Resilience was never exactly my strongest virtue. Strength even less so. The most I’ve ever exerted myself in my life before this whole fiasco was for this marathon that I hadn’t even bothered training for.

I recalled feeling my soul slip away from my dangling lips, wheezing, and hacking away, as I soldiered on through to the finish line. I told myself never again will I do something that will leave me as sore and hurting.

So anyway, that was a fucking lie.

Blood continued to pour out of every open wound. From my arm, from my chest, face… claw marks and stabs wounds that delved deep. Pure adrenaline was the sole reason I was still breathing, to be able to persevere even in the bleakest of moments.

But now I was out of it and now it was waning. Everything started hurting. Worse and worse.

Yet, fittingly enough, the injury that inflicted the most amount of anguish onto me was the one that was done by the person I least expected it from.

My left foot, grotesquely pointing at a sharp angle sideways, radiated an almost constant throbbing pressure that sent me hunching forward and wincing at every small twitch.

“Big ouch there,” Ria said, crouching over me, her fiery eyes glancing at every angle of my twisted foot. “Don’t worry, though. Cripples are in the in right now. Girls will be falling all over you before you know it.”

This bird girl is seriously something else, I swear.

“Yes, because my sex appeal is what really concerns me at the moment,” I said, venting out the pain with a big huff of air. “Actually, I was hoping you could do something to help me out here.”

“Like what? Bend over your other leg so they’re at least symmetrical again?”

I glared at her but I don’t think it had the intended effect, probably because I wasn’t able to form any other emotion aside from excruciating pain.

She flashed a smile.

“Kidding.”

Ria stood up and walked over to where I laid feebly slumped against a wall. Didn’t know what she was up to, but from the way she was staring down at me and puckering her lips, it didn’t look like anything good.

I huddled back a bit, opening my mouth to express my concerns. “You know, you look like you’re just about to spit onto my – ”

She spat at me.

More specifically, it was a direct bullseye right into my wide-open lips. I felt a tingle as it splashed onto my tongue and then because of that tingle, my muscles went ahead and contracted impulsively, causing her saliva to go whooshing down my throat as I swallowed it whole.

A chain of events that spanned across a single bizarre second.

Just… why though?

“You taste that? Not getting any sweeter. It’s only been like – what, 50 years since I last brushed? You’ll be fine.”

You’ll be fine. Spoken with such assurance. If anybody else had projectile-spit in my direction and followed it up with that, I’d have been very skeptical – I was very skeptical, and also somewhat annoyed, yet it didn’t last long. What I felt for her then, had all but dissipated.

My pain was fading. First was the slice on my cheek, then the gash in my arm, last to go was the burning sting on my chest where the Matriarch had stabbed her fingers in deep. A caressing sensation that dispersed across all my wounds until eventually, when I went ahead to check, had all healed over without a single blemish. Even the cut I made on the palm of my hand had all but vanished.

“Phoenix, right…” I muttered, sudden realization dawning on me. “You can heal injuries.”

“I do party tricks, too. Kids love that turning into a fiery bird one. Wanna see me do it again?”

“Spit, though…” I said, smacking my lips and feeling a slight bitter taste. “Really?”

“I mean, how else did you want me to do it? Kiss you? Sorry, we ain’t there yet. Ah – and don’t you dare make that an order either! I have fire and I’m not afraid to use it.”

“No… but wouldn’t tears suffice as well? I read a book that said you can use your tears to – SHIT!”

That sound was me trying to get up.

The muffled thud afterward was also me failing to get up.

Everything was healed, everything, except for my foot apparently.

I looked up at her from the ground, lips pursed, caressing the aching in my knee that resulted from the fall, only to see her give a half-apologetic smile.

“Sorry bucko, but bones are bones, and bones are a bitch. It’ll take a little while longer for that one to sort itself out.”

“How much longer?” I asked, scrambling to my feet again. Carefully this time.

“It’s a bad break,” said Ria, watching by the sidelines as I teetered and tottered myself upright. “Maybe a week, two perhaps? I don’t know. Do I look like a doctor to you?”

“Great.”

As much as I would love to lie idle in a begotten section of the building in order to recover, I knew it was only a matter of time before we were found. The sudden rumble that shook the ceiling shortly after served to further reinforce my point.

“Pretty sure that’s the sound of someone stomping about up on the third floor,” Ria said, brushing away the specks of debris and dust that landed on her head that fell with the rumble. “Wanna head out first, or would you rather play meet and greet?”

I steadied myself with a hand against the wall, and the other reaching out towards Ria. “Lend me a hand here.”

“That an order?”

The heck. I can’t believe this woman.

“Say it wasn’t…” I said, staring into her eyes. “Would you really allow a poor ol’ cripple like me to walk around in such a dangerous place all by his lonesome? Under your watch? Can you really be so heartless as to do that to a person?”

“Yes.”

I felt my jaw drop in disbelief. “And what would your party kids say?”

“Party kids aren’t here.”

So much for being a loyal companion. I let out a deep breath.

“Yes. It’s an order. Get over here and help me.”

“Wish is my command, my one-legged liege.”

Ria bent over to offer me her shoulder to lean on, which, after a bit of struggle, I managed to wrap my arm around. The first step we took together out of the room was a clumsy one, the second step after was even more so.

“Man…” Ria said, shaking her head. “If only I was able to suddenly sprout wings and turn into a bird or something, that way I can just fly you around and – hey, wait a minute!”

“Your transformation isn’t exactly subtle, you know,” I told her, wincing slightly with the third step. “They still don’t know where we are. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Okay, you masochist. Suit yourself.”

Took a couple of tries but we eventually got the hang of pacing about without sending me doubling over in pain. Out the doorway and into the hallway finally. Up and about, wandering along with the many twists and turns, wondering to myself how on earth was I supposed to accomplish anything with the current state I was in.

Save Ash and the others then leave. That was, to summarize it, the plan. Irene was supposed to be here to help me sort out the first part, but now I was unsure if she was ever coming.

Irene said I was supposed to be eaten. Vampires are at their most vulnerable when they’re feasting, that’s what she said. Somehow, I even managed to mess that up. More specifically, they wouldn’t even eat me.

Now what?

“Now what?”

Ria was there to vocalize my thoughts out loud, huffing and puffing as she did, doing her best to embellish the strain I was putting her under as if I weighed like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t even that heavy.

Was I?

Whatever.

“We’re getting out of here, just for now at least,” I said, shifting us to the direction of the nearest stairwell. “We find Irene, we’ll come up with another plan, save the day. Good times all around.”

“Oh, goodie,” she said. “Always wanted to escort a cripple down a flight of stairs. Can cross that off my bucket list.”

“Are you always going to be this sarcastic?”

I heard her snort with amusement. Turning to face her, there in plain view, was a big fat smile directed towards me.

“Only to the people I find really interesting,” she said, a peculiar playfulness glimmering in her crimson eyes. “And so far, you’ve been simply fascinating. A solid 11 out of 10.”

We reached the stairwell.

“I’m going to regret asking ‘Why’, aren’t I?” I said, going one foot at a time down the steep steps.

“I’ll save you the wondering. See, I’ve been your secret stalker for some time now. All the while I was in the amulet, I saw and heard all you did. Really, the words you say, the things you agree to… you know, if you really wanna kill yourself, there are less painful ways to go about it.”

“I’m not suicidal.”

“Could have fooled me. I don’t know anybody else who’d go out on their way to intentionally anger a Matriarch. Also, you bit one. Pretty sure that scenario is supposed to go the other way around, actually. Then again, I guess it only counts as suicide if she ever gets you.”

“Then don’t let her get me,” I said, pausing for a breather mid-way down the stairs.

“That an order too?”

Order this, order that… It almost felt as if I was back with Ash again – almost… until the bitter reality started settling in again and the pain in my leg gave another twitch.

“Not an order…” I whispered, resuming our journey. I don’t want to feel that guilt again.

“Oh?” There was a hint of eagerness behind that tone, and the gaze that stared at me had interest flurrying within them, but I kept my mouth shut.

Once she eventually realized I wasn’t going to say anything more, she reined herself back a bit, yet hovering close enough to see that a smile was still on her face.

“Here’s a gotcha moment for you,” she said, “I’m not going to let you kill yourself either way.”

I stared back at her. “Firstly, again, I’m not suicidal. Secondly, why?”

“Sorry, but I do think it’s my turn now to say something ambiguous and not give you an answer for it. Seems only fair, I suppose.”

“O… okay?” I said.

“Shh! This is where you keep quiet and silently ponder to yourself about what I just said. Don’t ruin this for me.”

Oh wow. How does she…? It feels like I’m being read like an open book here. Well then, it’s my turn to give her a gotcha moment of her own. See how she likes it.

“You know,” I began, getting ready to put on my best evil-mastermind expression. “Telling you to help me just now wasn’t actually an order. I was lying.”

“Yeah, I know… so was I, I was going to help carry you out either way,” she said, her lips shaping to a wide mischievous grin as we took the last step down to the first floor. “Difference being, one of us is a better liar than the other.”

I really can’t even with this bird.