Page 10 of Monsters and Mocha

CHAPTER SEVEN

FITZ

The pain was the first thing he noticed, followed closely by the sharp metallic smells of blood and hot metal.

I’m still alive. Why am I still alive?

His memories were blurred and disconnected, but Fitz was fairly certain that he was supposed to be dead. He knew it from the moment he jumped on the powder ball.

How am I still alive?

“Good morning. It’s a beautiful day.”

The strange, scratchy voice broke the silence so suddenly that he would have jumped, had he strength left in his muscles to do so. His heart hammered painfully against the inside of his chest, as if with every beat he was striking the organ against an anvil. He struggled to open his eyes, and finally succeeded in cracking open the left one.

It was hard to discern more than vague shapes in the dim light. Fitz was able to make out a dark ceiling above him, and blurry spots of lamplight, but moving his head in an effort to take in more of his surroundings only served to transplant the hammers from his chest to behind his eyes. He stilled.

There was a sound of something small and hard like nails tapping against metal, and suddenly a dark mass of feathers with bright, beady eyes took up his entire field of vision.

“Good morning! What do you think you’re doing?”

Is the bird…talking?

“Raven! Get your dirty bird feet off him!”

A smooth, alto voice met his ears, and the bird disappeared in a rush of air and feathers. A pale, freckled face framed by a frazzled mess of red hair took its place. Concern creased the area between the woman’s wide, green eyes as she searched his face.

“You’re awake,” she whispered, exhaling as if in relief.

“You…sound surprised.” It took far more effort than he expected to speak, and his voice sounded gravelly and foreign.

“Just grateful. You had me a little worried for a while.”

Cool fingers brushed across his forehead, and Fitz closed his eye in response to the gentle touch. It was a familiar gesture, one that reminded him of how his mother used to comfort him when he was a child.

And yet not, because those leaf-green eyes and the voice like honey certainly did not belong to his mother.

“Do I know you?” He didn’t mean for his question to come out so harshly, and he regretted it when the cool fingers immediately withdrew.

The voice took on a decidedly more clinical tone. “My name is Darby Shelton, and I’m a surgical intern at Walton Hospital. Do you remember anything that happened, Captain Monstrego?”

The hammers returned with a vengeance as he tried to cast his mind back. “We were in the orchard. Caught by surprise. They threw a powder ball.”

He felt Darby’s fingers pressed lightly against his right wrist, likely checking his pulse.

I’m surprised she can’t just hear it, with how loudly it’s pounding in my ears.

“That’s right. You were injured pretty severely, Captain, but from what I could tell, all of your men are still alive.”

The sentence jogged a memory, blurry and faint, of white-washed walls and a red-headed angel. She had said something similar. “Merry?”

“I treated him myself.” He could hear the smile in Darby’s words, even if his eyelids were too heavy to see it. “He’ll be fine.”

“That’s good.” Darkness was pulling at his consciousness, beckoning him to the blissful oblivion of sleep.

“Get some rest, Captain. You’re going to need it.”

The light was different when he returned to the waking world, with brighter, more natural colors mixed in with the glow of lamps. His right eye still refused to open, but his left had regained its full functionality. Distant street noises and the ticking of the clock were the only sounds that filled the space, and Fitz felt a slight pang of disappointment in his chest at finding himself alone.