Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,76
nodded and gestured to the guards.
Within seconds, they had stepped forward and pulled Scarlet away from the podship, locking her hands behind her with some sort of binding that dug into her forearms. By the time they began marching her toward the enormous arched doors, the doctors and the thaumaturge were already gone.
Twenty-Seven
Time passed in a haze, dreams and reality blurring together. Being pulled from her sleep, forced to sit up and drink some water. Snips of muddled conversations. Shivering. Hot and sweating and kicking off the thin blankets. Thorne beside her, tying a blindfold around his head. Hands holding the water bottle to her lips. Drink. Drink. Drink. Eat this soup. Drink some more. Unfamiliar laughter making her curl up into a ball and burrow beneath the blankets. Thorne’s silhouette in the moonlight, rubbing his eyes and cursing. Gasping for breath in the hot air, sure that she was going to suffocate beneath the blankets and that all the oxygen would be sucked up into the dark night sky. Desperate for water. Itchy from the sand still in her clothes and hair.
Light. Darkness. Light again.
Finally Cress awoke, groggy but lucid. Saliva was thick and sticky in her mouth and she was lying on a mat inside a small tent, alone. It was dark beyond the thin fabric walls and the moonlight spilled over the pile of clothing at her feet. She felt for her hair, meaning to strangle her wrists with it, but found it chopped beneath her ears.
The memories returned, lazy at first. Thorne in the satellite, Sybil and her guard, the fall and the knife and the cruel desert stretching to the ends of the earth.
She could hear voices outside. She wondered whether the night had just begun or was already ending. She wondered how long she’d slept. She seemed to recall arms around her, soft knuckles brushing sand off her face. Had it been a dream?
The tent’s flap opened and a woman appeared with a tray, the older woman from the fire. She beamed and set down the food—some sort of soup and a canteen of water.
“Finally,” she said in that thick, unfamiliar accent, crawling over the mounds of disheveled blankets. “How do you feel?” She pressed a palm to Cress’s forehead. “Better. Good.”
“How long was I…?”
“Two days. We’re behind schedule now, but no matter. It’s good to see you awake.”
She sat down beside Cress. It was a snug fit in the tent, but not uncomfortable.
“You will have a camel to ride when we leave. We need to keep your wounds clean. You were lucky we got you before the infection.”
“Wounds?”
The woman gestured to her feet and Cress bent over. It was too dark to see, but she could feel bandages. Even two days later they were sore to the touch and her leg muscles tingled from exertion.
“Where’s—” She hesitated, unable to remember if Thorne had given himself a fake name. “My husband?”
“By the fire. He’s been entertaining us with talk of your whirlwind romance. Lucky girl.” She gave a sly wink that made Cress withdraw, then patted Cress’s knee. She handed the bowl of soup to her. “Eat first. If you’re strong enough, you can come join us.” She scooted back toward the entrance.
“Wait. I have to—um.” She blushed, and the woman gave her an understanding look.
“I’m sure you do. Come along, I’ll show you where to do your business.”
There was a pair of boots by the tent’s opening that were far too big for her. The woman helped Cress stuff them with cloth until they bordered on comfortable, though the bottoms of her feet still stung, and then she led her away from the fire, to a hole they’d dug into the sand at the edge of the oasis. Two sheets had been hung up for privacy and there was a young palm tree to balance on while Cress relieved herself.
When she was done, the woman guided her back to the tent and then left her alone to savor the soup. Her appetite had returned tenfold since her first meal in the oasis. Her gut felt hollow, but the broth soothed her as she listened to the chatter of strangers. She tried to pick out Thorne’s voice, but couldn’t.
When Cress crawled out of the tent again, she saw eight forms seated around the fire. Jina was stirring a pot half buried in the sand, and Thorne sat relaxed and cross-legged on one of the mats. He had a bandanna around his eyes.