— Mishka —

I heard of the hospital incident fairly quickly.

I’m generally good at learning stuff, but I must say, rumours in a pack travels hella fast. I barely have to put in an effort.

I also found out the attack might have been coming from Ylva, and the Alpha was super angry at her. Which made no sense to me.

So I decided to go to the source.

I tracked Ylva in the showers of the hospital. She was sitting on the floor wet and naked. Her back was against the back wall, her right pressed on the sidewall, her knees up to her chest, and she stared at nothing without moving.

Droplets of water fell on her, but most of the falling water fell next to her.

“Go away,” she said without looking at me, and without much emotion, just numbness.

I dropped on my shin and got closer.

The water was cold.

“What happened?” I asked her.

She said nothing.

“I heard something attacked the Luna.”

“She’s not Luna yet,” she corrected me, emotionless.

“Elaeya,” I corrected myself.

She said nothing.

“Who attacked?” I asked.

“An Other,” she said, her voice braking at the end.

I took a breath in through my teeth. “It just left?”

“Elaeya beat it.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. She has some spunk.”

She snorted but was still not looking at me.

“But it’s over now, right?”

“The nursed washed her, but the blight would not go away.”

“Blight?” I asked.

“The rot that Others infect people with. Running water was supposed to wash it away. She said it would. But it didn’t for her,” she said closing her eyes. “The nurse was worried. Kade will kill me for this.”

“Why would he do that?”

I went to pick a towel.

“Because it’s my fault,” she said tormented.

“How so?” I asked casually, returning to her shower stall.

“It followed me here?”

“Why? From where?” I bent back down.

“When we returned from Greysky and passed through the empty land. I spotted it. Once someone notices an Other, it allows it to connect with you, track you, follow you, attack you.”

“Sure, but people don’t see them.”

She shook her head. “Most can’t. But I’m part Valkyrie, which allows me to see them. And once I do they can see me back.”

I tried to wrap her in the towel, but she pushed it away.

“You’re cold Ylva. That’s not healthy.”

“I need to wash the blight away,” she said, her eyes still vaguely looking at nothing in particular.

“And how long to you intend to do that?”

“One hour, she said one hour.”

I scolded thinking. “It’s been more than an hour Ylva.”

She looked at me, then at her nail. They were dark. I thought at first it might have been the cold, but now I was beginning to think differently.

“You’re blightening,” I said.

She shrugged and put her hand back down, wrapping her arms tighter around her and letting her head fall sideways against the wall.

I got back up, turned the temperature of the water up, and moved the shower head for the water to fall right on top of her.

“If you’re thinking you doing some self-punishment here, you’re wrong,” I told her, my voice colder. “Get your shit together. Shit happens. It followed you, now it’s gone. Letting yourself fall apart is not gonna change what happened.”

“This is none of your fucking business,” she said angrily, wiping the water off her face along with her plastered blond hair. She looked at me with bloody murder in her eyes.

“This is better,” I told her.

I grabbed soap and shampoo, kicked my shoes off which were already getting wet, then bent back down, landing on my shin in front of her. I extended my arms to give her the soap and bottle.

“You’ll do it or do I have to do it.”

She snorted angrily at me, but took them both.

I nodded satisfied.

“It’s not the end of the world,” I told her, looking at some really angry bruises on her skin. “You survived, everyone survived.”

“She might not,” she told me.

“How so?”

“Blight, when it’s well settled in, it only worsened.” She kept the soap and shampoo in her hands, but didn’t wash. She looked down at the tiled floor. Rivulets of water gathered to the drain in a slow spiral.

I never saw her like this.

“Maybe something can be done about this.”

“How,” she pleaded. “Kaden told me to take care of the situation. To make sure it can’t return. It could return.”

“Didn’t you say she defeated it.”

“Yes, but it’s not dead. Just licking its wounds. Other can’t be killed. They’re immortal.”

“I’m sure there are ways around.”

“How?” said asked now looking in my eyes in earnest. “I’m the one who’s supposed to correct this, but I don’t know of a way. I didn’t even think Elaeya could stop it.”

I nodded. “I know a guy. I can call him. He’ll sort it out.”

She raised her brows in disbelief.

“Let me handle this part. But you have to take care of yourself.” I took one of her hands in mine, and rubbed soap on it, washing it thoroughly under the water, trying to wash away the blight that was trying to set root in her fingers.

She said nothing. I kept my eyes on her hand.

My clothes were getting seriously wet.

I moved to her other hand, massaging it under the water, both in silence.

“I thought I had lost it,” she broke the silence after a few minutes. “I hadn’t seen it since I had boarded the plane. I ignored it, made sure it would not notice too much that I’d noticed it. I didn’t think it would try anything with anyone else.” She took a long breath, her posture getting slightly straighter and closer to what I was used to seeing in her.

“Yesterday morning, I saw it here. Lurking in between the trees. Elaeya and I were running. It looked at me. I know it did,” she told me. “I didn’t let Elaeya look at it. I got out of there before anything could happen. But it didn’t attack, so I thought I might have tricked it again in not being sure if I’d seen it or not. I never thought it took notice of her. I never thought she could really see it either.”

I listened.

Once I was done with her hands, I moved her feet slightly to better wash them too, but letting her hide her body behind her bent legs.

“It drank some of her blood. I don’t know what it means, but I think it somehow made it stronger. It was a lot stronger than it should have been. It could make itself known.”

I felt my brown constrict together at her words.

It didn’t sound good, at all.

Once I was done with her feet, I gave her the soap bar.

“You want me to deal with the rest of you or you can do that yourself?”

She scoffed at me and grabbed the soap roughly from my hands.

“You want me to leave?”

She said nothing and just looked at the soap bar in her hand.

My legs were becoming painful for staying in that position for so long. As I heard no objections I dropped my ass on the tiles in a puddle of water right next to her, our bodies pressed against one another in the little cramped space.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked me, looking sideways.

“My legs hurt,” I said. “And I’m wet.”

Part of the water was now falling straight on me.

“So you decided to get more wet?”

I shrugged.

“We’ll deal with all this,” I told her. I knew she understood what I meant.

She said nothing.

“I’ll help.” I looked at my watch. “Forty-five minutes to go.”

“Are you going to stay here all that time?”

I shrugged.

“This is gonna be one long ass shower,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”