The Splintered Edge (PT II)

Terralysa watched the lazy drip of the faucet as it fell hollowly into the sink below. The room was bathed in a deep flickering blue from the tinted lights overhead.

“You don’t remember anything else,” Chief Morganson against her again from his seat across the table. “Nothing about his face or his clothes? Nothing?”

“I’ve told you everything that I know,” she snapped at him suddenly, her hands flattening and spreading on the cool metal table top that stood between them. Her dark blue eyes burned in the dim light of the room. “If I knew anything else, don’t you think I would tell you? Do you think I want this fucking monster walking free?”

The Chief leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, studying her. His dark brown eyes were narrowed at her, but they were unreadable as always. He rolled his thick lips into a thin line. His face was full of wrinkles these days.

“I’m not trying to upset you, Kline,” he said with that familiar gravelly voice laced with concern. “I just need to get this guy off the streets. We need to get this guy off the streets.”

“You think I don’t know that,” she snapped at him, her eyes boring into his accusatorially. He sighed loudly and glanced away from her to the floor.

He had always been like a father to her, but she was in no mood to discuss this with him again. She had given him everything she knew, everything she could remember or recall. There was nothing else she could tell him, and none of it made a difference anyway. She winced as a flash of pain shot suddenly through her leg.

“I don’t need to do this right now,” she said, rising suddenly from her chair across from him. Even now, six moths later, her movements were still awkward and ungainly. “I want to go and get some rest.”

Terralysa saw Morganson clench his jaw and grind his teeth together anxiously. It reminded her of her father. She knew he wanted to say more, but wouldn’t dare. They both knew what she had been through. There was no use in pushing her.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “Alright. But if you remember anything else, you’ll call me? Right away?”

She gave him her thinnest smile as she pressed the button for her nurse. “I promise. As always.”

“Okay,” he said gruffly, rising from his chair, “Do you want help?”

Terralysa was shuffling awkwardly back towards the waiting shape of the black and silver wheelchair that waited by the wing door. Her leg drug awkwardly behind her. The pain jolted her from her toes to her teeth still, but she would not let him see it. She struggled on towards the waiting chair.

“No,” she said thinly. “I’m fine. You just get home and tell Marty I said hello.”

“I will,” the old man said as he made his way towards the door. He smiled weakly as she lowered herself awkwardly into the chair. She could see the nurse shuffling towards them from beyond, draped in her pastel pink scrubs. “She’s making a cobbler tonight, peach.”

“That sounds delicious,” Terralysa said warmly as the door behind her hissed open. The nurse made her way towards the broken girl in the wheelchair.

“Tell you what, what if I bring her around next week? She’s been asking an awful lot about you. She’s worried. She hasn’t seen you since before the incident.”

Terralysa’s lip curled at the word. Incident. It didn’t quite seem to fit. She looked up at Morganson and smiled. “That’d be nice. How about Thursday?”

The old man smiled warmly back at her for the first time since he entered the sterile greeting room. “Thursday it is. See you then, kiddo.”

The nurse was at the back of the wheelchair now and was quietly lifting the locks. “Are you ready to go back to your room now, Miss Kline?”

Terralysa nodded her head slowly. “That’d be lovely, Grace. Thank you.”

“Bye then, Kline,” Morganson said with one last bow of his greying head.

“See you, Chief.”

With that, the nurse turned Terralysa slowly around and wheeled her through the sheer sliding doors and back into the quiet solitude of the wing.

“He seems awfully pushy,” Grace said gently as the doors shut behind them. “He’s here almost every week with the same old questions. Seems to me you’d both be a lot better off if he just left you alone.”

Terralysa smiled sadly as her eyes watched the passing pastel tiles of the wall. She liked how clean it was here, how sterile. It smelled of soap and bleach here, not blood and piss and death. She cocked her head slowly to the side and supported it with her hand. The pain was beginning to ebb from her leg.

“He means well,” she said to the quiet nurse behind her. “He cares a lot for me, and this whole thing has been hard for him to handle.”

“Hard for him to handle,” Grace retorted suddenly, “you’re the one the nearly got hacked to bits and eaten.”

The pain throbbed in Terralysa’s leg again suddenly, and she felt a heavy stone of fear drop into her stomach. The hallway was beginning to spin around her. She felt as if she would vomit. She threw out her hand in a motion for the nurse to stop pushing.

“I am so sorry,” Grace said, quickly locking up the wheelchair and rushing to kneel at Terralysa’s side. Her face had turned an ashy grey. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m so sorry. I just got so mad because I can see how much it upsets you. I didn’t mean to upset you to.”

“It’s fine,” Terralysa said suddenly, not looking up at the worry-stricken face of the pretty young nurse. “Really, it’s fine. I just need to lie down for a while.”

“Absolutely, honey. Let’s get you to your room.”

Grace rolled her slowly to her room, and helped her up into the bed. Terralysa winced as the young nurse maneuvered the mangled ruin of her leg into the bed. She could smell the stink of it through the clean white bandages. Grace pulled the covers up over her gently and tucked them neatly about her.

“Do you want me to bring you something for the pain?”

“Yes, please,” Terralysa said quietly between her tightly gritted teeth. She did not meet Grace’s concerned stare. Even now, more than six months on, she couldn’t bare the looks she got from people. Those sympathetic looks. They made her sick. She wasn’t someone that needed sympathy — especially not now. She shifted herself awkwardly in the bed, scooting away from Grace’s warm hand that still rested beside Terralysa’s own.  “Something strong, please. I just want to get some sleep.”

“Sure thing, sweetie,” Grace said gently before retreating quickly from the room. Terralysa sighed loudly as the door swung closed. The pain was really beginning to rack up. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

It had been six months since they had discovered her in the barn, unconscious and bleeding out beside the cold, dead and mangled corpse of her partner. By the time they had gotten there, the killer was gone, and her leg had been little more than a shredded and mangled mess, with the sinews and meat of her thigh hanging in ragged little strips of dirty, red meat. He had left her for dead and disappeared before the other Enforcement Agents even had a chance to surround the derelict old barn. Terralysa looked over nervously at the small window that looked out into the darkness of the city skyline, as if she expected to see him there, watching her, waiting for her. She shivered, and pulled the covers up higher about her. The lights hummed quietly overhead.

She told them she didn’t remember much, but she knew she would never forget a single moment of it. She replayed the events over and over again inside her mind, feeling the hot, stinking breath of him and seeing the wide, dead eyes of Oltham as his blood seeped beneath her. Terralysa closed her eyes and ground her teeth tightly together.

It couldn’t go on like this. Not forever. She had to forget. She had to move on.

The door creaked open and Terralysa snapped from her gruesome reverie. Grace smiled as she approached the bed, syringe in hand.

“I brought you the good stuff, the strong stuff. Should have you out in about an ten minutes.”

“Good,” Terralysa said quietly. She still would not look at Grace. “I just need to get some sleep.”

“Do you want me to call for some food or anything before I give this to you? It can make your tummy a bit upset…”

“No,” Terralysa said shortly. “No. I’m not hungry. I just want to sleep for a while. My leg is killing me.”

Grace’s face folded into a look of sad compassion. She had been on the ward since Terralysa had first been admitted, and she had looked after her as if the injured woman were her own child. Terralysa was grateful for her careful attentions, but it could be trying at times. She felt the cool wipe of the alcohol pad on her arm, then the sharp stick of the needle as Grace inserted the painkiller. Terralysa leaned her head back on the cool white pillows and waited for the chilling pulse of the medicine in her veins.

“Do you need anything else before I go?” Grace asked her quietly as she discarded the used syringe. “Any more pillows or blankets or anything?”

“No,” Terralysa said, closing her eyes and letting the empty darkness creep over her. “No, I’m alright.”

“Okay then,” Grace said sweetly. “Well, when you wake up, it will be Jillian on the ward. Don’t be too mean to her, now.”

Terralysa did not open her eyes, but she smiled. “That’s lovely. Thank you, Grace.”

“You’re welcome, Terra.”

Terralysa heard her slink quietly from the room, the door clicking locked loudly behind her. They always locked the door on her when she was resting now. No one wanted to take any chances. Terralysa was grateful for it. It gave her some tiny measure of security. She inhaled deeply, and let the stillness of the room wash over her.

That was the thing that she loved most about this ward. The quiet. The clean and the quiet. Everything was spotless, peaceful. There was no screaming in the night, no lurkers; no one waiting to gobble you up behind the shadows. She felt more at peace here than she ever had since the incident. Terralysa felt a sudden warmth spreading in her jaw, and felt her muscles melt and relax beneath the ardent attentions of the IV drug. Her eyes became heavy as lead beneath her drawn lids, her heart slowing to a dull thud in her ears.

Terralysa could feel the darkness sliding over her, and felt the peace of nothingness unfolding around her. She breathed deeply in the quiet, peaceful solitude of the moment. The horror of her life began to ebb slowly away from her.

“Hello, pretty girl,” a voice whispered suddenly in her ear. “Hello, pretty sergeant.”

Terralysa screamed.