm sorry, she wept I don't know anyone that could, could...."
"All right I said don't start the waterworks, just let me think. Let me..." the stupor was coming back and a boy with golden eyes looked back at me behind my lids.
"Alexander," it came out in a whisper as Caryn sobbed but I was no longer listening to her. I was trying to call his name but my mouth was no longer working and my lids wouldn't lift.
I don't really know where I am, which scared me more than the beckoning death.
APOV
It was like speeding through traffic, although traffic seemed a little more normal to be speeding by than matter, because suddenly I materialized in Caryn Smoke's living room with little more sense of how I got their to who was lying on the floor.
Caryn was sobbing as I approached she screeched in surprise then got up and took my hand. She placed my palms specifically where I needed to lift her and how and we moved her to the kitchen table.
Disappearing and reappearing with bandages and tweezers she worked swiftly and skillfully.
Her eyes were huge in her head and she was starting to pluck the pieces. It dawned on me who this girl was pretty late but if you had arrived by someone else's will you might have been a little late on introductions as well.
She shoved a pair of the tweezers in my hands and as if on an operating table piece by piece we extracted every sliver long into the night without so much as a grown from our patient. I began to think we were extracting crystal from a corpse.
Caryn did a thorough inspection of the job and finally started to heal the cracks in her collarbone, spine, then her arm and by the time she had healed mostly everything to perfection besides the scratch above her left eye she was pretty tired to say the least.
Caryn collapsed pretty much after that. I dutifully took her upstairs and placed her in her bed opening the shades to let the moon shine in.
I then went back downstairs and raided Caryn's bathroom for a smaller band- aid for the mystery girl's gash and was fortunate to find a Dora band-aid. Smoothing the band-aid above her brow I was about to transport her to the couch when she stirred.
She fell drowsily off the table and I did my best to catch her. Whoever she was just kind of sat there her arm slung around my neck, which I didn't really mind at all considering I didn't usually get to comfort the damsel in distress.
Her head tilted up to me with those glassy eyes that seemed to glow and she tried out my name.
"Alexander?" she asked groggily and I nodded.
"Miranda," she said to me in a whisper and that was all the introduction she needed to enter dreamland from there.
Alexander wouldn't have noticed her had not he been stalking Jaguar just long enough to spot one of his own, Triste kin. He had his mind made up about Jaguar to stalk him and make a clean sweep of the job. She was Triste though, their lines were dwindling and so he abandoned his mission, extremely annoyed, and searched the rooms.
He opened the last door down the hall and found her suspended in the air by no other than a leech. The leech made a grunt of disgust and tossed her nonchalant across his right shoulder.
Her body collided with the wall to the right of the doorframe I was standing in.
She dropped seemingly lifeless to the ground and as for her attacker shifted away from the situation before I could join the conflict.
I shook her lightly trying to get a response. "I'm Alexander, Triste line to be exact, and I need you to open your eyes."
She batted those lashes revealing disturbing gray eyes with silver flecks. Such strange eyes under those roman like features with such creamy complexioned skin.
Her hair folded over her shoulders as she stood cradling her arm. Brown chocolate on the verge of an almost black the slight curls filled with tiny diamonds and sticky blood.
She let her bad hand fall limp and with the other moved her hair. The diamonds cascaded to the ground like rain. Pointing to the ribbon that crisscrossed across her back with her good hand she asked pained, "Untie it would you?"
I carefully undid the wide piece of silk to reveal her crème skin stuck with jagged glass and pieces of wet silk.
She gasped as I took my fingertips barely brushing over her back to see how bad it really was. It was ghastly; every inch seemed to be embedded with fine crystal up to the neck. The wounds bleed cherry and she replaced her hair as a loose mask around the brutal cuts.
"Thank you," she said absently. What more I could say to her was beyond what further I could do. She was a bit of a mystery so I stood there as she seemed to think on the same exact thing.
MPOV
I really was bewildered on what to do and my body seemed to be going for number one on the not to do list. Sleep.
I shifted to Caryn's house and believe me I would've like to have avoided the embarrassment whole heartedly but these weren't just bumps and bruises that I could hide under a turtleneck and some sweats.
I had trouble keeping consciousness while striding around the living room trying to wake only Caryn.
The steps were more of a problem because every step I took it seemed to pull on the skin across my spine causing spots to come with the jolts.
I was going to fall backwards pretty soon the edges of my vision were starting to blur and I wasn't halfway up the stairs. Damn my pride then.
"Caryn," I called with little more than a whisper. "Caryn Smoke," I panted trying to raise my voice. It was silent as my knees buckled onto a step and I tried again. "Caryn," I yelled and gripped the rail.
The light switched on blinding me as I twisted with the last of my strength so at least I could protect my back as I went down those stairs.
It wasn't long before I was awake again as Caryn moved my hair the strands caught on some of the glass and I moaned woefully.
I was trying to be a big girl about this but it wasn't only the bleeding or the fact I think a few screws had come loose when Theo had rudely plowed his fist into my collarbone or even the mutilation of my arm.
No, Theo had betrayed me.
"Traitorous leech," I said with as much venom as I could.
I was lying on my chest my bad arm twisted entirely the wrong way in more pain than ever and here Caryn just sat inspecting me and looking me over.
"That bad," I said cynically. She opened her eyes wide she looked like a deer, a deer that had seen a pair of headlights belonging to a semi.
I wondered what kind of semi would I be, a little off the subject but before death seemed a better time than any for all those thoughts you were too busy to carry through with before hand. And as for Caryn, she continued to stare deer eyed at me while I seriously considered making like a semi and knocking some sense into that witch.
That was how, I suppose I knew I was going to die because Caryn made no move to try and heal me or move me somewhere so she could get a better position. Instead she just kind of stood there with her deer headed look, gawking at me.
"I can't heal you until all the glass is out," she said softly, "and you may bleed to death before I can get all of it out." She wiped the blood that was beginning to slip into my eye with the frill of her nightgown. "I can't lift you either, I'm afraid I'll drop you and that may be just enough to snap the spine and collarbone."
I talked in whispers my strength was dwindling and I was feeling rather drowsy and very pissed at Caryn although I suppose Theo was really to blame for my disposition.
"So call someone, Vida if you must," I whispered.
"They won't talk to me they won't even pick up the phone when I call. My line, the Smoke line, is the only one that hasn't turned me out." Caryn sobbed.
"Silver, Arun, Light, anyone but Triste," I spouted.
"I don't know their names, I'm sorry, she wept I don't know anyone that could, could...."
"All right I said don't start the waterworks, just let me think. Let me..." the stupor was coming back and a boy with golden eyes looked back at me behind my lids.
"Alexander," it came out in a whisper as Caryn sobbed but I was no longer listening to her. I was trying to call his name but my mouth was no longer working and my lids wouldn't lift.
I don't really know where I am, which scared me more than the beckoning death.
APOV
It was like speeding through traffic, although traffic seemed a little more normal to be speeding by than matter, because suddenly I materialized in Caryn Smoke's living room with little more sense of how I got their to who was lying on the floor.
Caryn was sobbing as I approached she screeched in surprise then got up and took my hand. She placed my palms specifically where I needed to lift her and how and we moved her to the kitchen table.
Disappearing and reappearing with bandages and tweezers she worked swiftly and skillfully.
Her eyes were huge in her head and she was starting to pluck the pieces. It dawned on me who this girl was pretty late but if you had arrived by someone else's will you might have been a little late on introductions as well.
She shoved a pair of the tweezers in my hands and as if on an operating table piece by piece we extracted every sliver long into the night without so much as a grown from our patient. I began to think we were extracting crystal from a corpse.
Caryn did a thorough inspection of the job and finally started to heal the cracks in her collarbone, spine, then her arm and by the time she had healed mostly everything to perfection besides the scratch above her left eye she was pretty tired to say the least.
Caryn collapsed pretty much after that. I dutifully took her upstairs and placed her in her bed opening the shades to let the moon shine in.
I then went back downstairs and raided Caryn's bathroom for a smaller band- aid for the mystery girl's gash and was fortunate to find a Dora band-aid. Smoothing the band-aid above her brow I was about to transport her to the couch when she stirred.
She fell drowsily off the table and I did my best to catch her. Whoever she was just kind of sat there her arm slung around my neck, which I didn't really mind at all considering I didn't usually get to comfort the damsel in distress.
Her head tilted up to me with those glassy eyes that seemed to glow and she tried out my name.
"Alexander?" she asked groggily and I nodded.
"Miranda," she said to me in a whisper and that was all the introduction she needed to enter dreamland from there.