Chapter Sixteen

"Wake up, Kaori!" I bolted upright, heart beating rapidly in my chest. The room was hardly illuminated, but a dark figure was slouched on the bed next to me. The voice that had shouted was tired, strained.

"Wha?" I slurred, looking around wildly. My hair was falling into my face in a tangle, blurring my vision twice as much as it would have been had I simply woken up. "Whaz gooin' awn?"

Even though I wasn't fully awake, the scent of iron and the smell of burnt flesh assailed my nostrils and made me gag. Fortunately, it made me a little more aware of my surroundings.

"Ugh," I groaned, plopping my face back down into the bed, pulling the pillow over my head and closing my eyes tight. "It's too early for another hallucination, so if you could please just go away and let me go back to sleep, I think that would be great."

"Kaori, fucking wake up because I am bleeding to fucking death." I bolted upright again, pillow flying off of my head as I recognized Grimmjow's voice.

"What?" My voice was shrill as I moved to my knees, flipping the blanket off of my body and pushing my tangle of hair out of my face. I was blinking rapidly, trying to clear up my vision and make my eyes adjust to the gloom of the room at the same time. "Why are you bleeding? What did I do?"

He was the one that was sitting on the edge of the bed, slouched to the side. I could make out only some of his features in the gloom, like the fact that one of his arms was crossed across his chest and holding on to his opposite shoulder.

"Okay, okay." I took a couple of rushed, deep breaths that were meant to calm me. They did on the outside, but on the inside, I was still freaking out. "Where are you bleeding?"

"Pretty fucking sure the fact that I don't have a fucking arm should tell you where I'm bleeding."

I screamed on the inside; my lungs felt like they were constricting, and my heart was beating at a furious pace. I was not good under pressure—at least, I didn't think I was. I was a still half asleep, paranoid schizophrenic with a man who was bleeding from a missing arm.

Okay, okay, okay, calm down, I told myself, grinding my teeth together. I can do this.

I immediately grabbed the blanket I had just been sleeping beneath and wadded up a bit of it, moving across the bed towards him. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what to do, but I could take a couple of wild guesses and maybe keep him alive until we could get some real medical attention.

I wasn't about to ask him which arm he was missing, because I knew I would likely just be cursed at again and nope, didn't really want that at that point in the morning. So I crawled off of the bed, blanket in tow, and maneuvered myself in front of him.

My eyes had adjusted to the dark quickly, and I could make out a little more know that my mind was trying to work a little better. He was glaring straight ahead of him, his fingers clutched onto the stump in a death-grip. From the little color definition I had, I could make out large stains of blood smeared across his face and all over other parts of hid body.

I steeled my nerves and pulled up a little more of the blanket. "Uh, I'm going to try and staunch the bleeding? And then maybe we can get you some medical attention?"

His eyes slid down to search my face, but I looked away from him quickly and focused my attention on his arm. Gently, I placed my blanket free hand over his before tightening my grip. I brought the blanket up as close to my hand as I could manage.

"Alright, move your hand."

He made no motion to do so.

I frowned and readjusted my grip on his hand, moving the blanket a little as I did so.

"Grimmjow, move your hand." It was the first time I had referred to him by name out loud; it sounded weird as it rolled off of my tonue.

Again, he didn't move.

"I said, move. Your. Hand." I half shouted the word hand, and then

I stomped on his foot with as much might as I could muster.

The screech he emitted was an ungodly sound, almost resembling the noise a cat makes when it's tail has been stepped upon. His hand came up from the stump, and though I flinched and felt somewhat guilty, I moved the blanket and quickly clamped the fabric and both of my hands down on the wound.

Having never had a proper health class where they taught one what to do in situations like the one I was in, I froze for a moment, unsure of what I should do next. My hands were slicked down with blood already, and I had only been actively attempting to help him for a minute at most. But I held the blanket there, silently panicking.

"Why the fucking hell did you come to me for help!" I shrieked, tightening my grip on his shoulder. It wasn't until I had gotten my hands on it that I realized that there wasn't even a stump; there was his shoulder, and then there was nothing. "I can't even open a band aid properly, let alone fix an amputated—amputated-an amputated thing!"

I was shaking with adrenaline and fear and withdrawals, and I felt as though I would throw up at any moment.

"Will you just stop fucking crying," he growled. "I'll live, now stop flippin' the fuck out."

I froze, hands tightening into a death grip on his shoulder. "Then why did you wake me up and tell me you were bleeding if you're going to live?"

"Stop questioning me and tie the fucking blanket up!" I frowned, but did as I was told, wrapping it around his torso and finally tying the blanket around his neck in a poor attempt to stop the bleeding; for a moment, I thought about tying it so tightly around his neck that it would cut off all circulation and cease his existence, but I thought better of it.

I took a step back, wiping my blood-caked hands on my shorts. I knew that I would definitely need to bathe when morning rolled around, if not just to get all of this blood off of my body than to relax.

Grimmjow was a weird one, that was for sure. One second he's almost comatose, and the next he nearly bites my head off because he'll live.

"There," I huffed, placing my hands on my hips. I flinched a bit when my hands came into contact with the bruises I had made on them earlier."Can I go back to sleep now, since you'll live?"

But instead of an answer, his eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled over backward onto the bed, mouth agape. For a moment, I thought he was dead, but the steady rise and fall of his chest told me that he was most definitely alive.

With a heavy sigh, I stretched and yawned. I knew that I could get a few more hours of sleep before he would wake up again, so I grabbed at the chance immediately. Instead of crawling back into the now blood-splattered bed, though, I chose to sit down in the corner, knees pulled up to my chest and head pillowed in my arms.

I woke up slowly, as most are wont to do. Some of my muscles ached terribly, screaming in protest as I stretched a bit and sat up yawning and rubbing my eyes, pushing the blanket off of me as I did so. The smell of blood and burnt flesh still clung to the air in the room, and it made my stomach churn a bit, but not as badly as it had earlier in the night.

Wait a second . . .

I looked down at legs, which were still covered in the blanket. A rather clean, white, new-looking blanket. And then I looked past my legs, and where there should have been a floor, there was instead a mattress.

"What," I muttered, "is going on?" I fell asleep on the floor, I fell asleep on the floor, I fell asleep on the floor. Had I developed a knack for sleepwalking? I really, really hoped that I had not—a sleepwalking paranoid schizophrenic who blacked out on occasion was not something anyone really needed, especially in a place that I could get lost in and maybe attack people accidentally or get attacked myself.

Slowly, I turned my head to the side and looked down. Sure enough, the blue-haired amputee was sound asleep next to me in his back, his right arm—his only arm—tossed across his face. Now that it was somewhat lighter in the room, I could see a little more of the damage that had been done. A large, fresh burn mark stretched from his shoulder to his opposite hip, and a little more of the burn mark was evidenced on his remaining arm. His jacket was gone from sight, likely tossed somewhere because the last time I had seen him, he most definitely had not been stretched out on the bed and I had not been next to him. His shoulder where he had been amputated was covered in fresh white bandages that stretched across his chest.

There were still large splatters and flecks of dried blood stuck to his skin.

I frowned and yawned again, stretching a little more. A promising crack emitted from my back before I decided to lean forward and crawl off of the bed, hopefully without waking him up so he could snap at me again.

Unfortunately, I only managed to move each of my limbs once before there was an iron-like grip on my ankle, holding me in my place. I froze momentarily before tossing a glare over my shoulder.

"Where are you going?" There was no indication in his voice that he had been asleep, even though his eyes were still closed.

"Nowhere, apparently," I answered snappishly, choosing instead to frown much rather than glare because, as it turned out, my glares didn't have that much of an effect on him if his eyes were closed.

"Good; get the fuck back here and go back to sleep."

"I'd prefer the floor, thank you very much." I tried to wrench my ankle from his grasp by jerking my leg toward my head, but his grip tightened instead. "I'm not even tired anymore!"

"You've been asleep for maybe three fucking hours, and half of it was on the fucking floor. Sinc-"

"Yes, I was asleep on the floor. So how did I end up in your bed?" I demanded, stopping his sentence short. His eyes slid open a half centimeter before sliding shut again.

"I may have only one fucking arm, but you weigh almost nothing. Now go the fuck to sleep."

I heaved a heavy sigh, wanting to put up a fight and argue because, hey, what damage could he do to me injured like he was? But with his grip on my ankle—which, at that point, I was sure was going to bruise—I thought better of it and crawled back up the bed, wedging myself up against the wall and as far away from him as I could manage.

"Not so far away—get your ass over here."

"Why?" I demanded brazenly, curling my arms up over my chest and glaring at him. "I might choose to acquiesce to some of your demands, but I don't have to concede to all of them."

And with that, I promptly flipped my body towards the wall and shut my eyes.

Sleep took me quickly.