Burned

reading his mind. “Go on.”
    Rephaim stood. With one last look at Stevie Rae, he unfurled his wings and forced his battered body to carry him into the sky.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    Stevie Rae
    Dallas was half carrying, half dragging Stevie Rae around the corner of the school, arguing with her about going to the infirmary instead of just back to her room, when Kramisha and Lenobia, who were walking toward Nyx’s Temple, caught sight of them.
    “Sweet weeping baby Jesus, you is messed up!” Kramisha yelled, stumbling to a halt.
    “Dallas, let’s get her to the infirmary!” Lenobia said. Unlike Kramisha, she didn’t freeze at the bloody sight of Stevie Rae; instead, she hurried to her other side and helped Dallas support her weight, automatically angling them toward the infirmary entrance.
    “Look, no, y’all. Just take me to my room. I need a phone, not a doctor. And I can’t find my dang cell phone.”
    “You can’t find it because that bird thing ripped almost all your clothes off of you, along with your skin. Your cell’s probably back at the park smooshed in the ground that’s still soaked with your blood. You’re goin’ to the damn infirmary.”
    “I have a phone. You can use mine,” Kramisha said, catching up to them.
    “You can use Kramisha’s phone, but Dallas is right. You can’t even stand by yourself. You’re going to the infirmary,” Lenobia said firmly.
    “Fine. Whatever. Get me to a chair or somethin’ so I can make a call. You have Aphrodite’s number, don’t you?” she asked Kramisha
    “Yeah. But don’t think that makes us friends or anything,” Kramisha muttered.
    As they headed into the infirmary, Lenobia’s sharp gaze kept returningto Stevie Rae’s battered body. “You’re in bad shape. Again,” she said. Then Dallas’s words seemed to catch up with her, and the Horse Mistress’s gray eyes widened in shock. “Did you say a bird did this?”
    “Bird
thing
,” Dallas said at the same time Stevie Rae said, “No!”
    “Dallas, I do not have the time or the energy to argue with you ’bout this right now.”
    “You mean you didn’t see what happened to her?” Lenobia asked.
    “No. There was too much smoke and darkness; I couldn’t see her, and I couldn’t get into the circle to help her. And when it all cleared she was like this and a bird thing was crouching over her.”
    “Dallas, stop talkin’ ’bout me like I’m not here! And he wasn’t crouched over me. He was lyin’ on the ground next to me.”
    Lenobia started to speak, but they’d reached the infirmary, and Sapphire, the tall, blond nurse who had been promoted to head of the hospital in the absence of a Healer, greeted them with her usual sour expression, which quickly changed to shock. “Put her in there!” she ordered briskly, pointing into a newly emptied hospital-style room.
    They laid Stevie Rae on the bed, and Sapphire started to yank stuff out of one of the metal cabinets. One of the things she grabbed was a baggie of blood she tossed to Lenobia. “Make her drink this immediately.”
    No one said anything for the few seconds it took for Lenobia to rip open the blood bag and help support Stevie Rae’s shaking hands as she held it to her mouth and drank greedily.
    “I’m gonna need some more of that,” Stevie Rae said. “And, like I said before, a dang phone. Right away.”
    “I need to see what’s sliced up your body like that, made you lose entirely too much blood, which you need to replace right away, and figure out why the blood that’s still dripping out of your body smells completely wrong,” said Sapphire.
    “Raven Mocker! That’s the name of that thing,” Dallas said.
    “A Raven Mocker attacked you?” Lenobia said.
    “No. And that’s what I’ve been tryin’ to get through Dallas’s thick skull. Darkness attacked me
and
a Raven Mocker.”
    “And like I said, you’re not making no damn sense. I saw that bird thing. I saw your blood. These definitely look like slash wounds from that beak of his. I didn’t see anything else!” Dallas practically shouted.
    “You didn’t see anything because Darkness was covering everything inside the circle, including me and the Raven Mocker while it attacked
both of us
!” Stevie Rae yelled her frustration at him.
    “Why does it sound like you keep standing up for that thing?” Dallas said, throwing up his hands.
    “You know what, Dallas, you can just kiss my butt! I’m not standing up for anyone except
myself
. It’s