If she had been injured, Keli was certain that the ambulance ride alone would have killed her. Not that she was complaining, but from the way she was being tossed around, she suspected that the driver was intoxicated. Or high. Either way, if the large vehicle didn't stop soon, a trip to the hospital may actually be necessary.

The back of the ambulance had been hastily packed, no... crammed, from back to front with narrow, collapsible stretchers, each of them securely holding bright orange body bags. It was almost surprising that she, the only one unwounded, was the only person alive in the back of the emergency vehicle. Almost; for example: if she was new to the planet, which with the high crime rate carried more corpses than casualties. Keli, lamentably, had just discovered firsthand that the surface she was lashed to was collapsible, and now found herself lying three feet below her fellow passengers. The driver made another sharp turn, sending her sliding across the floor into the wall; a movement that was accompanied by the sharp screech of metal on metal as the folded legs of the stretcher dug into the floor of the vehicle.

She was lucky enough to get shoved next to a wall, which in the process of playing pinball with her would at least have no possibility of falling on her. Surprisingly enough, the bright orange bag next to her (well, above her), hadn't joined her on the floor as well, despite the countless times the side of her plastic pallet collided with the stretcher legs. Another sharp turn, and her head shook from side to side erratically, unrestrained by the red straps that were clipped tightly over her torso, chest, and legs. Those straps didn't help much either to hold her down, but she had put them on herself, hoping to produce that exact effect.

There was a sudden and earsplitting wail from above her, rising to a pitch that was nearly unbearable before it finally broke off into a steady rhythm of fluctuating sound and silence. She winced at the noise, her entire face contorting into an expression that gave her the appearance of trying to squish into herself, which despite her rather attractive features, was not in any way flattering. It didn't simply echo in her ears, it reverberated throughout her whole head. She would probably find herself hearing it in her dreams, like some nightmare that you have reassuringly until you're dead in your grave. And when people put their ear to your tombstone, they could still hear it. From outside the two dirty windows she could make out the flickering red glow of the siren's light as it spun and flashed from the top of the vehicle.

Her face relaxed, but the knot in her stomach did not, as a small voice in the back of her head whined in pathetic exasperation: Here we go again. As if on cue, the ambulance began to accelerate at an even greater speed across the cracked and rugged pavement, almost giving her the sound of the gas pedal hitting the driver's side floor along with the mental image. Despite the fact that the increased velocity of the vehicle was slamming her limbs every in every direction and into every object possible, and the orange, blood splattered body bag in the stretcher above her moments from dropping onto her tied down form, she was grateful. The wail of a siren meant one thing: that the ambulance had to pick someone up, which required stopping. When the car from hell stopped, she could finally get out, and the faster they got there, the better.

Keli didn't have the faintest idea of how long she'd been laying there, listening to the rise and fall of the siren and hum of the wheels over the pavement. Her thoughts had drifted to reflection, over her life, over the past few days, even over the rust colored stain on the wall of the car beside her. A great forward lurching of the car and a chorus of squealing tires heralded the end of her ride, and left little spots of multicolored light dancing in front of her for a few seconds. The doors of the vehicle's front slammed shut in unison, sending only a small tremor through the length of it. Keli let her body go as limp as the corpses above her, closing her clear gray eyes and releasing a small sigh through her half-parted lips. The poorly oiled handles to the doors of the ambulance whined loudly as the EMTs flung them open, leaving the thick plates of metal to collide roughly with the back of the car. Her alert ears picket up a number of voices, speaking quickly to one another over a chorus of sirens whose sound had become apparent only upon the doors' opening. The back of the car bobbed up and down as weight was added from a worker stepping on, and his (or her) footsteps made small tapping noises on the metal floor as the person crossed the small space.
There was a scraping sound as a stretcher bed was pulled out, almost making Keli burst into curses at her pained ears while it was pulled out of the back and into the accident scene. One of her fingers tapped lightly on the pallet underneath her, near the wall so as not to be seen, as she began mentally counting backwards from ten. The voices she had heard became softer, more muffled and hard to discern. 8...7...The clipping ping noises of the stretcher legs being folded in sounded rather distant. 5...4...Heavy footfalls hitting hard concrete became so distant and light sounding that a cat could have made them. 2...1...0

Keli opened her eyes, and as usual, her count was correct and not a person was within her immediate sight. The young woman laughed lightheartedly, bringing her hands up to the straps and unclipping them with swift motions of her hands. The ring of mirth coming from her throat still did not cease, and she gave a little kick with her newly freed legs from the simplicity of it all. Finding a car wreak on this planet wasn't hard, nor was it any the more difficult to sneak onto one of these things, if you knew how, and she certainly did.

She found a spot on the worn steel floor that wasn't already occupied and set a foot there, sitting up slowly so the blood wouldn't rush to her head. A quick scan of the floor found another foothold, and pushing up on the pallet beneath her, she managed to come to her feet efficiently enough. Brushing her palms together, as if to rid them from dirt, she began to compose herself from the theme park like trip. She ran her fingers through her almost jaw length bangs to straighten them, then patted the top and back of her head to assure herself that the sun-bleached brown hair that pulled into a knot at the back of her head was unaffected by the abuse. Short strands of blonde stuck out from behind the top of the bun, and were adjusted as well in Keli's preening. A few quick swipes of her hand cleaned the majority of the dust from her tan trenchcoat, and out of habit more than need, she straightened the flared collar. The black sleeveless shirt she wore under it was unmarred, the thick, baggy fabric of her extremely loose fitting blue jeans in much the same condition. A simple tug at the tongue of her knee high combat boots, and she hopped out of the back of the car, landing softly on the cold concrete, cooled by the fresh night air. Finally she could leave and find her ship.

But she was rooted to the spot.

She didn't know what it was about him that had made her stop, or why she still remained standing there, in mid walk, looking at the man lying in the stretcher only a few feet away. It could have been the finely chiseled features and sharp angles of his roguishly handsome face, brushed over with a few strands from a shock of dark green hair that seemed to go every which way at once. The slightly tan skin and high cheek bones, sensitive lips, and strong chin. But it wasn't that; things like that had never held her back before and never stopped her in her tracks.

It wasn't the face, but the expression the face wore. The dark brows were furrowed in strong willed determination, but the rest of his face was slack and forlorn, as if there was no reason to live anymore, and nothing to die for, left in the whole world for this man. Strangely though, there was an air of peace about him, as if this was a man that had come to terms with something and was almost ready to let himself go. If she hadn't seen the rise and fall of his chest as he shakily took in air, she would have thought him dead. His face looked almost drained of blood completely. There was a deep slash in his side, gushing dark crimson onto the faded pavement like wine, and from what she could see, a few bullet holes piercing his dark, now bloodstained trenchcoat. She barely took notice of it though, and was only riveted to his face, to that strong willed determination shining through such hopelessness...

There were voices coming from behind an ambulance that was pulled up a little farther than her own, blocking her view of the scene, and the scene's view of her. She felt a cold rush shot up her spine, as the footsteps drew near her. DAMN! She bit her lip and looked for a satisfactory place to hide from the oncoming workers, hoping that she would have enough time. Again and again she cursed herself for stopping, for letting some man and his damned willpower foil her perfect plan. She started wringing her hands nervously as the voices drew ever closer, the walls of her thinking closing in under the pressure suddenly dropped on her shoulders. The other side of the ambulance began looking safer and safer, when suddenly, the approaching voices halted where they were, dropping to hushed whispers that were only audible because of her close proximity.

"Hey! D'ja see that guy over there? The one on the stretcher?" The voice was definitely male, but from the low tone and gravely rasp, not much else could be told about him, no age, or ethic background.

"Yeah, sure. Why?" This voice sounded younger.

"Why? Don't you know? They say they found 'im at the bottom of the stairs all shot through, and the guys the ISSP pulled in said he shot the whole place up!"

Keli paled almost as much as her friend in the stretcher. The ISSP was here? Of all places to end up, she had to be dropped of at a crime scene, crawling with the same people she almost broke her neck running away from! Had she not been in danger of being discovered she would had slapped hand over her eyes and spit out a stream of curse words a long as the ambulance, but seeing as how that was not the case, she was left to only helplessly listen as the men went on.

It was a new voice that spoke, male again, but not with the youth of the second man or the gravely tone of the first. "You serious? Wonder why he did it?" The man's voice trailed of in private thought.

"Because the whole building was run by the Red Dragon Syndicate! don't know how many he took out but- oh man, they're calling us back. Not a word about any of this, you got it?"

After a chorus of assuring "yes,"'s and "mhmm"s, the men jogged away, bringing their voices out of whisper tone as they called ahead to confirm their approach.

Only after they had gone had Keli realized that she had been sweating. A cold sweat for that matter. With the swipe of a hand she cleared some of the moist beads of it from her face, rubbing her hand on her pant leg to dry it. Letting out a long sigh, she stuck her head out from behind one of the doors, giving the area a quick left and right glance before pulling back. The path free was clear enough, nothing she couldn't handle on a normal basis, and she could only pray that this would be normal. Wrapping her fingers around the edge of the door, she prepared to throw herself into the open and break for an alleyway to hide in, using the firm weight of the ambulance to push off of for extra momentum. But she felt her head turning, almost of its own accord, to glance back at the man on the stretcher.

"No." Her voice came out clear and firm, the vocalization of her mental command strengthening how much she needed to listen to herself. Staring at him, she felt a wave of pity crash over her head for the poor man. A guy like that, in that condition would be hunted down and killed by Red Dragon supporters. It was a fact of life, of messing with syndicates; you would eventually get shot. It was for that reason that she was still standing there, because she knew that if she left, this man would die. This crushed but strong willed person would die because she left him there to be killed. "No. you're just making yourself sound stupid, thinking like that. Are you nuts? He might kill you in your sleep!"

Keli wasn't too sure of that, even if she'd told it to herself, even if it was the only excuse she could offer not to do it. What did she care about one man, even if he was strange and tormented, even if he did deserve to live? God...the ambulance ride alone would kill this guy...

She could have shot herself for the way she was thinking. Even if she decided to help him, how would she possibly drag him off without getting caught? Ask him to get up and run a marathon? There was nothing she could do to help him without getting him killed or her caught. She probably couldn't even move him by herself, much less carry him to her ship or a taxi. Moving him at all would only hurt him more, so there was nothing she could do anyway. It was resolved then, he would just have to be on his own.

It was then, that Keli spotted the wheelchair, nestled securely on a metal wire rack that had been drilled onto the wall. Brightly colored bungee cord held the chair down and kept it from the destruction of the driver's lack of skill. It was so perfect, so conveniently placed, that she could hardly believe her luck enough to damn it for ruining her excuse.

She couldn't believe she was doing this...

OOC: End of chapter 1