The dull pain in her chest woke Devi first, followed by a sharper pain in her leg.

Crap, she thought, recalling her humiliating impact with the trailer. Where am I?

She didn’t want to switch into a mortal body without evaluating the extent of her injuries first. While she might not be dead or dying, some injuries were more painful and healed slower in her human form. Seeing that it was already going to take her longer than usual to recover without her ‘magic’, she wasn’t going to entertain any more of her brash decisions. She couldn’t afford to.

She rustled her feathers slowly, twitching at the pain. From what she could see, she wasn’t bleeding. She glanced around and nearly fell out of the blanket when she noticed Mars standing over her.

“Are you okay?” she asked with wide eyes.

Devi couldn’t say for sure, not to mention that communicating to her as a bird wasn’t easy. She made an effort to nod.

“Oh…” Mars wasn’t completely convinced by the nod. “Do you need anything? I brought you water, and um… seeds? Do you eat seeds? Do you eat? I have bread, er... ”

Technically, siren’s didn’t need to eat as often as mortals, but to nullify Mars’ obvious unease, she scooted to the edge of the pillow and pecked at the sunflower seeds.

“Okay well… I have to get cleaned up and get to bed. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to, but you can as long as you need to.” She waited for a response, accepting quickly that she wouldn’t get anything else from Devi and wandering off.

In the morning, Devi watched the sunrise and thought about how much pain she was in. Mostly, it consisted of soreness. Something told her that her leg wasn’t going to heal quickly, so she weighed her options. 

A thought crept in. If she was to die in less than a month’s time anyway, perhaps she should fly into another truck to finish the job. No, she was too much of a coward to do that.

And she didn’t want to die, but it was too late to cry about it.

The more she marinated on the thought, the more she hated herself, so she opted to think of something else instead. The pain was distracting, she decided to focus on that again. 

She heard a ringing noise in the distance, and minutes later, Mars walked into the living room. She was talking to herself. Or was she speaking to Devi? She was addressing a ‘Lindsey’.

“Gosh Lindsey, you know I’m at Benji’s late on Saturdays.” Her voice sounded annoyed. “Yeah, you say that, but you do this every other weekend.”

She’s on the phone. If Devi had the ability to roll her eyes at herself, she would have. She watched Mars walk into the kitchen and open a bunch of cupboards.

“Are you covering my shift tomorrow then?” She opened a granola bar and took a bite out of it. “Did you at least text Rita? I don’t know why I asked, she’s such a pushover. Fine, I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

She hung up, threw a jacket on and ran out the door.

Wherever she was going, at least Devi could assess her situation in peace. She waddled off the blanket in the shoebox and onto the window bench. It was there that she zapped back into her mortal form. Sitting in the alcove, she stretched out slowly and with caution, the soreness was there, but bearable.

She scooted forward and gradually put weight on her leg to see if she could stand on it. Nope, she flinched, that’s not happening today.

She sat back and leaned her head against the coolness of the window. Then she raised her leg in front of her to gauge the damage. It hurt when she did that too, not as much as when she tried to stand, yet there was discomfort. Her ankle was swollen, and a hideous color. It wasn’t broken, although Devi supposed she couldn’t know for sure.