BEXLEY BRIAR
The world hums and goes silent, and Bexley falls deeper into it. The cool sand against her cheek, and the dust filming her yellow skin, and the cruel, mocking sun, faint where it touches her, if it ever does. Seraphina’s voice is a low, warm buzz that floats above her head, like the slow movement of so many bees. Her eyes flutter closed. The pain that moves through her body is dull at best, but never-ending - laces each nerve, each muscle, spreads thin little tendrils into her brain and roots there, tugging, pricking. Her breath goes ragged in her throat. There is the absence of noise, the absence of feeling, and then Bexley smashes into sleep all at once, fainting dead against the ground.
What feels like just a moment later, she’s awake again. The sun drips red now. Lashes thick with tears and dust, Bexley blinks, blinks again, attempting to clear the shimmering scotoma from her vision. The rocks that used to pin her in place are shoved off to the side now in haphazard piles, and Bex realizes blearily that she could move, if she wanted to, and then a moment later, that she couldn’t - every one of her muscles is bleeding or bruised, and deep inside, she feels the stirring of a broken bone, more than one, most likely. Ache pulsates through each joint. And, as much as Bexley struggles to wake, to speak again, to use her words in a way that would make any kind of sense, she can’t. She just can’t. Something hard and horrible presses into her brain, and, despite her best efforts, a tear seeps from her eye to water the earth.
Who did this to you?
She looks up at Seraphina slowly, reluctantly. There is so much to be said and no way to say it. So much to unravel and no desire to detangle it. All she wants, all she needs, is a way to tell the story without putting herself in it - a way to detach herself from what happened, to explain without being involved. Bexley closes her eyes again and grits her teeth, attempting to go numb, and failing. It’s not an option anymore, to ignore things as they come.
Acton, she says finally, hoarsely, and Raum. The - the spy. Bexley listens to herself talk and almost can’t feel it, the words as they escape her mouth, float through the air, disembodied in someone else’s tone. Someone - weak, and broken, and absolutely helpless. Couldn't be her. Not possibly.
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