Three days after the incident, Val was released from the hospital. The small doctor from my first time here looked at me through his glasses at the end of his nose and pointed.
"She's never healed so quickly. It would be ideal for the two of you to stay in proximity."
Proximity, Everest teased me delightedly.
Val had slept almost the entire first two days she was in. During that time I would only leave for an hour at a time, either to eat or bathe. The rest of the time I debated on how the actual fuck I ended up here and why. What sin I committed in a past life to be given such a strange predicament by the Moon Goddess.
When she was released, the hospital gave her some crutches and sent the two of us on our way. She was ordered to be careful during physical movements and not to strain herself or do anything that could jeopardize the stitches. I followed beside her as she limped the long and excruciating way back to her bedroom. When the door closed behind us my stomach got familiarly nervous.
I lingered beside her without getting too close as she laid down carefully. She eyed me for a few minutes in silence before finally speaking.
"You don't have to stay here."
Her voice was low and quiet, like she hoped I wouldn't hear her say it. Part of me wondered why she even did, we both knew she didn't want me to leave. My cheeks got hot from the intensity of her stare and I felt a familiar desire to run far away.
I sighed, tsking audibly before I put a hand on my hip and spoke as seriously as I could manage with my shaking breath.
"Put like six pillows in between your side and mine and I'll stay."
Val's starving eyes looked excited in the dark of her room, she started trying to grab the pillows but struggled to actually twist the way she needed to. I raised a brow suspiciously. Surely she wasn't faking her discomfort but it was also possible she wasn't trying very hard either. I moved over to the side of the bed I intended to inhabit and started building the pillow wall between us myself.
Her eyes swam up my arms and across my chest as I moved and my face got hotter the longer she stared. I had managed to create a wall two pillows high and four long between us. She peered up at me like she was certain I'd disappear if she looked away.
I demanded again, my voice more steady this time.
"No touching, I'm serious."
She grinned madly in the dark and nodded. I turned away from her and pulled the sweater I was wearing over my head and discarded it on her floor. I could feel her eyes burning into my undershirt from behind. I tried to silence my senses and hold my breath so the intoxicating scent of her couldn't persuade me to break my own rules.
I turned back to find her breathing calmly and tracing the features of my face with her eyes lazily. She looked drunkenly happy. The three punctured ribs seemed to be making her completely delirious. I remembered watching the doctors remove the large wooden spike and cringed.
Val quirked an eyebrow. It was almost impossible to see her now that the sun had sunk almost entirely out of the sky. I laid back against the pillow and felt my body sink into her mattress.
"What happened to you?"
Our scents were mingling together in the air and I could feel approval from my wolf. Val shifted her body towards me in the darkness. A lump was in my throat. I tried to ignore my awareness of her. The rise and fall of her breathing. The smell of her sinking all over me and into my hair.
"We found Morgana."
My body stiffened. Slowly, carefully, I turned my body towards her across the pillow wall and frowned.
"You did?"
I heard the covers shift a little bit until she fully settled. Then she started to speak calmly, voice edging with the same sleepy grog I remembered from our last meeting in her room. I ignored the nervous desire in my stomach and focused on her explanation.
"Morgana isn't actually a person like we thought before. I think it's a code-name used by an organization of witches from Sleeping Hollow."
My brows furrowed. With Sleeping Hollow being across a continent from my own home, it was a common belief that the rumors were all lies. My own mother used to say half of the stories were really exaggerations.
"When the witches caught wind that we were poking around, four of them were sent to kill us before we could actually venture into the hollow."
I bit the side of my lip and interrupted her.
"I thought the stories about the Sleeping Hollow were just legends."
I said it more like a question than a statement and Val laughed, then coughed and her voice strained like it had hurt her. Sensing her discomfort I spoke softly in the darkness.
"It's okay you don't have to tell me anymore about it right now."
Val spoke one more time, voice nearly overcome with tiredness.
"Anyone who thinks the legends aren't real has simply never seen Sleeping Hollow."
I allowed her words to sink in as I tried to remember all the many legends and stories. A perpetual nervousness had settled in my stomach. If half of the stories were true, it was a wonder the group of them had made it out alive. I opened my mouth and then closed it, hesitating.
"Yes, Liana?"
My cheeks tinged from embarrassment that my anxiety was this obvious even in the darkness. I took a breath and spit the words out quickly, forcing myself not to sound too concerned.
"Don't die."
Val went completely quiet. I started to think she had fallen asleep without even hearing me when she finally answered.
"Goodnight, Liana."