Blues

Chapter Five

"Goodness, Sav," Nas says with deep concern, staring at the bandages across my chest. I see her in the mirror, immediately putting down her book to get up and cross the room to me. "He really got you."

Cia looks ill, but says nothing. I wonder if she feels guilty on behalf of her parents the way I often did.

"Let me redress it," Nas offers. "He's no good at medicine."

"And you are?" I wonder out loud. It comes out less politely than I intend.

"It's a side job of mine," she says, opening a drawer in a side table. 

"That's okay," I spit out. "It doesn't hurt."

As far as I can tell, Adaline doesn't want anyone to know that she's spared me a seemingly common beating. I try to keep my mouth shut as long as I can.

"Don't be so modest, Sav," she says, unamused. "I've got all the same equipment that you do."

"Nas sees herself as some sort of a freelance apothecary," Cia explains. "Never taken a science class."

"How many of your wounds have I dressed, Cia?" Nas challenges.

"It isn't a bad thing," she quietly defends. "Remarkable, if anything."

"You're damn right it's remarkable," Nas quietly warns. "I bet he went for the isopropyl alcohol, right? He says he uses it to ward off infection, but really it's just so you can feel one more sting so you'll remember it."

"It wasn't Dallas, actually," I finally correct after two or three of her misused pronouns.

She laughs quietly. "Who was it, his house elf?"

"It was Adaline."

At that, she stops what she's doing entirely. I see even Cia snap her head up, suddenly interested.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No," I say. "She says Dallas would've hurt me worse, so she made him let her do it so she could go a little easier."

Nas gets off my bed in favor of sitting back in hers, which faces me. "Adaline doesn't discipline. And she definitely doesn't break."

"I beg to differ," I say, almost annoyed.

"She has no need to," she goes on regardless. "Her words hurt enough. She's smacked me around a couple times for mouthing off, but it was Dallas who's always tried to break me."

"He broke you more than once?"

"He still hasn't broken me," she corrected. "He never will."

"So Adaline really is good, then," I put together in simple words I want to believe.

"Good," she repeats with a laugh. "Good at what?"

"A good person," I elaborate. "She cares, I mean. Deep down. She's good to you, she isn't like Dallas?"

"You're right that she isn't like Dallas," she agrees. "But if you think Adaline cares, you're shit wrong."

"Then how are they so different?"

"Adaline and Dallas are bonded in one thing," Nas says. "Their complete disregard for all human life, including each other's and excluding their own."

"If she didn't care, why wouldn't she hit you?"

"Just because Adaline isn't as violent doesn't mean she isn't equally deranged. She is, if not more. She's absolutely sadistic, just not the sticks and stones type. In that, they're like night and day."