Dead Of Winter (The Beautiful Dead Book 2) by Daryl Banner

Author:Daryl Banner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Frozenfyre Publishing
Published: 2014-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

C H A P T E R – T W E L V E

L O C K E D

Staring up at Marigold while she repairs my body, I’m sad to say the fingers are still there.

“I thought maybe I’d replace them with eyes.” She shrugs, hammering something into my hip. “But I doubt they will function. Otherwise I would’ve installed a tiara of eyes on my scalp. I’d be able to see all around me! Or perhaps a belt of ears … I’d never miss the latest gossip!”

Snap, crack, pop. It’s the strangest sensation, lying on a table perfectly awake, feeling nothing except for your body jerking at every pound of the chisel and hammer. I amuse myself for a while thinking Marigold is mining for diamonds and ore in my abdomen.

“Good as new!” she exclaims when I hop off the table. Indeed, I feel as normal as normal can be. All my fingers and toes wiggle, my joints bend, and my neck turns. I stretch my jaw, opening it wide, then shutting it. “See?” she says, giddy. “I know, I know. You don’t have to say it. I’m a genius and—and—and you don’t have to say it.”

“You’re a genius,” I say, smiling.

“Say it again!” She swats me on the butt. “Now go out and show the world how beautiful you are! Do tell them it was my work. Not that self-important Roxie who won’t even come in anymore.” Marigold huffs.

I study my forearm and those bones I’ve stubbornly refused to cover. “Got any … spare flesh for my arm?”

“Never thought you’d ask.” She giggles and opens a drawer to get some other tools out.

I smile wistfully at her backside. “I hope someday we have so much work that you’ll never have to leave.”

Her eyes light up. “You promise?”

I wish I could.

The streets are damp from last night’s rain, and I realize that, despite the slate-grey sky that always feels so like a permanent winter afternoon, it is the middle of the night and most of the Humans are asleep. Most of them were smart and filled every bucket and barrel they could find with the rainwater.

I stop by Jasmine’s house on the way home, sitting across the cul-de-sac like an empty, abandoned box. She still hasn’t returned. I heard three men and a little girl from the Human Quarter dropped by to check on her backyard garden and greenhouse after the storm ebbed. At least someone is tending to it.

The door to my house opens without protest. I find John at the table with a candle burning in front of him, the only light source in the house. The light from the candle spills in a million hues across the walls, the ceiling, the floorboards.

He looks up. “Hey.”

I’ve so missed his face. “Hi,” I return. With Marigold’s Upkeep of me, I probably look like new, showing no evidence at all of my near-second-death experience. She really is a genius at her craft. “Did you take advantage of the rain?”

“Filled two buckets and half a vegetable canister.

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