Page 14 of Starlight

Akai continued, “Your cousins. When they shot my sister, they didn’t care if she was dead or injured. They just wanted to get into the workshop.”

Cole held out his phone, and Akai swiped through the photos like he knew exactly what he was doing, which was more than a little jarring.

“My cousins enjoyed hunting. I didn’t mind that going out into the woods part, but I never liked killing. What do you mean workshop?” But he remembered the bag and the jewelry they’d shown him.

“We… I have workshops in or near abandoned mines. I make jewelry out of what we find. There’s one near here, which is why I stop by. It’s why I was interested in your cabin.”

“You thought I was going to steal your work?”

Akai shrugged and hissed.

“What’s the verdict, Doc?” Cole asked, figuring it was safer to talk about the wound than murder.

Akai zoomed in on the wound, and Cole noticed that his fingers were tipped with small pale claws. “You need to pull the edges together and sew.” He turned his head to look at Cole. “The skin, not my hair.”

“Hair?”

Akai glanced over his shoulder. “Does it look like feathers?”

“No…but it’s not fur either, is it?”

“It’s hair, or hair-like.”

Cole touched the hair on his wings again, lifting a strand with a finger. It looked wider and flatter than his hair, and it was soft. Akai was a mothman—why would he have feathers like a bird or fur like a wolf? “I’ll do my best…but what if the edges don’t meet?”

Akai slumped. “Pull them together as best as possible. At least none of the bones were damaged.”

“Yeah.” He looked at the first aid kit, then back at the wing. “I need to find something to support your wing other than my leg.”

Akai closed it, and Cole stepped back. He glanced around the clearing, and his gaze landed on the chair, the rifle still lying across it. “I’m going to get the chair, not the rifle.”

Akai nodded and watched him. It took a little maneuvering to get the chair into a suitable position so that the wing had support and he could still reach the hole. Then he set the first aid kit up on the chair, cleaned his hands, pulled on gloves, and sprayed the wound.

Akai flinched. “A little warning would be nice.”

Cole unwrapped the needle and tried to ignore the way his stomach was rolling. I shot him, so I need to fix him. Is Akai a him?

It didn’t matter. He’d sew him up and send him on his way. And then what? He went back to his normal life, knowing that monsters were real?

Or had he known that for the last seven years, which was why he found it so hard to fit into the life he’d been allotted?

“Ready?” Cole wasn’t ready.

Akai sighed. “No.”

“Same.”

“Could you at least sound a little more confident?”

Cole forced a smile. “It’s going to be just like sewing on buttons. How was that?”

“Terrible. Please stop talking.”

Cole wanted to tell him he should be more polite to the person stitching him up, but pain did funny things to a person. He remembered snapping at the people helping him simply because he was hurting. He poked around as gently as he could, trying to figure out the best place to start. “Can I trim some of your hair?”

Akai sighed. “If you must.”

Did he need to? He didn’t want to accidentally cut any skin, but he also didn’t want to sew hair into the wound. “Only a little.”