Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
I had to help him. Whatever I had to do, I would. If anyone deserved it, he did.
It was the least I could do. The least anyone could do.
And, hopefully, this superbeing wouldn’t shit himself, even if that was at the bottom of the list of things for me to worry about—at least until I knew how he’d ended up like this. How he’d ended up here.
I rubbed my face and turned to eye the atlas still sitting there on the table. Sorry, Grandma, I thought. I’ll get out of here as soon as I can.
CHAPTER
THREE
He didn’t wake up. Not that day or the next or the one after that.
But it wasn’t the sleeping part that scared me; it was the fact he didn’t pee or poo. For three days. I would’ve been headed to a hospital. I wasn’t exactly crazy over the way I had to go about checking him either, but I wasn’t about to go prying at the remains of his suit, trying to look at more than what was already exposed. I’d spent enough time staring at him, but I figured it wasn’t every day that a being some people referred to as a god sat in an old wheelchair in my house, injured and in what seemed like pretty close to a coma with a Hello Kitty blanket draped over his chest.
I fucking hoped it wasn’t a coma. I was trying to be positive and call it a nap. A nice, long, regenerative nap.
What I had done was poke at his calf. The material there was thick and almost felt like really flexible crocodile skin. It was textured and cool to the touch. The Defender didn’t smell, and there was no wet spot anywhere on the material beneath his butt, and that was my scientific proof that he hadn’t pooped or peed. He ate, so he had to digest his food somehow. Did beings like him even go? Did they have… buttholes?
I had so many questions.
Questions I had no business having in the first place, but curiosity was my second greatest flaw, after running my mouth.
The fact was, the less I knew about him and he knew about me, the better. And saying nothing was easier than lying. It was how I’d gotten through life without giving away the things that needed to stay a secret.
He was still eating and drinking water, and even though he felt warmish, it didn’t feel high enough to be a fever. He’d been pretty hot the first day he’d arrived, but I figured that had something to do with those purple fires that hadn’t left a trace. I hadn’t taken his temperature because there was no way that would be accurate anyway considering his heartbeat. While he hadn’t gotten any better, he hadn’t gotten worse. I thought. So there was that.
I would only do what he asked for, and I had to hope it was enough. Part of me had been worried leaving the house the day after he showed up to go buy groceries, but nothing had happened. The Centurion and The Primordial hadn’t dropped a submarine on me.
I did skip my runs to be on the safe side, even though it felt wrong.
I fed him slowly, every three hours, five times a day. Soup—always soup—that resembled baby food. I slept on the couch to be close in case he needed anything. It was where I’d slept every night since. I’d made a deal, and I wouldn’t back out on it.
And if this went against everything my grandparents had instilled in me, it was for a good cause, and I could only hope I wouldn’t live to regret it.
The important part was, I wasn’t about to let him die on me. He’d probably haunt me for the rest of my life if that happened, and that would be awkward. There were things I did in my bedroom that I didn’t want anyone else to witness. With my luck, he would end up being some kind of poltergeist superghost or something.
Wiping off his mouth with a warm, damp towel after feeding him liquefied chicken, ten-vegetable, and rice soup, I sat back on my heels and took in the features of the sleeping being in my house. I figured I now knew how people had to have felt when they’d first discovered fire. It was hard not to stare.
His cheeks still had a hint of a sunburnt color to them, and he hadn’t stirred at all since that first day. His fingers had twitched once or twice. His toes did the same a couple times too, but that had been the extent of his movements.
It didn’t make sense. None of this did. I couldn’t move past it.
I sighed and took in all the bones that built up his face for about the fifteenth time since he’d shown up. He looked like he might be somewhere in his thirties, but I wasn’t really that good with ages, so I might be totally off. It was hard to tell since his skin was red but had no signs of deep wrinkles.