The Many Faces of Tully

I want it to be my imagination when I hear his body smack against the wall, but I know it’s not. I already hate myself for doing this. I killed him. I know I did. He’s dead. They always die. Then a small part of my brain reminds me that he can heal.

I look up slowly. I don’t want to, but I have to. His whole body is glowing green. I sigh in relief. If his powers are working, then maybe he’ll survive. Maybe I haven’t killed him yet. I get up quickly and I hear the familiar hiss of the door opening. They run in with a stretcher.

“Hurry. He said he wanted to get as much of it on the CT scan as possible. Don’t jostle him too much. We don’t want to make it any worse,” Calchas is telling them.

I hurry forward. Jace planned for this? The guys were in on it? What? They all seem to be hesitating around his body. Some looked like they were going to be sick. Then I finally get a good look at him.

I feel like I was punched in my gut, and I sound like it too. The air whooshes out of me and I feel like I’m going to be sick too. I never wanted to see Jace like this. Broken, crumpled, lifeless. His face is slack. Not in the sleeping kind of slack, but in the practically dead kind of slack. I want to scream.

A strangled sound escapes my throat. I had tried to scream, cry, moan, and gag at the same time. I did this to him. How can he ever heal from this? How will he ever return to normal? He can’t. It’s not possible. I did this to him.

They finally bend down to pick him up to put him on the stretcher. I hurry forward and grab his head, because they forgot about it. Blood is trickling out of his mouth and nose and I sob. We lift him up gently and place him as softly as possible onto the stretcher. Zazu, Nash, Gunther, and Haides all grab a handle and lift him off the floor.

They carry him as quickly and carefully as they can towards the lab. Calchas hurries forward and opens the door for them when we get there. I follow as closely as I dare. He looks kind of eerie when his whole body is glowing green. I hate it. I hate myself more.

Calchas stops me when they all walk in to the room with the CAT scan. I try to push past him but he won’t let me.

“Just wait here while they load him up. It’ll be easier without the extra bodies, Tully. I’ll let you in as soon as they leave,” je reassures me. It doesn’t reassure me at all.

I wait impatiently as they carefully put him on the tray. They all walk out with worried looks on their faces. They have never seen this side of my powers yet. Calchas and I walk in as soon as the last one leaves. He walks forward and starts up the machine and the table starts to slide forward. I’m just standing there, looking at Jace, glowing green.

“Start it up again when it stops,” Calchas says to me and walks out the door.

I walk forward and pull my sleeve down over my hand. I carefully mop up the blood from Jace’s face. My eyes are burning with tears but I don’t let them fall. I can’t cry. I have to believe that he’ll heal from this. He has to. He just looks so dead though.

I touch his neck to check for a pulse. I feel it. Barely. It gives me hope though. My heart was about this weak when he healed me. But I wasn’t broken. My organs just stopped working. All he had to do was start them up again. He has to repair his. All of them. I’m almost positive everything is either ruptured or punctured. I know he’s bleeding internally. I know his ribs are shattered. I might have even broken his spine. His head is cracked open for sure. His collar bones look broken too.

I reach forward and mop up some more blood that has trickled out. Why did I ever agree to this? I wish I was unconscious too, so I didn’t have to see him like this. I can’t look away though. I keep looking for some change in his appearance. To tell me if he is healing or dying. I can’t tell.

That reminds me that I look different now. I pull out my mirror to see what I look like now. I wish I’d stop being so pretty. I have thick, shiny, wavy dark brown hair. My eyes are a chocolate brown and my eyebrows turn up naturally, making me seem like a calm, trusting person. My face is round and my lips are unbalanced but they look soft. I have a cute little button nose with freckles peppered across it.

I put my mirror away and check out my body. I’m curvy. I have wide hips and a nice bust. I’m almost an hour glass figure. Great. I might have to start wearing baggy clothing. I’ll be turning heads when I walk by. Good thing I hardly go anywhere.

I look at Jace again and dab off some more blood. Why is he still bleeding? He should have stopped by now. I don’t like seeing him bleed. He’s not supposed to. He’s supposed to heal and smile at me. He’s not supposed to be limp and emotionless. I choke back some tears.

I fidget around until the machine stops. I walk over and start it up again. How long is this supposed to take? I walk over to Jace again and sigh with relief. No more blood has trickled out of his mouth or nose in a while. I notice his forehead is shining with sweat. Was that a good sign or a bad one?

I gently wipe off his forehead with my hand and then wipe my hand on my jeans. I brush his brown hair off of his forehead. I feel a slight satisfaction that I finally got to do that, but I hate the circumstance it’s in.

I’ve been in here for hours. I don’t know how many. I’ve started the machine up so many times. I’ve wiped sweat off of Jace’s forehead multiple times. My jeans are starting to get soaked with his sweat. He’s still glowing just as green as before. He’s still just as lifeless as before. The only reassurance I get is from the slight rise and fall of his chest and the faint pulse in his neck.

It’s six o’clock at night.

Calchas brings food for me. I don’t touch it. I can’t eat. My stomach is already full with guilt, remorse, shame, repentance, and regret. None of those words describe how I’m feeling. I feel all of that and more. I also feel numb though. Hollow. Like parts of me are dying just by seeing Jace like this. I don’t want to be me anymore.