Mercurial Ends Ch. 03

The doctor seemed oblivious to her internal panic. He worked with her plastered, fully healed leg, and she only saw her old leg with the protruding bone, still throbbing with the ghost sensation of the hammer slamming down on it, breaking it, lodging tiny bone fragments into her nerves that sent waves of agony straight to her head. Tears flowed from her eyes, and her chest rose frantically.

I'm coming in. Shy's commanding voice cut through the vivid memories of her past, vaporizing them in a flash, leaving only the present. The doctor was tracing a line down her cast.

No, I can do this myself. She gritted her teeth.

As soon as she felt the vibration of the saw against the plaster, her brain switched the present

off and returned to the macabre scene. Instead of her gentle orthopedic doctor at the end of the table it was Raelle, the scientist. She tried to scramble away, but her leg was in a vise.

I can't.... this is the past. This is not real. You are dead, Tabor recited the mantra, but the vibrations on her leg persisted and the high pitched squeaking of the saw against the cast drove her mad. She glanced down and wept at the sight of her wretched, grinding organ struggling to keep her alive, as it had since she was in her mother's womb. Then it halted and she was again alone. Her split-open chest and gaping ribs jutted toward the ceiling like fingers suplicating prayers for relief. She was drifting away into darkness forever.

"I'm here," Shy announced bursting through the door, in one stride of his long legs he was holding her face in his hands her hands. Tabor landed in the present and frantically gripped his hands at her face, humiliated by the sobs still wracking her body.

"There, all done," the doctor announced and frowned watching Tabor bury her face in Shy's hands. "I have taken casts off of five-year-olds with smiles on their faces."

Tabor's face burned with embarrassment, and she couldn't look the doctor in the eye.

"Well, that was the easy part. Now for the hard part: you will need to stand on your own two feet."

Tabor swung her legs over the side, eager to get off the table that invoked so many memories. She thought, wrongly, that walking would be like she had never broke her leg once the cast was off. Her leg was weak and looked smaller than her other leg. Of course, Shy was quick to catch her and offer support on her first unstable step.

"Alright now. Without him," the doctor insisted. "Stand on your own. Good. Now try to take a step by leading with your good foot... there you go. Now use the cane for support, but try to do the work. Good, move the other foot.... Alright, I think you'll be fine. Don't slack off on therapy and you'll be good as new again before you know it. The nurse will fit your brace for you before you leave."

Tabor moved, embarrassingly, more awkwardly than she had in the cast, but with each step she was already growing stronger as she moved from the x-ray to the nurse's office for her brace. That small confidence was shattered, and humiliation was compounded when she returned to the waiting room. Everyone had heard her cowardly screams. Her face burned red as she saw the incredulous smirk of accomplishment on Julisa's face - so much for standing your ground.

Ilsino was the only one to comfort her in any way, "Don't worry, my child. The horrors you've faced will not bother you once you really learn what you are capable of."

He gently patted her shoulder, dampening the burning blush in her cheek until Shy hissed at him, pulling her away.

Tabor raked her fingers through the wayward curls that fell on her face. "Let's go home."

"Gladly," Shy concurred.

***

Shy kept squeezing her hand reassuringly while they sat in the cab on their way home.

It should have given her feelings of affinity, but it just annoyed her further. His hand was hot and heavy, and it made her palms sweat. All she could think about was how to discreetly escape from his insufferable grip. She didn't care if Shy could hear her thoughts, she felt like she was precariously on the edge of exploding or making a grave mistake again.

She had been babied her entire life. Doctors surrounded her, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Their sympathetic sighs—"Why does the actress's little daughter keep fainting in large crowds?" Alternatively, the side comments about her talent—"Did you see that actress's daughter? She looked so pathetic and pale when she was giving her dissertation in the lecture hall." Now Tabor had come to terms with magic, a world of monsters, and the fact that she was one of them. Yet, remarkably, she felt stronger than ever. She was mentally ready to grow up, and she didn't want anyone holding her back.

"I promise to see you through. I want you to be strong, confident, everything that I have always known and loved you to be." Shy kissed the back of her hand. At that moment, holding her hand was the most tender, giving gesture she could have received.

"Thank you, Shy," she replied and tucked her head onto his shoulder, her other hand tracing the blue veins of his hand.

Shy kissed the crown of her head. "I love you so much, you know that." Shy tilted her chin up to look into her big brown eyes.

She smiled back at him, her aura lapping like the ocean waves against the sand of his vampire nature. He felt such peace with her on his arms that he could look out into the ocean and not fear of reaching the shores far away. Just the thought of Tabor made his heart swell in a maelstrom of the greatest elation he had felt in his entire existence.

He kissed her lips and prepared himself to bring them both to the shores across the sea. He was going to sail to Helsinki with her as his first mate. He set the sails.

"Tabor, I have to tell you something...

Then the words were choking him; his throat burned with thirst, his head split in two. He wasn't sailing a yacht. He was naïvely putting them in a row boat and traveling across the shark-infested ocean. He tried again, even if it meant he had to paddle; he had to free what was preventing them from truly being happy.

"Do you remember..."

Tabor looked at him with trustful, piercing eyes, bursting with a beautiful innocence that crushed his soul. Gently, she patted his chin. He knew she enjoyed the feeling of his prickly whiskers teasing her fingers.

"Do you remember the last time we went on a proper date?"

He gave up. He couldn't tell her.

"Shy," Tabor affectionately kissed his favorite place, while purring into his ear. "Let's just go home."

"No way, we're going to try out this new leg of yours. Driver, change of plans. Museum Mile, please."

Tabor's cheeks became hot; she wished she could sink into the cab seat and hide. She could already picture the throngs of crowds on the shallow stairs leading up to the museums, and her freakish-looking leg in its cumbersome brace. Shy only grinned, not fully understanding he was going to expose her to her most feared humiliation. Thoughts were one thing, but to actually experiment in public with her stint of apropos egoism—in an art museum, that should be a sanctuary—she would be documented on thousands of annoying tourists iPhones and cameras as the strange gimpy-looking girl that fainted in a crowded museum, simply because crowds zapped her energy.

The cab turned onto Fifth Avenue and, even on a fall afternoon in New York City, the tourists had resurged their summer ranks on the avenue. Tabor changed her mind; she slid down in her seat, not wanting to see her next challenge.

**********************************************

Thank you so much Archangel for editing! You did an amazing job! THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Dear Readers,

Please don't forget to drop a comment and vote. PS you do not have to become a member to vote or comment so please do anyways.

I hope to post at least twice a month, I have an ongoing project that takes up a lot of my time so thank you for your patience. If you are interested in joining my mailing list please feel free to contact me and I will email you with a heads up before I post.

Cheers and happy reading,

Talyis