Yassen is a little out of character in this chapter, but that would be because we've never seen him in a situation like this so no one knows how he would act!
Disclaimer: No, I don't own them, leave me alone so I can type fast as to not be killed!
Ari listened in fear at the fight going on a little bit away from where she lay.
Terrified for Alex and her Father, she listened as someone was beating someone else, and hoped it was not Alex or Yassen that was on the receiving end.
Not being able to stand the suspense or being a damsel, she gathered up what little energy she had left and stood up.
Immediately she felt dizzy and grabbed a hold of the nearest object to steady herself. She took one step, then another. As long as she held onto something steady, she could move forward. If she tried to let go, she would collapse.
The last five feet, Ari almost fell over from sheer exhaustion. She hadn't eaten since the night before, and even then, it wasn't much. Grabbing onto the doorframe for support, Ari looked in at the fight.
It looked bad. Alex was laying unconscious in a corner, a trickle of blood seeping from his scalp. Yassen looked pretty bad too.
When guards entered and Yassen just shot them, Ari couldn't help but feel her blood run cold. This was real, not some James Bond or Harrison Ford movie. Those men were really dead. Someone's son. Someone's brother, Grandchild, Father, Uncle, Cousin, Nephew, and who knows what else. Yassen had really killed him. A life, just gone in a flash by a silver bullet.
Ari felt as if she had gotten hit by the bullets. She went numb. This wasn't her father. It couldn't be.
No.
But it was.
A stray bullet whizzed past Ari's head and she opened her mouth, as if to scream, but no sound came out. She just stood there and stared as the life of two more men winked out. Just like that. As if someone pinched a candle flame between their fingers.
The last man standing pointed a gun at Yassen. Just as he was firing, Ari finally was able to scream, distracting the guard and Victor long enough for her father to get away.
He shot the guard in the middle of the chest.
Another life.
The guard fell to the floor, now littered with sickening bodies, making Ari want to throw up.
She couldn't help but think about how disgusting it was. Four lives had been taken in the span of about five minutes.
Victor had managed to get the dead man's gun, and now both of them had a gun. Victor raised the gun, but before he had time to aim, a bullet buried itself into the left side of his chest.
His eyes were hard. He moved the gun and pointed it straight at Ari. Pulling the trigger, the bullet flew at Ari, and before Yassen could do anything,
The bullet hit her.
Everything seemed to slow down. It was not as everyone had always said. Ari's life didn't flash before her eyes, rather, she fell forward, supporting her body with her hands.
The bullet shot into Victor finally managed to shut down his body, falling at the same time Ari did. Yassen ran to Ari, supporting her back.
She could hardly focus on what was going on. She felt herself being rocked back and forth, but the world was going white. The dead bodies disappeared and all that was there was just her and a warm glow of sunlight, beckoning closer.
But something pulled her back. It was the sound of her father's voice that kept her from leaving. They had spent such little time together.
But the pull of the light was too great. She saw the smiling face of her mother in the distance.
The figure drew closer. Ari reached out a hand to touch her mother's face, but the closer she got, the further off she seemed.
"Wait," she whispered. Her mother held out a hand, and Ari reached for it.
"Please don't go, Ari,"
It was just a simple sentence, but it brought Ari back to reality. There was blood seeping all over her shirt, but she couldn't feel anything, half expecting it was some kind of sick joke.
Her father was crying now. No one had ever seen the assassin cry. He was too strong for that.
But as he held her, rocking back and forth, tears escaped his eyes and ran down his face, giving him a vulnerable look.
Ari tried to smile and reached a shaking hand up to his face. "It will be okay, Dad," she whispered, her arm fell back and then she closed her eyes.
Alex woke up all alone. Well, he wasn't exactly alone; five dead bodies littered the floor next to him.
Suppressing a shiver, Alex headed up towards the cockpit.
The Assassin was there along with two dead bodies and a bloody Ari.
"Oh God," he gasped, seeing the state Ari was in. In a flash, Yassen had whirled around and held a gun to his head, but brought it back down once he saw it was Alex.
"Sorry," he said almost sarcastically. "I would have brought you up here, but I was a little busy with other matters," he said, looking pointedly at the two dead pilots. He shook his head. "Even when faced with death, they are loyal to their leader. Even when he himself is dead."
Alex looked back at Ari again. "When will we land?"
"The computer is flying right now. We will land in Germany in about fourteen minutes. It is the closest airport at the moment. There, I will take Ari to the airport and you can contact your MI6."
"No," Alex said forcefully. "I want to stay with Ari."
Yassen shrugged. "Be my guest," he said. "But don't count on getting your MI6 caught up in this."
"Your MI6?" Alex said incredulously. "You think I actually like them? I probably hate them as much as you do. They're the reason my family is dead. They are the reason I was almost killed all those times. They are the reason I'm here right now!"
That was obviously not the right thing to say. In a moment, Yassen went from slightly relaxed to alert and tense. "They sent you here?"
Alex shrugged. "I followed you and ended up wrecking my Jet Ski, so MI6 was at the hospital and told me what flight and what airport and stuff."
Yassen nodded, seeming to relax just a hair.
Exactly fourteen minutes later, they landed without difficulty. Yassen could expertly fly the plane and make up for Alex's incompetence as a copilot when landing.
The officials did little to hinder their fight to get to the airport. Alex decided that Yassen must have called ahead, because there was an ambulance waiting for them. "Mr. Gregorovitch!" they called, and Yassen, still carrying Ari, climbed inside, allowing her to be taken from his arms. There was enough room for Alex to be squashed in, and they took off for the hospital.
Inside, Ari was immediately rushed into surgery. This was obviously an upscale hospital, efficient, and no one asked any unwanted questions.
A nurse checked over Yassen and Alex, making sure they were okay.
Alex had suffered slight blunt force trauma to the head, and many of the injuries from the Jet Ski wreck were looked at, tutted over, and wrapped.
Yassen faired worse. He had bruising to the ribs and multiple small fractures, and minor bruises.
But it was Ari that fell under the 'Near death experience' category. She was the worst. She had three broken ribs, internal bleeding to her lungs, wrist fractured, and a small, minor crack in her skull. Not to mention a bullet hole right beneath her left lung. The bullet had barely missed a main artery, and luckily, no permanent damage was done. But the doctors had trouble dislodging the bullet, and were concerned that there was the possibility that she would not wake up.
That scared Alex and Yassen the most. The thought of Ari as a vegetable made Alex want to cry and Yassen want to beat his fist against something. She had to wake up.
Ari was part of Yassen's life for so little. The assassin everybody knows would have just shrugged, maybe not even adopt her at all, but the Yassen only Ari and her mother had ever seen was at the breaking point inside.
Staying in the waiting room was killing him. The hospital smelled like Lysol. Yassen needed fresh air, but couldn't stand being outside. With a hysterical laugh, it occurred to him that he was probably slowly losing his sanity while his only daughter was down the hall being operated on to save her life.
Without even noticing it, Yassen had ruined a German magazine that was sitting on one of the tables. He quickly put it back, not wanting to deface something else.
Alex was amazed. It was hard for him to believe that the person sitting across from him was the man he thought he knew. He was worried sick for Ari, but he could tell it wasn't half as bad as what was going on inside Yassen's mind. He was startled when Yassen laughed, almost sobbing. His eyes brimmed with tears, but then they were gone, wiped away by a quick flash of an arm, and he became a cold shell again.
Finally, after so much waiting, the doctor said that she was out of surgery, stable, and sleeping calmly. They went in to see her.
The sight nearly ripped Yassen's heart out. A dark bruise mottled the left side of her face, and she looked so small sitting there with sheets pulled up to her neck. She looked almost peaceful, but there was a hint of something dark in her expression as she slept. Pain and suffering.
Yassen slept by her bedside that night, and Alex had curled up on the couch. Neither of them wanted to leave her side except to go to the bathroom or get an occasional snack to keep them nourished. An unspoken treaty existed at the moment, brought about by concern for Ari.
The next morning, the doctors returned, and they looked worried.
"Will she wake up?" Yassen asked, his voice horse.
One of them spoke up. "We hope so, there's no reason why she shouldn't."
"But?"
"But nothing, we are going to inject her with a serum that will most likely boost her brain activity, causing her to wake up. But at first, she may have temporary amnesia. It only occurs rarely, but with young teens, it happens more often then not. She should be fine by tomorrow."
Yassen swallowed and nodded. Alex, for once, didn't make some smart remark to make a fool of himself.
They pumped some odd colored liquid into the IV attached to her hand.
Nothing happened.
The beeping of the heart monitor remained a steady beep… beep……… beep……… beep……… beep…… (etc), reminding them all that a small girl's life was on the line.
"Increase the dose by twenty percent," A doctor commanded, and they tried again.
Beep……… beep……… be-beep……… beep………
Everyone was holding their breath. The falter in her heart rate was the only difference.
"Forty percent," the doctor commanded again.
"Sir, is that safe?" one of the nurses piped up.
"Do it," the doctor said, obviously not used to being questioned.
More liquid was pumped from the IV, through the tube, into the needle, and entered her veins.
Beep……… beep……… beee…BEEEEEEEEEEEEEE(ect).
The warning siren went on. The nurses and doctors started hurrying again, fiddling with controls, one even looking like she was preparing for CPR.
Yassen stood as still as a statue, keen eyes surveying everything going on. Alex watched them in silence, hoping to god she would make it.
Silence.
"YOU'VE KILLED HER!!!" Yassen exploded.
The doctor looked regretful. "TOD: Ten thirty-six a.m."
Yassen was red in the face. Then, surprising Alex, he started sobbing. Not exactly sobbing, but hitched breathing. It was sort of like dry retching.
Then a sound that was all music to their ears.
Beep……… beep……… beep………
Everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief.
People were talking, the doctors trying to explain what had happened.
"Dad?" The voice was soft, hardly audible. Only the few surrounding people could barely hear it, but everyone stopped talking.
Yassen stood up with shaking legs and walking the two feet over to her. "Yes?"
"I told you it would be okay."
He closed his eyes for a moment, and almost looked like they were sharing a private joke.
"I saw Mum," she went on, her voice barely above a whisper. "She wanted me to go with her, but it wasn't my time. You saved me." This made Yassen want to hug her, but he knew it would cause more harm then good.
"Thank you for not leaving me," he whispered back, ignoring the other people in the room.
She smiled weakly. "You're welcome."
