I was getting pretty tired of not sleeping.

Last night had been literal hell. Parker, of course, had a fever and was beyond hot to the touch. His leg was, of course, infected. It was beyond frustrating to learn that, despite my best efforts, I couldn't prevent him from getting worse, but in the end, I did everything I could. It's not like I could have done much more with the stuff I got from town (which consisted of a new roll of gauze, a tube of Neosporin, and a bottle of ibuprofen) and Delilah's special salve had been used up when we used it on her. Hospitals also wouldn't really know what to do with a boy who had just been dismembered after being kidnapped and injected with mystery drugs. As much as it was their job to fix people up, I didn't even know if we were human anymore.

Because of Parker's infection, I didn't get a wink of sleep. None of us did. We were all panicking that his condition would worsen overnight, and those of us who weren't working on keeping him stable was nowhere comfortable enough to sleep easy. Dakota, despite being the main person treating him that night (which was surprising in itself- no one knew he was capable of that), was the most awake out of all of us. It was clear that he was used to working on low amounts of sleep. Delilah was doing the worst. She'd definitely stepped up and helped with Parker, but it was clear that she wasn't used to working on low amounts of sleep. The girl was rocking back and forth, nearly blacking out before shooting upward once more, and the cycle continued throughout the hours of the night.

Which takes us to the present. I leaned over Parker as the sun rose, my hand on his sweating forehead, and Delilah was slumped against the trunk of a tree nearby, too exhausted to even make it to the sleeping bags- all of which sat untouched at the other side of the clearing. Rhiannon was still unconscious, and we had no idea how long that would remain in effect, but we figured it wouldn't take much longer for her to wake up. I didn't know what we were going to do when that eventually happened. What I did know was that we were going to have the same conversation from before about whether we let her stay with us, but the question was whether I would stay on the same side I was on before. It wasn't like she hadn't done anything for us- she definitely had- but at this point, I had to make a final decision about whether her positives of knowledge and protection outweighed the erratic and dangerous negatives that came with her ability.

We also needed to address exactly what the girl had said yesterday. Her statements about "taking control" and "getting the other girl back" were highly indicative of another consciousness. Rhiannon had stated previously that she was entirely without control when in that state of being... could another consciousness explain her state of helplessness? Then again, if that was the case, how would she know what was going on around her? Was it some kind of transition between her subconscious and conscious? Did the girl even know that there was another consciousness inside of her? And all of this was on the hypothetical that there was another consciousness inside of her.

Woah. I sounded like I was in a science fiction novel.

I heard rustling to my left and shot upward, on edge immediately. My hand left Parker's sweating forehead and covered my eyes to shield them from the sun and I stood up from my kneeling position. I saw a silhouette in the woods and launched myself toward it, keeping my wings pinned tightly against my back. My eyes widened as I skidded to a halt to find not a single person around. Was I baited? Was this a trap? The forest was entirely silent save for a few morning birds and the wind in my ears. I listened harder. Leaves were rustling, a squirrel was chortling. Despite the regular forest sounds, nothing was here. My eyes caught on a note tacked to the bark of an oak tree and I seethed, ripping it off and reading over it as hastily as I could.

Hello!
Based on the unfortunate circumstances of Parker's limb removal, we are gifting you a weeklong grace period, as per the guidelines of the experiment. Enjoy your break, because no further will any be given!
- J.K.O.

I shredded the note. I could repeat its contents later, and I needed something to take my anger out on. There was no medicine with the note, which was more than a little infuriating. Delilah got a papercut and they gave her a miracle salve, but Parker was involuntarily amputated without anesthetic and he got a piece of paper and a pat on the back? "That didn't go as planned" my ass. It went exactly as they intended it to.

Whatever. I'd take the grace period, even if I didn't think they would uphold it.

I returned to the group with added haste, moving quickly as to not burn any daylight. If there was anything that yesterday had taught me, it was that- despite our lessons- we were severely underprepared. It was my job to make sure that this didn't happen again.

***

A few days had gone by in our weeklong grace period. I'd spent my days practicing the few things Rhiannon had taught us. My legs burned and my feet ached, but I pushed through the soreness and did everything I could to improve my skills. Overall, I could tell that I was improving. I constantly tested my limits with each repetition of the exercise, and it was clear that it was helping. After each rep, I felt more confident, more sure of myself, and the movements became second nature. As much as I wanted to help out with Parker, I'd done all I was allowed to do. Delilah had, jarringly, taken over the job of primary caretaker. She lost more than a few nights of sleep staying up to tend to him as he slipped in and out of fever dreams, spluttering and thrashing in his sleep. Anyone who wasn't offering immediate assistance was forced to leave, so I eventually gave up and focused my mind on training. Dakota trained with me when he could but he focused most of his efforts on helping Delilah with Parker.

I tried to keep my mind away from the visions of the horrors I had witnessed, but too often it strayed the wrong way. Flashes of blood would cloud my vision, causing me to stumble if I was standing and almost fall over when sitting. Blood would roar in my ears and I could feel my heart thump in my chest. It would take a few moments for me to gather my bearings again and feel my heartbeat begin to recede. My thoughts would scatter and collecting them was harder than most things I had ever done in my life. I hoped with all my might that these episodes were temporary and a reaction to the recent events rather than a long-term effect. These things could get in line. It was already quite a long queue of "things that will affect Carson throughout her lifetime".

Before I knew it, the grace period was over. We'd managed to get through it unscathed, and Parker was as stable as we could get him with the circumstances. I could tell that Delilah had changed a lot over the past week or so. No longer did she hide in the background, refusing to offer any kind of assistance and saving her own skin. Hopefully, in the future, her very useful power of incapacitation would be put to good use.

But before we moved on and tried to figure out what was next, we had to be able to move on. By which I mean physically able to move on. By which I mean teaching Parker how to walk with one leg.

None of us were exactly experts in physical therapy, but Dakota had an interest in general science and physical health. He'd told us over that week that he'd originally wanted to pursue that career, using whatever information on the subject he could gather from library books and basically whatever free methods of obtaining information there was. That career path was dead now, though, as was everyone else's. It'd be pretty hard to become a doctor or a surgeon without undergoing any kind of physical exam, and who knew what they would do when they did a blood test and found random unknown substances in his blood?

Anyway, the point was that he was the most experienced out of any of us at general biology, and he ended up being crucial in getting Parker to walk again. Rhiannon had fashioned him a cane, which seemed a bit ironic considering she was the one who-

Oh, right. Rhiannon. She'd disappeared the second she woke up, and none of us knew if she was ever going to come back. When she finally did, the bags under her eyes were larger and some clumps of hair were missing. She'd returned with a cane- a crudely carved walking stick that was clearly stripped with a pocket knife and just a little bit too tall for Parker's height- and an apology. I'd accepted it on the conditions that she would tell us what was going on with her, but Dakota and Delilah had simply looked the other way and accepted the cane. I couldn't blame them, and it could certainly have been worse. I wouldn't have been surprised if Dakota had tried to kill her right there and then, so any other reaction at this point was a win.

"Carson?"

I knelt to look Parker in the eyes from where he was seated on the ground, the same place he'd been for a week. My hair waved gently in front of my eyes, a curtain covering the shaking boy and hiding him partially from view. The wind made it dance and it ran over my scalp, giving me the courage to have this conversation and for what lay ahead. "Yeah, Parker?"

He looked down. It was as though he'd aged backward in the past seven days. "I'm not sure I'm ready for this."

I shifted my weight to my heels and crouched down to eye level. "I wish we had more time, but you have to be ready for this. We don't get any other breaks. I know I'm asking a lot, but it's what we have to do." I could practically feel the disappointment wash over him as the small trace of false hope he had washed away. We both knew, as did the rest of our group, that a week was not nearly long enough for an amputated limb to heal safely enough to be walked on, and also that a singular walking stick wouldn't be the best supplement for half of his body weight, but it wasn't like we had other options.

"We really can't do this much longer," a voice says from behind me. I felt a bit of a shiver as a feminine hand touched my shoulder and turned to look behind me, catching Delilah's eyes in mine. I stared at her for a moment. She'd matured a lot, huh? It'd only taken a few weeks, but she'd become a totally different person than she was when we'd first met. "You know we're all losing hope. We barely had any in the first place, and now it's somehow even worse than where we started. We need to figure something out."

"What do you suggest, Delilah?" Where I would have been mad, once, I was now simply tired. Parker had returned to resting his head on the dirt, sensing the impending conversation and taking every opportunity to rest. "I can't do everything."

"I'm not saying you have to." She didn't sound angry, either. "You do a lot for us, Carson. For me. I don't deserve it, I don't. I'm a shit person, aren't I?"

I blinked. The girl had cussed. That was almost as confusing as what she was saying. Fearing that remarking on the situation would cause her to revert to her old demeanor, I decided to ignore it. "You're not a shitty person. You used to be." She scoffed, but I pressed forward. "You've changed a lot. Not just recently, though this last week has helped. You haven't been the same person for a while. It probably doesn't mean much, but... I'm really glad you changed for the better. Hopefully, I'm around long enough to see you continue to grow."

She frowned at that and opened her mouth to say something, but someone coughed from behind us. We both snapped around, and I felt almost guilty before shoving that down. Why would I feel guilty for talking to her? It wasn't like I wasn't allowed to. "Yes?" Delilah prompted, staring Dakota directly in the eyes as he interrupted.

"If I'm not interrupting something, we need to get Parker moving. It's the last day of the grace period. No one knows when they consider it to be over." He looked uncomfortable, which gave me an odd feeling. Did he think it was weird that we were talking so maturely after seeing us bicker for the past few... what was it? Weeks? Months? Keeping track of time wasn't exactly my main focus right now.

"Okay. Let's do that." I looked at Delilah, gave her a bit of a smile- for what felt like the first time ever- and grabbed the stick to hand it to the injured boy.

Parker stuck the largest end of the stick into the ground and leaned on it as much as he could, attempting to stand on his own. We let him try without interference but stood at the ready in case he couldn't do it or he lost his grip. It took him a little while to figure it out, but in a surprisingly short amount of time, he had gotten himself to his feet. "Alright Parker," I began, "are you ready for this?"

He hesitated. Sweat was building at the edge of his hairline. "Do I really have a choice?"

"No."

He gulped. I saw plenty of conflicting emotions pass over his eyes as he stuck his good foot forward and put his weight on it. So far, so good. He took a few more steps, and while they were shaky, they were successful. "I'm doing it!"

"Hell yeah, you are!" I shouted, giving Delilah an enthusiastic high five in my excitement. It didn't matter if he was only barely able to walk, and if we really wanted to get anywhere he'd probably have to be carried. It was progress, and that was more hope than we'd seen in a while.