Page 48 of Stone
Taking the edge of the towel, she used it to pick at one of the shattered pieces of stone clinging to the clear film. It looked like the thin sheet of rock had been broken and only needed to be peeled away to reveal the healthy skin underneath.
Garenthdidn’t flinch. “Itch,” he told her.
“Wait here. Don’t move.” She hurried into the bathroom to fetch a pair of tweezers and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol to take back to the bed. She sterilized the tweezers as best she could with the alcohol, then used them to remove more and more pieces of the slate-like covering.
It was like pulling sunburned skin thatwas starting to peel away from the new skin underneath.
He wasn’t solid stone, as she’d first believed. The rock exterior was more like his armor, a shell preserving the real him inside. The image of an insect’s carapace came to her.
She paused and stared at him. His eyes were still closed but he was awake. After a moment, he opened them to give her a questioning stare.Brielle flashed him a smile. “Does that feel better?”
She removed another, slightly larger piece. It briefly clung to the skin underneath before detaching.
“Itch,” he told her.
By this time she’d removed enough of the rough exterior to show a large expanse of skin. Definitely skin. To be certain, she touched it with a fingertip.Garenthreacted with a jerk.
“Whatdo.”
“That’s your skin. You’re not solid stone.” She laughed softly. “You’re not made of solid stone!”
He struggled to sit up, but she stopped him. “Whoa, whoa. Stop. You could start bleeding again.”
He brushed away her hand and craned his neck to stare at where she’d been removing his exterior casing. With a talon tip, he lightly scrapedthe exposed skin, and she realized there was no wound on the inner layer. Unmarked skin. Skin that showed no bullet puncture or lesion.
“Garenth, your skin’s unscathed. There’s no wound!”
He unwrapped the towel around his chest to reveal the bullet holes left from his first encounter. Using the tip of his clawed finger again, he picked at the indentations. Bits ofrock began falling into his lap, gradually increasing in size as the pieces became chunks.
A sense of urgency seemed to overcome him, and he started tearing at the stony remnants. Small clouds of dust erupted where his claws raked across the exterior.
She was hit with inspiration and grabbed his arm. “Wait. This is getting messy. Come with me.”
She helpedhim to his feet, letting him rest much of his bulk on her shoulders. They slowly made their way into the bathroom. After dropping the lid on the toilet, she sat him down, placing the cell phone on the sink countertop.
“I bet that stuff will come off easier if it’s wet. I mean, that section on your hip didn’t start to peel away until after you bled a bit.” She bit her lower lip asanother thought came to her. “I’m willing to bet your bleeding isn’t coming from your veins. I bet it’s coming from some kind of membrane that’s between your skin and this outer covering. I bet that when the bullets hit you, they ripped into that membrane, and that’s where the blood is coming from. I know it’s a long shot, but if you get into the shower, it might be easier to peel that stuff offof you.”
He said a few words. The only one the app managed to translate was “wet”. She repeated the word, adding, “Na-am?”
A faint smile came over his face. “Na-am.”
Pushing aside the bathtub’s curtain, she turned on the faucet and adjusted the water’s temperature until it was slightly warm before initiating the shower spray. “All right,Garenth. Get in.Let’s see if we can peel you like a hard-boiled egg.”
