Chapter 27
☼ It’s Still Summer☼
“Should you really be doing this?” Seb asked her, catching her smoking the last cigarette in her carton. She would buy more, she had been buying more. Another failed attempt at cutting down.
She just scowled at him.
“Not to be a dick, but I don’t think filling your lungs with smoke before heading into a mine is a good idea.”
“Soot, smoke, what’s the difference?” She stubbed out the butt with the toe her boot, preparing to enter. He wasn’t going to stop her. It was early in the day, but you could already tell it was going to be hot. She wanted to avoid that, slink into the gloom.
“What if you just tell me what’s up?” He prodded, not giving up.
“Looked like you were about to take your bike out, I didn’t mean to stop you.” She avoids his questioning. She would have slipped by unnoticed if he hadn’t been opening the garage at the most inopportune moment. She didn’t ask him to follow her.
“You still aren’t talking to her?” He fills in the blank and she regrets telling him anything, though even if she hadn’t he probably could have guessed at most of it.
She rolls her eyes in defence, “don’t worry about me. I’m just trying to get some exercise. Why don’t you just enjoy your day off?” She turns and presses forward, hoping he won’t keep following her.
He doesn’t but he does call after her, “I hope you at least sharpened that thing!” Referring to her sword.
She hadn’t. Not in years. It had been collecting dust in the back of her closet. But the blunt force of it would do the job, she figured.
Before she descends she can hear the grind of his boots on the dirt as he walks away. She exhales, relieved.
Even just in the cavernous entrance to the mines its considerably cooler than the late summer waiting outdoors. It’s been a long time since she’s been in here, and she has to wait for her eyes to adjust before she can assess the situation. She’s surprised to find the old elevator is back up and running, and the mine cart seems like it might have gotten some use recently.
Back in the day, it had been a dangerous stumble just to make it down a few levels. Now it looked neater somehow, cleared out. Still, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to trust the old elevator, so she climbed down what had been her usual route, the rickety ladder.
The first level is completely cleared out. Not even a rock to smash. She descends deeper. Same thing on the second level. Before she knows it, she’s cleared five and encountered nothing. No slimes, none of those little buggies, no rocks, no gems, nothing.
The elevator beckons to her then.
Tentatively, she calls it. Hears it creak and groan in response, only a mildly disconcerting sound. She welcomes the sense of fear it gives her. That’s why she came here, isn’t it? To push everything else from her mind?
She feels surprised once again when she sees it goes to down to 120. She almost decides to go all the way, but opts for somewhere in the middle. The 45th floor was already so much deeper than she’d ever been before.
The door opens to utter darkness.
This alone is enough to make Abbi regret her decision. It’s just so dense.
But she brought a flashlight, she’s prepared for this. Clumsily she turns it on and points it towards the darkness, before she has the time to become too afraid of what she’ll find.
She is not expecting it.
Her light does not illuminate much, as the darkness is heavier here than normal. What she does see is many gnarled roots, as if she were in some haunted, ancient forest. Their is moss everywhere, and many boulders, some of which seem like they might have words of an unknown language carved into them. How plants could be growing this deep, without a lick of sunlight, she did not know.
From the stagnancy of the cavern, a breeze comes for her, pulling her inwards, beckoning her on. Without meaning to, she takes a step, and then instantly takes it back.
No, she scolds herself. She came here for this. She takes the step again. And then another. And then another. She’s walking through the dark underground woods, “facing her fears”. The darkness collects itself around her, pressing in.
It is eerily silent, her steps muffled by the moss, the thick stagnant air. She is expecting something to jump out. She’s faced things in these mines before. She knows what to do. Or at least she tells herself this.
Too quickly to be mistaken for a fearless action, Abbi inspects some smaller rocks. She kneels down and picks them up, barely looking at them before putting them in her backpack. Proof she was here. Maybe they would turn out to be cool.
She is returning to upright and slightly off balance when something lunges from behind the nearest boulder, coming right at her. She yells without meaning to, desperately swivelling as it misses her face by inches, and swivelling again to try to get it back in her sights. When the beam of her flashlight finds it, it’s only because it’s lunging right towards her.
She drops her flashlight on impact and its beam is engulfed by the darkness. She feels a stab of pain in her arm, something stinging her. She tries to get her sword out, scrambling, her panic taking over, her breathing erratic.
She finally looses it, heart beating wildly. She swings blindly and hits nothing but air. Again she slices randomly, this time an eerie shriek erupts from the darkness. She aims for the same spot, throwing more force into her swing.
Too much force, at something that isn’t there anymore. She makes sharp sudden contact with rock and the sensation is so jarring she drops her blade, painful reverberations spiking through her bones.
“No!” She yells, gasping in pain, trying to follow the sound of where it had fallen. Another unseen slime lunges at her, burning her and slowing her motion.
She trips in the darkness, rolling her ankle and falling to the ground. “Fuck!” She yells, “fuck fuck fuck!!!”
More things she couldn’t see where striking out at her now. She could tell from the texture that some of them must have been slimes, but there were other, sharper feelings too. She tries to crawl away, but she is too disoriented in the darkness to know which way the elevator is. She cries out in fear, but another slime gets her and now her movement is entirely slowed. The pain is searing.
Petrified in both fear and slime, her mind begins to turn dark. Was this really how she was going to go? She pictures Haley at her funeral. She would probably wear her stone faced fury expression. No longer Abbi’s friend, returned to the harsh truth of her untouchable goddess self. The deity Abbi had failed to worship in her cowardice, glaring down at her casket – which would be closed because of how fucked she would look after this encounter, if there was anything left of her – and even beyond the grave she would feel the displeasure.
She would never get to have those hands on her titties again. She’d never get to feel the punishment she deserved for being a teasing little slut.
She should have kissed her.
But she was a sick cowardly dog, who would die on the ground, covered in guts.
Breaking through her pitiful unheard goodbyes, she hears the sounds of clattering metal, grunting, effort, more shrieking. Were they fighting each other now? Over who was going t to finish her off?
A glowing light comes towards her, dimly illuminating the cavern. Either this is it, or something is coming for me that it’ll make it be it, she thought, bracing herself for cosmic impact.
But it was only Ry.
“Fuck, Abbi!” She yells, slashing a skittering giant crab and a slime in the same movement, annihilating them easily. She sheathes her sword, running towards her and crouching by her side, “are you alright? What are you doing here?”
Abbi can’t speak without gasping in pain, and she’s too shocked anyway. She wasn’t going to die today?
“Don’t move, I have something.” Ry quickly unzips her pack and pulls out a small pink bottle. She uncorks it and holds Abbi’s head up with one hand, tips the contents towards her open lips. “Drink this, it’ll help.”
Abbi tries her best to obey, being in no position to do otherwise.
The taste and sensation are that of cool liquid earth. It’s mildly disgusting, and yet comforting at the same time. She wants to cough it up, but Ry keeps pouring it down her throat until the bottle is empty.
“Swallow. It should start working in a couple seconds.” She reassures her.
Abbi’s eyes water and she can do nothing but grit her teeth. But the farmer wasn’t lying. Miraculously, the effect is almost instantaneous.
“What is that?” She croaks.
“Elixir of Life. It’s made out of mushrooms. You feeling like you can move now?”
Abbi tries to sit up, and is mostly successful, the slime’s motion freezing effect beginning to wear off. She feels considerably better than she had a moment ago, but the Elixir had done nothing to heal her open cuts and burn marks. She could still feel her heart pumping hard, and yet a strange sense of calm was overtaking her mind.
Ry picks up Abbi’s sword, which had been uselessly flung aside in her pathetic skirmish. She wielded it with clear expertise. She couldn’t help but think of Haley losing it underneath those strong hands. What they probably did to her... so deft and reassuring. And here Abbi was, half dead on the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to forget how her final thoughts were entirely dedicated to Haley.
“Dude, this isn’t even sharp.” Ry reproached her, shaking her head. “You come down this deep you need something with a lot more power than this.” She kneels beside Abbi and slides it into the sheath still clipped to her side.
“The upper levels were just so clear, I thought...” Abbi mumbled, humiliated.
Ry nods, “I usually warm up in the first few levels. I wouldn’t have if I knew you were coming.”
“Shouldn’t you be farming anyway?” Abbi asks, wincing as Ry helps her to her feet. The farmer gripped her tightly around the waist, holding most of Abbi’s weight as they slowly turned to make their way towards the elevator shaft. Ry navigates them easily through the roots and rocks.
“I needed some ore for new tools.”
“Did you find it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever take a day off?”
“Not really. Did you roll your ankle?”
“Yes, but I can’t really feel it now.”
“That might be shock.”
“Where did you learn to fight li-” Suddenly, without warning, Ry shoves Abbi away from her. She crashes into a boulder, re-scraping her hands and knees as she goes down. She cries out in shock and pain.
“Run!” Ry yells at her, but Abbi is too stunned to listen. She scrambles up, looking back at Ry who has pulled out her sword again. Abbi is mesmerized by it. The pulsating, furious purple blade, unlike anything she’s has ever seen. She can’t imagine anything resisting something like that, yet the putrid looking ghost Ry slashes at is only repelled a few feet before it glides back towards both of them. It had come out of nowhere.
“Abbi, go! There’s more coming.” Ry grits out at her, slashing at the ghost again.
A terrifying skittering sound was getting closer.
Tearing her eyes off the hypnotizing blade, Abbi turns to run, but she can barely see where she’s going. Not only is it dark, the cavern seemed to be filling up with a dense and dank fog. She screeches when she feels something swoop past her, and screams when it screeches back. Despite the dark, she runs as fast as she can, hoping Ry is right behind her. More things swoop at her, but she ducks her head and keeps going, scrambling over roots and around rocks.
The elevator door is blessedly still open, her illuminated beacon of hope. She’s running too fast to stop and hits the back of it, quickly turning. She was right in thinking Ry was close behind her, but she hadn’t realized what else was. An endless sea of giant spiders were skittering after them, on the walls, the ceiling, the ground, everywhere. With bats swooping down, a few slimes lunging through the mix.
Abbi desperately smashes the ground floor button, Ry crashing into the elevator beside her.
The doors mercifully slide shut and only a single bat makes it into the elevator with them, which Ry kills easily with a slice from her blade. It falls dead with a thud, and both women pant heavily as the elevator begins its slow creaky ascent.
Abbi’s blood is pumping so hard in her ears she feels woozy. It doesn’t dawn on her until halfway up that Ry hadn’t had a scratch on her a moment ago. Now she was pale, covered in blood, slime, and multicoloured guts, looking nauseated and weak.
“Are you okay?” Abbi pants out.
Ry laughs dazedly and slowly slides down from where she’s leaning against the elevator wall. Her forehead was covered in a sheen of sickly sweat. “Bitten.”
“Bitten? By spiders or bats?”
Ry grins faintly, “both.” She looks like she’s about to lose consciousness.
“Do you have another one of those potions?” Abbi asks frantically, scrambling towards her and reaching for her pack. But it’s in tatters, everything had been torn out. The only thing Ry was leaving with was Abbi and her sword.
By the time the elevator makes it to the surface, Ry is unconscious.
Haley had told Alex everything that had happened on the festival that night, and everything that had happened the night after too. It had come tumbling out, beyond her control.
“I’ve never really heard you talk about someone like this.” He was wearing this remorseful happy/sad expression that made her scowl. She felt an immense sense of loss, and in the usual Haley way, it made her furious. She didn’t need Alex’s intuition to confirm anything about the depth of her loss. She wanted to be mad.
“I think she probably just needs time.” He said, trying to comfort her, but she didn’t want the hope of that and scowled deeper. He just forced her to go to the beach. “You can mope in the sun.” She couldn’t argue with that.
Moping in the sun came easy. Though she stayed far away from the dock she and Abbi had been on, the beach reminded her of all the time they’d spent together here over the past few months. There had been a stretch of weeks in which they’d come here almost everyday and it had been the most carefree Haley had felt in years.
Alex tried to disrupt this by reminding her of all the times he and she had spent here, throughout their childhood and teenage years.
Trying to go along with it she asks, “remember when you dropped your ice cream in the river?”
Alex laughed, “yeah, that was the first time I saw Shane.”
“Really? You remember the first time you saw him?”
Alex had a sheepish grin on his face, “he was throwing a gridball around, of course I did.”
“Right, that’s all you cared about back then.” Haley chuckled, remembering how obsessed he had been for so long. She’d really thought he was going to go pro. And that she would become some superstar photographer/model/fashion designer/actress. Her hollow childish dreams. She feels another flash of anger spike in her chest, this time at her past self. She forces it down. “Do you ever miss it?”
“Not really. It’s funny, I realized the other day that I’d probably be aging out of that career in the next few years, had it happened. And then what would I do? I never thought of that once.”
“We didn’t think of a lot of things back then.” She says, some of her frustration betrayed in her tone. Alex doesn’t notice it, his phone vibrating loudly several times in a row. She sees his face drop when he checks it.
“What is it?” She asks, instantly worried too, her thoughts turning to Evelyn.
“Uh, Ry was attacked in the mines. Apparently it’s bad.” Alex’s frown deepened, “it must be really bad if Shane is saying that outright."
“What happened to her??”
Alex shook her head like he didn’t know, dialing Shane’s phone.
When no one answered they both wordlessly got up and made their way towards the clinic. She knew they wouldn’t be any help there, but Alex could at least support Shane and Haley wanted more details. What was Ry doing in the depths of the mines on a Sunday afternoon?
When they were almost there Alex stopped suddenly, “should we just go in? Will we be in the way?” They hesitated in the town square.
“I don’t know, maybe try Shane again.” Haley offered. She was worried too. She’d never been anywhere near the mines, and she’d chalked most of the stories she’d heard in childhood up to myth, but she knew enough to be certain the mines were an incredibly dangerous place. Those stories, however fanciful, were told for a reason.
Shane picked up this time, “what happened?”
She couldn’t hear Shane’s response so she just waited. The sun was intensely beating down on them in the middle of the square. The beauty of the day was proving dangerous, turning against them.
She was staring at the clinic door when Abbi came out, nervously slinking around the side of her house. Haley inadvertently gasped at her appearance. She looked bloodied and beaten up. Had she been in the mines too?? What the hell was she doing down there with Ry?
She looked back at Alex, still on the phone but seemed to have seen what she had. He nodded at her, silent permission to go.
She followed Abbi around the side of her house, a million thoughts running through her mind, most of them angry. How could Abbi be so reckless??? She’ll risk her life before kissing a girl???
Though Abbi’s room was on the first floor, the house was built on somewhat of a hill, the back of it giving way to a shallow ravine. Her window was more difficult to access due to this, and Abbi had yet to climb up.
“What are you doing?” Haley asked after her, her tone accusatory.
Abbi was startled, and stumbled into the side of her house. She turned towards Haley, her eyes wide. Her legs seemed to be giving out beneath her and she slid against the wall, until she was almost on the ground.
“Oh, Haley! I um..” She gulped, breathless and trembling. Haley’s worry spiked even higher, and she rushed towards her, crouching to her level and taking her hands.
“You look like a fucking mess.”
“I, uh...” Abbi breathed. She was so clearly rattled, more so than Haley had ever seen her, more so than even on the night at the beach.
“You can’t climb up there like this.” Haley pointed out to her.
Tears were stinging Abbi’s eyes, “my parents can’t see me like this. They’ll kill me if they know I went into the mines, and when they find out what happened to Ry... it’s my fault Haley.”
She was panicking and probably in shock, devolving into her teenage worries. The fact that Harvey had let her leave the clinic like this made Haley furious.
“Come on.” She said, lifting Abbi up as best she could.
“I can’t go in the front door, Haley! I can’t!!”
“I’m not taking you into the front door, Abbi, you’re coming to my place.” Haley’s voice was low in Abbi’s ear. She didn’t responded, just quietly allowed herself to be guided by Haley, who gripped her from behind, hands tight on her arms.
She was relieved when Alex was already inside the clinic when they reappeared back on the street. She didn’t think Abbi could handle being seen in the open right now. She quietly walked them through the tiny park towards her house, unseen.
Emily was home when they got there. “Hello~” She began to greet them in a singsong voice until she saw how filthy and scarped up Abbi was. “Oh! What’s happened?”
“Mines.” Haley gritted out. “Watch her for a second.” Haley muttered, and Emily didn’t hesitate. Much more gently than Haley had been, Emily guided Abbi into a seat, speaking quietly to her.
Haley quickly began collecting supplies. She got a bowl of warm water and her softest wash cloths, band aids, scissors and tweezers.
She returned to where Emily had sat Abbi on the couch. “Do we have any proper antiseptic and bandages?” She asked her sister, setting her supplies on the coffee table.
“Maru gave me some.” Abbi said, she was full on shivering now.
“I had the kettle on before you got here, I’m going to make you a calming cup of tea,” Emily said, getting up to go the kitchen to respond to the whistle of the kettle.
Haley was kneeling on the floor in front of Abbi now. She opened her bag and began riffling through it. She pulled out a couple filthy rocks before getting to the medical supplies, glaring at them as she did.
This made Abbi laugh, “I found those.” She said, then laughing harder, “before everything went down. They said Ry’s probably going to be fine. But there was a lot of blood. She saved my life.” She was laughing in the same way she had been when she’d first told Haley about her relationship with that older boss. Her bad, uncomfortable habits.
Haley leaned in and grabbed Abbi’s thigh, one of the few places in which there was no apparent damage. She gripped probably harder than she should have. She was trying to hold the swirl of anger she was feeling in, but it was hard to contain. She stared into Abbi’s eyes. “Just breathe for me, okay?”
Abbi’s laughter dissolved at the touch, and staring back at Haley she took a shuddering breath in. Haley leaned in closer, using her free hand to push a strand of hair – sticky with slime and sweat – out of Abbi’s face. Her lip was trembling as she dragged breath into her lungs, her big eyes staring right into Haley’s.
Emily returned with a cup of steaming tea that smelled like lavender, and Haley got up to go wash her hands. She felt a confusing mixture of concern, fear and fury. She wanted to punish Abbi for playing with her emotions and refusing to be clear, for how she’d begged her to stay friends and then not said a word to her for a week. Waiting on Haley to tell her it was all fine, that she didn’t have to feel guilty or ashamed, that Haley would just peacefully go along with everything she wanted? She wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it.
She was mad at her recklessness, and couldn’t help wondering how connected it was to what was happening between them. The radio silence. She also knew Abbi had a lot of buried shit when it came to her romantic entanglements. Not to mention, she wasn’t gay. Or hadn’t ever felt like she was... behaviour aside.
And she knew what things were like with her parents. Their oppressive attitudes towards her. How her mother constantly made public excuses for Abbi’s appearance, even though everyone knew this was just an attempt to distract from the fact that she looked nothing like Pierre, in fact, looked a lot like a certain magical recluse... No matter what things were between them, she didn’t want her to have to walk into all that context in her battered and shocked state.
So Haley pushed her feelings aside and walked back to the living room, and resumed her spot kneeling before Abbi. Biting her tongue, she attended to her wounds.
He’d taken Penny out on his bike. Only way to get out of town and away from prying eyes. They’d been so sneaky about it. Him meeting her partway down the road that wound into the woods past the old warehouse. Dropping her off there too, so nobody would ever see them together. He knew that after he zipped off on his bike she’d probably hike down an old unmaintained path that exited near the library. Just to be extra careful.
He didn’t like doing this. It didn’t give him any sense of thrill, and he didn’t think it did for Penny either. It felt more out of necessity. They both knew this was temporary and they didn’t need anyone else speculating.
Seb didn’t want to admit it, but Penny had maybe been right to foresee a certain sadness in what they were doing. That they weren’t able to step outside of the context laid around them and just enjoy the company. This wasn’t some vacation fling that becomes a beautiful memory. This wasn’t the type of high school secret you got a thrill out of keeping hidden. He’d already gone through that with Sam. They both had.
What was between them was filling time. It was two people seeking comfort in a place that could only promise it would not turn into love. Or maybe some sort of platonic love, but never anything deep. They had met up a couple of times over the past week. Brief reprieves. Companionship with the physical release they’d both been missing. It made him a little wistful. Made him wonder what it would be like for either of them to actually be in love. He felt a little sad they couldn’t be that for each other.
He couldn’t tell what Penny thought about it now, if she’d had a change in mind. After the first time, she hadn’t volunteered much insight into her inner world.
He watched her standing with her arms crossed as she looked across the viewpoint they’d stopped at. She looked forlorn, perhaps a little wistful too. He tried not to be distracted, but he was worried about Abbi. He should have gone after her. Scrounged up some monster gear from the back of his closet. Not that she wanted him around, but... her blade looked in ill repair and he knew she was out of practise. Maybe he should have gone to the guild and told Gil and Marlon? Just so they knew she was down there? Abbi would hate him for that.
Penny was scrutinizing him now.
“What?” He tries to smile at her, but he’s sure it comes out weird.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Abbi went down in the mines with bad equipment. I’m wondering if I should have done something before we left.”
“Do you want to go back?”
He pauses, uncertain. They had been silent the entire ride out here. He could tell Penny was in some sort of mood, but he was preoccupied and she didn’t offer anything. So they’d rode on, silent and haunted by their separate lives.
She walks towards him. Relieving him of his need to reply. She kisses him softly and he responds by gripping her waist. He was learning this was her usual way of bridging the gap.
“You okay?” She asks, breaking away when he’s being too hesitant.
“I’m sorry. I’m just distracted.”
She’s not offended by this, changes the subject. “Can I drive your bike?”
“This is a bad place to practise that for the first time.”
“I don’t care.”
He chuckles, “I do.”
“I got into school.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah... it starts kinda soon actually. Unless I defer for a semester.” She gives him a look like she’s trying to determine if he has an opinion on this.
He ignores it to express what he thinks is more meaningful in the moment. “That’s incredible, Penny! You’re getting out!”
“Yeah.” She smiles, and it’s real, but he can tell there’s a lot of apprehension behind it too.
“Guess you probably want to get your license before you go?”
She bites her lip, nodding. “I probably should.”
“You’ll definitely pass, there’s nothing to worry about.”
She shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, but they both know it does. “I need to find an apartment. I don’t even know how to do that.”
“Alex might have some leads, he went to the same school.”
She nods slowly, not assuaged.
“I can help. And Maru too.”
She reaches for his belt, “I know you can.” She grins up at him impishly before closing the distance.
Abbi had called Maru, which she could never remember happening before. Her voice had been a stony calm.
“I’m at the mines, Ry’s unconscious. Can you drive us to the clinic?”
The blood in Maru’s head became thick, everything going still. “Why is she unconscious? Did she break anything or hit her head or spine?”
“I don’t think so. She was bitten. Bats and spiders. She’s bleeding a lot.” A hiccup of panicked laughter seemed to bubble up out of Abbi then, but it was forced back. “Get here quickly.”
“I will. I’ll tell Harvey to be ready.”
Maru ran into her mother’s workshop, “need the truck, Ry needs to be driven to the clinic, she’s at the mines.”
Robin started asking questions but Maru firmly told her she didn’t know anything. Hearing the seriousness in Maru’s voice, she offered to help. The two of them drove up the mountain, while Maru called Harvey to inform him of an incoming patient.
Abbi had pulled Ry to the mouth of the mines by the time they got there, and Maru hoped desperately that she was right about her not having broken anything. The two of them were an awful sight to behold.
“Oh my yoba!” Robin yelled when she saw them. “What the hell happened?”
They packed Ry and Abbi into the backseat of the truck and sped down the mountain. Abbi seemed shell shocked and Ry looked half dead. Maru tried not to think about how unsettling it was to see her like that. She checked her pulse. Still beating, faintly.
Harvey met them at the door with a stretcher. He instantly began assessing Ry and questioning Abbi about what happened. Maru left them to call Shane, Ry’s emergency contact. She told him it was bad, but they didn’t know how bad yet. She didn’t let that sink in.
After Harvey finished questioning Abbi, he put her in her own room on a cot, and wheeled Ry into what served as their dismal “operating” room, though they were hardly equipped for anything serious.
Maru wrapped Abbi up in a blanket, got her some water, and started laying out the materials to clean and patch up her wounds. Abbi kept insisting that she was fine, it was all superficial, but Maru silently ignored her. She knew that was just shock speaking.
When she was about to start cleaning her up, Harvey buzzed her. He needed her help with Ry, who’s case was more urgent than Abbi’s.
Maru left Abbi sitting on her cot, wrapped up and shivering. “I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t go anywhere. We’re going to deal with everything as quickly as we can.” She didn’t feel good about leaving her, but she didn’t have much of a choice.
Harvey was bent to work cutting Ry’s destroyed clothing away from her wounds. He asked Maru to call Gil and Marlon. “They know this stuff better than anyone. If they can identify exactly what bit her, that could save us a lot of trouble. If not, we might have to get her evacuated to a city hospital.”
She did and they agreed to come, but it would take awhile since they didn’t have a car. Maru arranged for her mom to pick them up, and returned to help Harvey.
The next few hours went by in a flurry. Maru didn’t think about anything other than what needed to be done immediately. Harvey didn’t say anything about Maru’s lack of official training, it was too dire a situation to make a fuss about that now. All that mattered was stabilizing Ry.
When she’d emerged from the mines, Abbi’s internal state couldn’t decide on what it needed to be. She had been teetering between disassociation calm and about to absolutely fucking lose it. Now, sitting on Haley and Emily’s couch, she was feeling strangely light.
Emily had put on some sort of singing bowl meditation music, lit a bunch of candles that smelled like a magical pine forest, surrounded the room with a circle of different healing crystals, plied her full of herbal tea, and then disappeared into her room saying “with your permission, I’ll do some distance reiki on you so I’m not in Haley’s way while she cleans you up.” Abbi wasn’t too sure what that meant, but she’d said it was fine. A few moments later she did feel a sense of lightness showering over her body, but she couldn’t tell if that was from Emily’s efforts, the painkiller Harvey had slipped her, or an after effect of the Elixir of Life Ry had given her. Maybe these things weren’t meant to be combined. Or maybe they really were, she almost giggled at the thought.
Or maybe it was because Haley was gently massaging an anti-inflammatory salve Emily had made out of some mountain flower all over her body. Or at least, all over the parts that she hadn’t painstakingly bandaged up.
Abbi had lifted the solvent that dissolved slime alongside bandages and antiseptic before sneaking out of the clinic. She hadn’t been able to stomach just waiting around for however long it took for Harvey to stabilize Ry. Or didn’t... panic had overtaken. She left on an impulse, only to have Haley find her.
She had been taking care of her since. Gently snipping away the fabric that had fused itself to Abbi's skin via slime. Treating her blisters, cleaning her wounds. She hadn’t said much beyond straight forward commands. She seemed steeped in a displeasure that had Abbi been in her usual mind, she would have understood was about a lot more than just her tripping up in the mines. In her usual mind, it would have startled her and made her a nervous stumbling mess.
But now it made her feel a quiet ecstasy – that she had been right to predict this reaction from Haley. But instead of being aimed at Abbi’s coffin, it was on her living breathing self. Haley, in her pure physical form, was lavishing Abbi in care. Peeling back her layers to reveal her blistered and bruised skin. Despite her displeasure.
Her clothing was destroyed but this ranked very low in either of their concerns. Haley treated Abbi and then sent her into the shower, laying everything out for her. Hair brush, comb, nail brush, body wash, sponge, face wash, clarifying shampoo, conditioner, big fluffy towel, clean clothes. Abbi’s clean clothes. Black sweatpants and a hoodie she must have left here back in the spring... Maybe this was Haley trying to purge her. A week ago she’d always been trying to slip Abbi into her own clothes. But on her cloud of lightness, this did nothing but amuse her. She was alive. Alive and breathing Haley’s scent deep into her lungs. She’d luxuriated in the shower far beyond what was usual for her. Part of this was necessary as she was considerably more filthy. Part of it was smelling Haley in all the products.
Afterwards she drifted back to the couch in a haze of gentle florals.
Haley scowled at her. "You've still got slime in your hair."
"Oh?" Abbi absently touched her hair, half grinning.
Haley rolled her eyes and sat Abbi back on the couch and began the detangling process. This evolved into her applying the arnica salve all over her. For the second time that day, Abbi was helpless. She dissolved into the healing touch. The warmth of it, the simple extravagance of being alive in the present moment. Like feeling sunshine on your skin for the first time after a cold, long winter.
Haley was kneeling in front of her, applying it to her ankles. She looked like the personification of a carefree perfect summer, the kind that was perpetually out of Abbi’s grasp. The kind she said she wasn’t meant to have. She had a darkness in her that prevented it. But that’s how she liked it, ayway. Because she had to, or..?
She wasn’t so far out of grasp now. Of its own volition, Abbi’s hand finds it’s way to the tie of Haley’s bikini, peaking out from her tank top at the back of her neck. She slips a finger underneath it, accidentally saying out loud, “I don’t know how you’re real.”
Haley looks up at her, startled.
So fucking pretty.
Those big eyes, staring right at her, looking for something. Hand slipping up from her ankle, to her knee.
Then not touching her, reaching for something. A phone Abbi hadn’t realized was ringing. Her phone.
Haley holding it up for her to see, “your mom is calling.”
Slipping the phone into Abbi’s fingers as she stands up and disappears into another room.
“Hey mom.”
“Abigail! Where on earth are you? Robin told me you were in the mines!??
In the middle of the night, Maru dosed. She awoke to find Ry sitting up, legs swung over the bed as if she was about to get up and walk away. She gazed at Maru in the dim light. Though she was bandaged and wearing a hospital gown, she looked almost back to her usual self.
"Maru," she greeted her, running a curious hand across the bandage on her jaw.
Maru blinked, wondering if she was dreaming.
"You shouldn't be up." She said groggily.
"But I am."
"You shouldn't touch that either."
She did not protest, lowering her hand.
"What are you doing here?"
"You were envenomed. Pretty bad. You've been out for almost two days."
"Envenomed?"
"Like poisoned, but for venom. When it bites you, not the other way around."
"Hmm yeah, I feel that. I was out for two days?”
"Around 36 hours."
"Damn."
"You should lie down."
"After my 36 hour nap?" But she was complying already, wincing as she moved.
“I’m going to give you something for the pain.” Maru hopped up, remembering her reason for being here. Ry had probably woken up because she was in too much pain to sleep through it.
“I’m okay,” Ry said, but her face said otherwise.
“No, you’re not. Not yet.” Maru said gently, busying herself with checking her vitals and making sure Ry hadn’t displaced any of the various wires and tubes attached to her.
As she checked where the IV was inserted into her wrist, Ry’s other hand reached for her, fingers gently tracing over Maru’s. The gentlest of contact.
“Thanks for taking care of me.” It was a hoarse whisper, and as Maru looked down into Ry’s eyes she saw the closest thing to fear she’d ever seen there.
Maru was too afraid to take her hand, so she just left her hand where it was, their fingers gently touching. “Of course.” She whispered back, her own voice almost hoarse as well. Ry was okay, and she was going to be okay, but she’d been very close to not being okay and they both knew it. A tremor seemed to run through their connected fingers.
Maru presses the button to release more painkiller into the IV.
Ry was falling quickly back into unconsciousness. "In my pocket, what I was wearing before… something for you.”
Later, after she’d gone through all her checklists and made sure everything was as it should be, she checked the dirty pockets of Ry’s tattered pants. She finds a rough and filthy diamond. Not dissimilar to the one she’d refused the previous fall.