FOUND (Angels and Gargoyles Book 1) (17 page)

Chapter 31

It was like a maze, the stone corridors they followed. Dylan could tell they were moving up, as though on a circular track that wound up and up the inside of a mountain. The higher they went, the more decoration she began to see on the walls. Tapestries, long, colorful rugs that hung over the moist stones. Portraits of beautiful people Dylan didn’t recognize from any of the history she had been taught in Genero. Small shelves with small trinkets, some she knew, some she didn’t.

And then they turned down one long corridor where there were windows that allowed bright sunlight to shine down over them. It was early morning, Dylan realized. A whole night had passed in what felt like seconds.

A door opened, and the guard released Dylan. The dark-haired girl gestured for her to enter the room. She did, with some reluctance, and found herself in a room a dozen times larger than her small bedroom in D dorm, a luxurious space filled with huge, heavy furniture and silky linens that just begged to be touched. Off to one side was a bed bigger than any Dylan had ever seen, wrapped in this translucent fabric. To one side was a table covered in jars and tubes, a mirror set behind it in which Dylan could see her own shocked reflection looking back at her. A mirror in the bedroom. That was unheard of in Genero.

There was a desk and a small couch in one corner that looked as though it had confused its identity with a bed. A straight-back chair, rugs scattered across the stone floor, a tall cabinet with doors that were taller and wider than Dylan herself. And in the center of it all was a bathtub with feet, filled nearly to the brim with steaming water.

“What is this?” Dylan asked.

“Your bedroom,” the dark-haired girl said. “The masters were very angry to learn you had been taken to the dungeon. That was not meant to happen.”

“What about my friend?”

The dark-haired girl looked at her companion, a timid wisp of a thing with equally dark hair. “I’m sure he will be given his own room,” the first girl said in a happy, even tone that belied the confusion in her eyes.

Dylan walked over to the tub and dipped her fingers in the warm water. She had forgotten already how refreshing it could be to soak in warm water. It made her think of the river, the lake, where she had spent the few happy hours in the ordeal of the last few days.

And of Wyatt.

The first girl, the talker, came up behind Dylan and began to tug at her shirt. Dylan pulled away, wrapping her arms around herself. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“It is our job to help you clean yourself,” the girl said, dipping her head slightly. “I apologize for any misunderstanding.”

“I can undress myself,” Dylan said, but she made no move to do so. Instead, she continued to look around the room, running her fingers over items that were familiar to her, such as writing paper and upholstery and brass cabinetry, as well as unfamiliar things, such as the jars of color, the beveled edges of the tall mirror, the writing sticks that were metal rather than lead.

“Where did all this come from?” she asked. “Who lives here?”

“You do.”

“Before me.”

“I don’t understand.”

Dylan glanced over at the girls. The talker was watching her closely, but the other was standing with her eyes on the rug, as though she were afraid to make eye contact with anyone. “What are your names?” she asked.

“Ruby,” the talker said. “I am called Ruby.”

“And her?” Dylan said, gesturing at the other girl.

“She is called Becky.”

The girl looked up at the sound of her name only to quickly shift her eyes to the floor again. Dylan watched her for a moment, but she didn’t look up again. She tried to hear her thoughts, but had no success at that, either.

“You should get in the bath,” Ruby said. “The doctor will be here soon to look at your shoulder.”

Dylan touched her shoulder lightly, the flesh still so tender that even that little touch sent waves of nausea through her belly. “If I don’t?” she asked.

“Don’t what?”

“If I don’t get in the bath? What happens?”

Ruby shrugged. “You will meet the masters dirty.”  She frowned. The look only made her perfect features that much more beautiful. It was a little intimidating to Dylan. “I don’t suppose they would like that.”

Dylan inclined her head slightly. “Is that what happens next?”

Ruby’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. You get to have an audience with the masters. That is such an honor.”

“I’ll bet.”

Dylan looked at herself in the mirror, studied her dirt-smeared face, and decided it might not be such a bad thing to soak in a tub of warm water. She touched the compass in her pocket, the small stone and wrist bangle hiding there. She glanced behind her, then subtly slipped them from her pocket and hid them behind one of the many jars on the small table. Then she walked back to the tub, running her fingers through the warm water once more. Slowly she began to undress, never concerned about her nakedness. The girls always showered together in D dorm, the guardians included. But the intensity in Ruby’s gaze was a little unnerving.

“Do you have to stare at me?” she asked.

Ruby immediately dropped her gaze to the floor. “I apologize,” she said.

Dylan finished undressing and stepped into the tub, allowing the water to slowly cover her tired, abused body. Her dislocated shoulder proved to be a bit of a problem as she tried to find a comfortable position in which to recline. It also didn’t help that she couldn’t move her arm very far and the soap happened to be on a little shelf on that side of the tub. She sloshed some of the water onto the stone floor as she tried to reach the soap with her other hand.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” Becky muttered as she came to kneel at Dylan’s side, a cloth mitt over her hand. She picked up the soap and rubbed it into the mitt before she began to run her hand over Dylan’s arm.

“I can wash myself.”

Becky hesitated but continued as though Dylan had not spoken.

“It is her job,” Ruby said.

Dylan bit back words she was afraid would only fall on deaf ears and lay back, trying to force herself to enjoy the touch of a stranger. It was not easy, and she was glad when it was finished.

The water turned an almost pleasing reddish brown color as the dirt and dust washed from Dylan’s body. The worst of it seemed to come from her hair, her head a soft magnet for every type of dirt there was out in this desolate landscape. She watched it drip from the rinse water as Becky washed the soap out of her hair. It would have been embarrassing if every particle of dust had not been hard earned in these past few days. Her badge of strength was washing away in the warm water of convenience.

With the washing complete, Dylan stepped out of the water into a huge, fluffy towel that Ruby offered up to her. She dried her own skin as best as she could as Becky retrieved a jar of some unknown white substance and began to rub it into the skin of Dylan’s hand. It was cool, refreshing, and made her skin feel as silky as the linens hanging around the bed. Dylan slipped the jar from Becky’s hand and rubbed the fine fluid over other parts of her body, parts she did not relish having some stranger touch again.

Ruby produced a long, flowing dress made of the finest materials Dylan had ever had the pleasure of touching. It was a pale blue, the bodice cut low and straight below slender sleeves and above a high waist and a long, flowing skirt. Dylan had never worn a dress before but had read of them, so she knew enough about the styles of the past society to realize that this was not an everyday sort of thing, but something special.

“It’s beautiful,” she said quietly.

Ruby beamed, as though she had made the dress herself. For all Dylan knew, she might have.

Before she could dress, however, there was a knock at the door. A tall, blond woman walked in without waiting for a response from any of the room’s occupants.

“Doctor,” Ruby said in a low, conspiratorial whisper.

“I am Doctor Regina,” the woman said, approaching with her hand held out to Dylan.

Dylan studied her face, remembering what Davida had told her in her vision. Trust no one. “This isn’t necessary,” she said. “It’s fine.”

The doctor rolled back on her heels, her hands on the waistband of her tight-fitting pants. “Your shoulder is dislocated,” she said.

Dylan nodded.

“It needs to be pushed back into place.”

Dylan lifted her arm a little, trying not to wince at the pain that sliced through her as she did. “It’ll go back eventually.”

“Are you a doctor?” the woman asked with some laughter in her tone.

Dylan stepped back a little, knocking the backs of her knees against the edge of the bed. “Really,” she began to say as the doctor gave some sort of signal to Ruby and Becky. The girls immediately advanced on Dylan, taking advantage of her position to shove her back on the bed. Becky climbed onto the bed with Dylan, using strength Dylan would not have thought she possessed in her small body to drag Dylan’s legs onto the bed at the same time Ruby grabbed Dylan’s good arm and dragged her farther back. Dylan began to protest, jerking her legs hard enough to pull them out of Becky’s grip momentarily, as the doctor climbed on top of her.

“Hold her,” the doctor ordered as she grabbed Dylan’s injured arm and lifted it high and quick in front of her, rolling the joint this way and that before she suddenly gave it a hard yank. Dylan screamed as pain shot through her shoulder. It was the most excruciating pain she had ever felt, but when it subsided, the ache in her shoulder was less than it had been before. And she could move her arm in the proper rotation.

“Don’t use it too much at first,” the doctor said. “It could slip back out of socket if you do.”

Dylan nodded, a blush burning her cheeks as all three women climbed off the bed and left her alone.

Ruby and Becky walked the doctor to the door, leaving Dylan to her humiliation for a few minutes. She touched her shoulder, her fingers beginning to tingle as she did. In seconds the residual pain began to fade, as did the various bruises and soreness that plagued other parts of her body. With the absence of the intense pain, her ability to heal was coming back.

She closed her eyes, wondering if some of her other abilities were coming back too. When she did, she immediately felt Wyatt, felt his anger and fear, felt him somewhere nearby.

But she didn’t want to feel him.

She opened her eyes and climbed wearily off the bed. Ruby came to her, the dress held out before her. She was gathering the material of the skirt in preparation of helping Dylan into it when her eyes suddenly widened.

“You’re healed!”

Dylan followed Ruby’s gaze and looked down at her shoulder. The large and colorful array of bruises that had marred the pale skin there were gone, as was the vague line of redness from yesterday’s sun, and a scattering of scratches that had marked her skin from their rush through the brush and trees.

Dylan ran her hand over her own shoulder. “That silky fluid is amazing,” she said.

Ruby cocked her head slightly, clearly not following Dylan’s line of logic. But she let it go, raising the dress above Dylan’s head as she slipped it onto her. Dylan stood, allowing her towel to fall as the dress fell down over her body. It was like the finest of caresses, the touch of the material on Dylan’s bare skin. It made her think of small children, of hugs, of Davida’s touch late in the night. Of Wyatt.

And Sam.

As Becky pushed Dylan into a chair—Dylan was quickly learning not to deny these girls the things they wanted—she thought about Sam alone in those iron boxes. The first chance she got, she was determined to find her way back down there to his side. He saved her from that Redcoat and tried to save her from capture. She owed it to him.

“Beautiful,” Becky said in her quiet, timid way as she let strands of hair fall over her fingers.

“Thank you,” Dylan said, looking into the mirror to watch Becky quickly and proficiently twist her hair into one neat, thick braid. And then she focused on her own, somewhat unfamiliar, gaze. She rarely took advantage of the mirrors that hung in the community bathroom back at D dorm because they were often crowded as sixty girls rushed to get dressed before the breakfast bell. Not only that, but her own reflection next to all those dark-haired, green and brown-eyed girls had always made her feel like something of an outsider. But now…she gazed into pale blue eyes, studied her long, thick eyelashes, her eyebrows that were just enough darker than the hair on her head to give her face some definition. Her rounded jaw that ended in a subtle point at her chin, a thin, straight nose that kept the line of her forehead proportionate to the rest of her face.

She guessed now, as she studied herself, that she was not as unattractive as she had always thought.

Just a little different, Davida had once told her.

Different.

She had never wanted to be different. Now different was taking her someplace she didn’t understand, someplace she was not sure she would survive.

Someplace that frightened her almost as much as it intrigued her.

Chapter 32

“It’s time.”

Dylan stood, the soft shifting of the skirt around her legs a little disconcerting as she took her first few steps toward the door. It opened, as though the person on the other side had sensed their movement, a tall man in that familiar red coat studying her without candor as she walked toward him, Becky and Ruby on either side of her.

The man stepped aside as they approached, but Dylan could still feel his eyes on her as Ruby directed her into the hallway and to her left, following the path they had begun to take on their original journey through this maze.

The Redcoat remained where he was. It was only Ruby and Becky who accompanied Dylan through the corridors, until they came to a set of double doors that were as tall as the corridor was wide.

“Go inside,” Ruby said with a soft touch on Dylan’s arm. “They’re waiting for you.”

“Who?”

Ruby smiled, a smile full of exultation. “The masters.”