Chapter 5 - The First Spark
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Sebastian transferred himself onto the padded physical therapy table Gabriel had set up near the fire. He moved with a practiced, brutal strength in his upper body.
Clare examined the surgical scars traversing his lower back. She asked what sensation remained, maintaining a strictly professional tone, and listened when he described a deep, radiating pain that every top-tier specialist had explained in medical jargon without actually relieving.
There were things she could not determine by touch alone. But there were also things nobody appeared to have asked recently. They were too afraid of him to do an actual, thorough examination.
“Can you feel this?” Clare asked, running a blunt instrument along his calf.
“No.”
“This?” she asked, moving to his thigh.
A pause. “Pressure.”
She stopped, her brow furrowing. “Where?”
“Left side.”
It wasn't enough to establish anything concrete, but it was enough to investigate. She moved her hands to a rigid, knotted area near his left hip. As she pressed deeply into the muscle fascia, Sebastian drew a sharp, violent breath.
Pain traveled rapidly into his thigh. He gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white.
“What did you do?” he demanded, his voice laced with sudden agony.
Clare eased the pressure immediately. “I need you to tell me what you felt.”
“Pain.”
“Where?”
He answered, pointing to the specific quadrant. She watched his leg intently as she applied a different angle of pressure.
At the end of the table, his left big toe moved.
A fraction of an inch. Then again.
Neither of them spoke. Sebastian pushed himself up on his elbows, staring toward his foot as if it belonged to a ghost.
May you like
“Did that move?” he breathed.
“Yes,” Clare said.
