Wilder by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online Page B

blindfold.” Guardian looked around his lair. The massive stone cave extended three football fields in length and rose six stories. Golden stalagmite pillars lifted their arms to support the weight of the earth above. Elaborate primeval buildings, like multistory palaces, now in ruin, had been shaped out of the walls, complete with windows and turrets and stairways. A small, pure shallow brook gushed from a hidden grotto in the far wall, cascaded over a waterfall and through a riverbed, and disappeared through a hole in the opposite wall. Here and there, high in the ceiling, sunshine beamed down through hidden skylights. . . .
    For all the time that Guardian had lived down here, he had never seen a hint of who had constructed this immense underground chamber, or when, or how the ancient builders directed the sunshine from the city so far above down to this place. But he couldn’t argue with their success—where the sunshine touched the ground, crimson flowers bloomed.
    He liked this place, halfway between the corruption of the city above and the fires of hell below. As best as he could tell, this was where he belonged. Among the Belows, this place was a legend . . . and so, now, was he. They had seen something in his deformity and his madness. They had brought him here to heal. They called him
Guardian
, and depended on him to protect them from the demons below and the cruelty above.
    He did his best.
    He could spend the rest of his life here. If things continued as they were, he would. If he never remembered who he was and what he was, he would be here forever.
    Forever.
    Forever.
    The word echoed in his brain, bouncing back and forth against the metal plate that formed the back of his skull.
    Dr. King patted Guardian’s knee. “How about you? Still having nightmares?”
    Guardian fought back his terror. Opening his eyes, he saw Dr. King watching him with that world-weary concern he so often showed. “I don’t sleep much,” Guardian said.
    “Not sleeping will make you crazy faster than anything.”
    “I’ll take my chances. The real demons scare me less than . . .”
    “Than the phantoms in your mind. I know. I’ve heard you scream in your sleep. Raises the hair on the back of my neck.” Dr. King rubbed his bald head. “Not easy to do.”
    “Ruffles my fur, too,” Guardian joked, “and that’s a lot of fur to ruffle.”
    Dr. King didn’t laugh. “You are so—and I use this word rarely—normal.”
    Guardian rudely snorted.
    “No, it’s true.” Dr. King shook his finger at Guardian. “You have a sense of humor. You seldom get angry. Nor do you pity yourself much. You react like a man who is used to being treated kindly. Fairly. There was no abuse in your childhood, not from your parents or from your schoolmates. You weren’t born this way.”
    Guardian lifted his hands and showed them to the doctor. “Are these the hands of a man?”
    Rough blond fur covered the backs of his hands. His pale palms were bare, but on his right hand the skin looked artificial. On this hand, he had no fingerprints, and that added a dimension of science fiction to his deformity. He flexed his fingers; they worked well, although the two in the middle were stiff in the joints.
    Bitterly he said, “I don’t even need to look in the mirror to see what I am.”

Chapter 7
     
    “Y ou take your appearance too seriously. It doesn’t define who you are.” Dr. King patted Guardian’s knee again. “Leave the easy judgments to everyone else, concentrate on the work you have to do, and be thankful that somehow you were given the weapons to do it.”
    “Right.”
No point in complaining to
me, Dr. King meant. Dr. King faced his own, more serious challenges. “How much longer will she have to wear the bandage?” Guardian asked.
    “A week. A month. I wish I knew for sure.” Dr. King donned another pair of gloves, eased the blindfold away from her left eye, then her right, lifted the lid and checked the pupils, and