“Sunshine, this is going to hurt. I need to cauterize the wound, sealing it off from any other attack.”
“Paige, are you listening to me?” Desperation clawed at his chest as he waited for her answer.
“I’m tired, Cal, I just want to sleep.”
“You can’t sleep. Paige, I need you to fight and you can’t do if you’re asleep. I promise when I get you back home, you can sleep as long as you like. Are you listening to me, beautiful?”
“You called me Beautiful.” There was a slight feeling of awe in her voice.
“Because you are, Paige. The minute I saw you I was overwhelmed by your beauty, then I met you. Now I know you’re not just beautiful on the outside, but you’re also beautiful on the inside. Get ready this will hurt.”
He aimed a bright light at her wound watching as the ends sealed and the poison dissipated into noxious fumes. He felt her pain; even though they weren’t yet soul bonded it reverberated through him. He took a deep breath and continued. He had to stop the poison or he would lose her.
Cal listened as Paige’s breath came out in shallow pants with cries of pain accompanying it.
“Did you close the wound?” her voice was low and shaky.
“No, not yet. I need to push the poison out of your system, it would be too deadly to try to diffuse it enough so it could travel through and pass naturally.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Hmm, maybe my bedside manner is improving.”
She gave a small chuckle.
“Tell me something I don’t know, Paige.”
He turned his attention back to the poison that was collecting against the web he spun. There was a dark coat of it everywhere it touched. It not only planned to replicate but to leave traces of itself every place it went.
His body began to glow until he was pure light causing the poison to shy away from him. It was a form of darkness that wasn’t able to take the light. Burrowing through it until he came to his web, he turned to find that where he traveled there was not a trace of it. He began to stretch until he covered the web. His essence was thinned putting a strain on his body. If he spread himself too thin, he would find himself evaporating much like steam. He thinned a little more, Paige’s life depended on it.
The poison retreated from him backing up just enough to keep from coming in contact with the light he projected. Slowly he began to advance as the poison retreated. It would take a while, but he would be able to push it out of her body.
“I don’t hear you, Paige.”
“It burns.”
“I’m sorry, Paige, but this is the only way I can do it here.” Paige’s voice sounded weak to his ears making him want to work faster. He couldn’t go any faster, if he missed one small particle it would replicate and kill her.
“I hear voices.”
“Victor and Selma are talking to you. We have songs and words of healing, I’m sure they are covering you with them.”
“Am I going to live?”
Her voice sounded defeated to him. This was the first time he heard her sound this way; she was always so strong even as she talked about her struggles.
“Definitely. You don’t think I just found you to lose you?”
He pushed the poison closer to the opening, he began to tire; his destination began to seem like it was moving away from him.
“When I was younger I always wanted to be beautiful, not pretty, but beautiful like a Princess. I even wanted a princess dress, but I never got one. When I grew up and moved out I had a few boyfriends who said I was pretty, but they never said I was a beautiful.”
“Be happy they never said that, Paige. I might have felt the need to track them down and relieve them of their heads.” Jealousy he never expected to feel reared its ugly head. He wanted to be the one who called her Beautiful. Already he didn’t want to share.
“Cal!”
“Yes, Beautiful?”
“Say it again.”
“Paige, you’re absolutely beautiful.” It was a wonder to him that she couldn’t see herself. She was the sunlight glinting off the snow in the morning. Her eyes were the refreshing grey of a cloudy sky, a sky that promised surprises. Her sweet face with her never ending smile. Along with that a body that would make any man drop to his knees. He would have followed her anywhere. She was beautiful.
“Cal, I think I like you!”
He gave a weak chuckle, “It’s a start, but I think there’s more to it than that.
“Are you alright?”
“Just fine, tell me something else.” Tiredness beat at him like a drum. Halving his essence, then thinning it, was taking a toll on him.
“I love your arms.”