Chapter Fifty
"Excuse me. Sir?"
Kurogane surfaced as if from a dream, his eyelids heavy, his body much too relaxed, his senses dull. When he realized Doctor Yamura had not only come within five feet of him without waking him up, but was looming over him in a way that ought to be impossible for her physique, he jumped in his chair. "What?"
"Your son is out of surgery."
It took him a moment to remember that he'd identified himself as Syaoran's father to get through the paperwork. "Uh . . . okay."
The doctor gave him an odd look, drumming her fingers against the back of her clipboard. "He's in the ICU, if you want to see him."
"The ICU?"
"Intensive Care Unit." Doctor Yamura stepped back as he stood, eyes flashing wide as he towered over her. "Um . . . that's in the South Wing. Room four-forty-one." She pointed. "If you want, I can have one of the staff escort you—"
"No." He started walking in the indicated direction, feeling the woman's eyes on the back of his neck. "I'll find it."
Panels of light illuminated the pristine hallways, reflecting off trays of sharp instruments, syringes, and other, unidentifiable equipment. As he passed the rows of tools, he couldn't help but think of the basement where they'd found the kid, of the bladed instruments strewn across the workbench. Couldn't help but think about the lacerations on the boy's chest, or the beaten, broken look in his eyes when they'd swaddled him in blankets.
Kurogane started walking faster, as if he could put the nightmares out of his mind. It took him less than a minute to reach the ICU, and less than thirty seconds after that to find the appropriate room. When he walked in, his eyes froze on the figure lying limp on the bed. A sheen of sweat glistened on Syaoran's pallid skin, and the bruises on his face looked dark and splotchy.
Without a thought, Kurogane strode over and knelt beside the bed, his hand closing over Syaoran's. The boy didn't respond, didn't even twitch, and somehow, that scared Kurogane even more than seeing him chained to a wall. His hand tightened around the boy's icy fingers, then froze as a tiny thought lodged itself in his mind.
Where are his fingernails?
He turned the boy's hand over, being careful of all the wiring and medical equipment, and examined his fingers, throat tightening. A crust of blood covered each fingertip where there should've been a nail, and even the nurses' best efforts to clean him off hadn't been scrubbed away the browning residue around his cuticles.
Damn it, Kurogane thought, breathing in, then exhaling as he tried to keep the emotion building in the back of his throat in check. I should've killed those bastards. Curse be damned, I should've killed them.
Sixteen hours. That was how long the kid had been tortured. Just sixteen hours. Yet now he was lying in a hospital bed, unconscious, his body carpeted in bandages and an IV dripping clear fluid into his bloodstream, and Kurogane felt as useless as he had when Fei Wang Reed had stuck a sword through his mother's heart.
The monitors to Syaoran's left maintained a steady rhythm, like a clock marking time. The ninja didn't know how long he sat there before he heard a faint knock on the wall. He glanced up, reflexively releasing the boy's hand, and saw of Fai standing in the doorway with a paper bag reeking of grease and salt. "I wasn't sure when Syaoran-kun would be out of surgery, so I went to get food."
Kurogane stood, trying not to look at the unmoving lump under the sheets as Fai handed him the paper bag. He squeezed himself into another padded chair and unrolled the top, hardly caring about the crap quality of the food.
"I called Sakura-chan," Fai continued as Kurogane ate, taking a seat in the chair beside him and looking down at the floor. "I'm going back to the apartment in a few minutes so I can walk her here. It's not safe to be outside alone in this world."
Kurogane wanted to point out that it was safer now than it had been before he'd knocked that redheaded bastard unconscious, but there were more pressing questions. "You put me under a sleep spell, didn't you? After I sat down?" Don't you dare deny it, you bastard, he thought, remembering how disoriented he'd felt waking up, how he still felt groggy now despite the pit of unease in his stomach.
"Yes. You needed it."
"You could've said something."
"You never would've agreed to it."
"Of course not! Why the hell would I want to sleep? I could've—"
"You didn't miss anything. The surgery went well, and the doctors stitched up all the lacerations. You would've been bored."
"I would've been alert." There's a difference, damn it.
"I was trying to be nice!" Fai snapped. Kurogane blinked, stunned into silence by the frustration in the mage's voice. "You'd tell all of us to take care of ourselves in the same situation—why shouldn't I get to do the same?"
His voice whipped out, pitched low, but laced with cold fury. "I wouldn't be so bitter about it."
A wave of visceral pleasure washed over him as the mage flinched. He crossed his arms. Fai looked down, saying nothing.
On the bed, the kid stirred.
They both jumped to their feet, looming over the thin mattress as Syaoran's head lolled to the side. Kurogane glanced toward the door, unsure if he should call one of the nurses in or let the kid wake up on his own. He half-considered asking the mage to pull him from his sleep with magic, then groaned internally at how ridiculous that was. The kid was tough. He'd bounce back.
Yet he'd been so quiet, back in that basement. The exhaustion, the weariness, those were expected, but it was more than that. He'd looked defeated.
As if they'd broken him.
"Kid?" His own voice sounded foreign to his ears. Dread settling in his stomach like rotten meat, sickening. Kurogane closed his eyes and took a breath. Calm the fuck down, he told himself. He's fine. He's always fine.
"Syaoran-kun," Fai murmured, resting his palm over the boy's forearm. Kurogane's eyes flashed to the point of contact, his hands bunching into fists at his side. Surprise flickered across the mage's face, and his fingers loosened. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Kurogane snapped. "I'm not the one you should be asking."
An odd look crossed the wizard's face, as if something had just clicked into place for him. He turned his attention back to Syaoran. "The doctors said he'd be groggy when he woke up. If he doesn't seem the same—"
"I know." He took another deep breath, eyes flashing to the boy's left hand as it twitched with the beginnings of awareness.
The mage said nothing, eyes far away, as if seeing some distant world.
Several minutes went by without a word. The rhythmic beep of the monitors gradually accelerated, though if Kurogane hadn't been listening for it, he wouldn't have noticed. He'd learned enough of medical care from previous worlds to understand the purpose of these beeping machines. In a way, it was no more effective than pressing two fingers to someone's neck to ascertain whether or not they still had a pulse. Another unnecessary addition to something that had existed for centuries, like the extra words for healer. As the minutes passed, the signs of consciousness grew more pronounced. When a soft whimper escaped Syaoran's throat, Kurogane leaned forward. "Kid? You up?"
The whimper turned to a groan. Syaoran started to roll over, then froze, a hiss of pain breaking through his teeth. And all Kurogane could think was It must be bad if he's not even trying to hide his pain.
"Syaoran-kun, can you open your eyes?" Fai leaned forward, a hopeful smile curving up his lips. The faint cheer looked so false, Kurogane wanted to hit him. Which was nothing new, really. It was only by the grace of quick reflexes that the mage had never taken a bad hit from him.
The boy's eyelids scrunched up, his eyebrows slanting back. His fingers coiled around the sheets, and his breathing sped. The blood drained out of his face, leaving it more pallid than before.
"Go get the princess," Kurogane ordered. "Bring her here. Don't lose track of her."
Fai winced at the unspoken accusation, but rose. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes." And he fled, rushing out the open door as if there was something chasing him.
Kurogane rested his palm across a section of the boy's arm where there were no scrapes. "All right. The mage is gone. Open your eyes and talk to me."
Syaoran fidgeted, face drawn, shoulders tight. His eyelids fluttered, revealing haunted, hollow eyes. Kurogane looked at him for a moment, trying to detect some semblance of normalcy, some indication that the damage was only physical.
The kid's eyes drifted away from his face, glazed and bloodshot. "Where am I?"
"The hospital. You're safe." Saying the words eased the tightness in his throat. "You're safe," he said again, closing his eyes for a brief moment, allowing himself to feel the relief.
"And those people, back in the basement?"
"Arrested. All of them." Or they would be, if they weren't already. The mage had taken care of that little detail while he'd been signing papers to approve the kid's surgery.
"I wish they were dead."
Kurogane froze, the words running down his back like a ice cube. Wanting someone dead. He knew that feeling, knew there were people who deserved to die, people who had died, either at his hand or at others', but to hear the kid say so . . . Disquiet dug its fingers into his back.
"It's a horrible thing to say," Syaoran continued, his voice dull. "But it's true."
"Listen," he said, changing the topic. "You're going to be fine. You got hurt and the doctors stitched you up, but you're going to be fine, got it?"
The boy said nothing, only looking at him with the same awful blankness of a moment ago. Then, he closed his eyes. "I'm starving."
"Do you want me to bring you something?" He started to stand, then froze when Syaoran's eyes flashed open. A feral desperation swept across his face, made more intense by the sallow hue of his skin, and his hand twitched toward Kurogane, as if seeking a connection. And then he stopped, staring at his half-extended hand as if it had betrayed him somehow. It fell limp atop the sheets as he looked away.
"No," Syaoran whispered. "I'm fine."