Adapt (I)

TJR Garcia © 2020

SCARLET

My eyes fling open, my last thought before the blackness still echoing in my mind.

Boe killed me.

I go to sit up, but the pain just below my ribs roars to life, tears springing instantly. I take a calming breath, but even that hurts.

I tense at the sound of footsteps creeping just outside my bedroom door. Boe appears with a glass full of water and a blister pack of pills.

I force myself to sit up, even though the pain ricochets throughout my body. I am determined to show Boe that I am not weak. He may be able to stab me, but he will never be able to kill me.

“Lay back down.” He sighs.

“You stabbed me.” I glower.

“You gave me no choice. Relax, I knew it wouldn’t kill you, just... incapacitate you.” He came to the left side of the bed, and I instinctively straighten my back even more, reinforcing my façade.

A gentle chuckle shakes his chest. I watch him, monitoring for any signs of smugness or condescension. But his expression just seems soft, and that beacons the unwanted feelings I have toward him.

Boe places the tablets down on the bedside table, and then sits down on the edge of the bed. He begins to pull the blankets away from my body.

“Hey,” I object, as I swat his hands away.

He grabs my fingers, slowly clasping them tightly in his hands. “I’m just checking your wound.” He says, looking into my eyes for a moment. Before my heart could explode, he releases my hands. He peels away the blood blotted cotton gauze to reveal a jagged pink scar, an explosion of bruises and dried blood. I wince at the sight.

“It’s healing quickly, even for a hunter.” He is right. My hunter’s body heals incredibly fast, but a wound like this should only be healing half as fast as this.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Oh, my stab wound? Nah, I’m used to the people that I trust stubbing me in the gut.” I joke.

“Trust, huh?” He rests a hand each side of my body, his breath kissing my skin.

Kissing. Is that what’s about to happen? My conscious reminds me how well that turned out the first time. Alarms begin screaming in my head even though my mind reels at the thought of kissing Boe again. I swallow.

He just stabbed you.

But it was just self-defense.

Self defense, shmelve-defense. He stabbed you!

“Trust-ed!” I blurt, exaggerating the ‘ed’.

Boe is taken aback, his eyes wide with confusion, and instantly my chest aches with regret.

Boe sighs and rises to his feet. “I don’t want to be your enemy, Scarlet.”

“Funny way of showing it.” I continue to spew out words I don’t mean, but I feel as though I have to keep up my little display of strength.

He grinds his teeth and hangs his head. “Alright, let me know when you are ready to eat then.” He strides out of the room.

I put my head in my hands and half laugh, half cry. How could I be so stupid? Why am I so confused? It should be simple, right? I should hate him. Loath him. He has come into my life, torn me from my friends and thrown me into something I am not prepared for, and in return for my sacrifices he stabs me in the gut.

And yet, for some reason, all I want to do is get up, eat lunch and sit around that bloody ugly table and talk about Therians with Boe. I want to hear him bark another set of orders at me to “lift my knees,” “run faster,” or “kick with your entire body.”

I growl. No, that is not right. Stop it.

I wrench the blankets over my head and curl over into a ball. Before I know it, the pain in my torso and the hurricane of thoughts that whirls in my head begin to fade away as sleep overpowers me.