“That!” Ronnie pointed to a weird-looking tool using her eyes.
I picked it up, while still holding the clamp, and she nodded.
We worked like this for the better part of an hour. I was tired, pain was returning in my head full force, and I had to pee, but I continued to do everything Ronnie said.
Once we were done, after God knows how long had passed, she started to close her up.
“Will she keep the hand?”
Ronnie shrugged. “If there’s no infection. These aren’t the best surgical conditions.”
I was just leaning back to relax my neck when Ronnie spoke again.
“I think I need to operate on Dawn.” She sounded exhausted, like she didn’t want to.
My eyes flew open. “What?”
My bestie sighed and rubbed her face. “I don’t think she’ll fly again if the tendons heal wrong. I need to at least go in and take a look.”
Dawn had been in and out during the surgery, making sure to stay inside the cave in case the breeders started up with the acid rain again.
Ronnie coaxed me: “You can talk to her. Tell her what I need to do.”
Galadrias were extremely intelligent beings, but there was a definite cultural and language barrier. Dawn didn’t know what surgery or tendons were.
But I didn’t want my friend to lose her ability to fly. Just thinking of her pulling all three of us up into the air while I was unconscious made tears swim in my eyes. Galadrias were the fucking golden retrievers of the Dream Wars. So damn loyal.
I side-stepped Maxine, feeling fully alert and missing that morphine right about now. But my pain was manageable with an ibuprofen. There was just a lingering dull throb at the base of my skull. Kneeling down, I stroked Dawn’s neck and her eyelids fluttered open.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked her.
‘Dawn is better with floating medicine friend gave.’
I grinned. Morphine was most definitely floating medicine.
‘Ronnie needs to look at your wings better. See if they need to be fixed…’
Her energy bristled and I knew that she had just seen what we’d done to Maxine.
‘Look at Dawn’s wing with her knife? Look inside Dawn?’
Yeah, that was pretty accurate.
‘Yes, but only because she thinks it will help make sure you can fly. Ronnie is a special human. She specializes in looking inside people.’
Dawn looked at Ronnie, who was now in the corner of the cave chugging a bottle of water. Our ration supplies were still here. Thank God the acid hadn’t gotten to them.
‘Dawn’s body will heal. No need for friend to look inside.’
Fuck.
I sighed. ‘Dawn, your wings are made up of things called tendons. Ronnie thinks you broke some of them. They need to be surgically repaired or you can’t fly.’
Dawn peered up at me with her wise glassy eyes.
‘Dawn body is not like Kit body. Dawn body heals twenty times faster.’
Now I was questioning myself. Did Dawn know something I didn’t?
They did consume the green stuff, which our tests showed was regenerative as well as combustible.
“She says she’ll heal. Like on her own,” I told Ronnie. Not wanting to question Dawn’s knowledge of her own body, Ronnie looked up at me, relieved.
“Like accelerated?” She seemed to accept this was a possibility. We didn’t know a lot about the alien creatures.
I just shrugged. “I guess so. Can we wait it out a day and see?”
Ronnie sighed, leaning back against the cave wall.
“Yes. We’re not in the Dream War in our sleeping forms. We can stay here as long as we need until we are healed enough to transport.”
And when I was able to make another opening into Earth again. But we didn’t say that. That was the most depressing thing of all. We couldn’t wake ourselves up out of this one. I had to get us out, and the last time I tried I’d gotten a… a brain bleed I guess.
“I need sleep,” Ronnie finally admitted.
“Yeah, I don’t see any immediate danger if we all take the day to rest. Maxine and Dawn can’t travel and I can’t open portals right now.”
“We’re stuck here.” My best friend was astute.
I stroked Dawn’s neck. “At least she got us to Skyhome. On the ground we’d be ghoulie food.”
Ronnie nodded. “Don’t check in with Damien or anyone else, and no more mental speak with Dawn unless you have to. I want to give your brain a rest.”
Tell Damien we were okay… that’s exactly what I wanted to do. But she was right. I’d gotten a freaking nosebleed. That scared me. My hand went up to touch my nose now as if I’d feel something there. It was dry.
“Alright. Let’s rest.” I snuggled in next to Dawn.
We were safe in the cave if acid rain started. We had enough water for a few days and a few bags of pretzels. There was no immediate threat. Rest is what everyone needed. I had a feeling we would need all of our strength in the days to come.
With that, I lay my head down and fell asleep.
Eight
I dreamed. I dreamed so vividly and for so long I forgot where I was when I woke up. I’d been on the beach with Damien in my dream, somewhere tropical. We were all on vacation. Jeremy was complaining about how the sand felt on his toes. It was such a good dream that I actually felt a physical pang in my chest when I awoke and realized it wasn’t real.
When I heard rustling, my eyes sprang open and it took a minute to wonder why I was in a cave watching Maxine stare at her now stumpy, two-fingered hand.
I bolted awake. “Maxine!”
Ronnie was sitting up, opening her dressing to show the extent of the damage and probably check the wound for infection.
“The fingers are gone or I would have attempted to reattach them, but I was able to save the hand.” Ronnie’s voice was small. Maxine was our beauty queen, so I wasn’t sure how
