elia doesn't need a mirror to know that her face looks like a mismatched puzzle. split lip, black eye, left cheek so swollen that it feels like it belongs to a stranger. the rest of her body aches with pain. cracked and bruised ribs, a broken arm, possibly a punctured lung, a bandaged wound in her side. every breath is torture, every movement a fresh, stinging reminder of what happened. but the wounds will heal, as they always have. thank god for the v in her system.
she only remembers flashes. the silence was too thick, the halls too quiet. there was the creeping realization, too late, that something was wrong. rounding the corner, catching sight of black noir, the overwhelming, strange sense of acceptance. she'd tried to put up a fight, but pathetically she'd lasted less than thirty seconds. after that it's just... pain. she remembers thinking that her blood would ruin the documents she'd tried to smuggle out underneath her jacket. she doesn't remember how or when it stopped. she doesn't remember being dragged out of vought. and she certainly doesn't remember how she got here, in the dimly lit cottage that smelled faintly of mold and dust and pines. she's been in and out of consciousness for what feels like days but, judging by the state of her wounds, can only have been hours.
she looks at shiloh's blurred figure through heavy-lidded eyes. is he the one who dragged her out? he must have been. she thinks she recalls seeing his broad figure hovering over her, but she's not sure. her muddled mind still can't distinguish between dreams and reality. " i messed up, didn't i? where are we? "
@svped
