Ashleigh walked into Axel’s room. She had visited him several times since she woke up, but the sight of him was still jarring. He was hooked to different machines and monitors. His IV stand had three bags hanging from it.
His face was still bruised up. A gauze patch covered one of his eyes and a splint on his nose.
Thankfully, they had cleaned his face of all the blood, though he would be upset to know that Corrine had braided his hair so that the old scar over his eye was on full display.
Ashleigh smiled, thinking about how flustered he would have gotten.
“Hey, big brother,” she whispered.
She walked into the room. There was a chair beside the bed that her mother had been sitting in. Ashleigh sat down and took his hand.
“You should really stop being so lazy,” she smiled. “You missed an amazing fight. There were literal monsters. I fought a tree… by myself. It was insane.”
Ashleigh laughed to herself, swallowing down the sadness threatening to spill out.
