Hello all of you faithful readers! This is chapter eight of "THE SHARPEST LIVES"! :D
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gone, or Skillet, or "Never Surrender"... Wow, I don't own a LOT.
Chapter Eight: Never Surrender
Diana met them all at the entrance to Coates. Alex didn't ask her why she waited up for them, when it was at least almost two o'clock in the morning. Her mouth dropped open when she caught sight of Drake, and she was temporarily speechless.
"What happened to him?" she asked after a few seconds.
"That Quinn guy shot him right before he was going to fight Sam off," Alex replied. "I know nothing about treating wounds; do you know anything that can help him?" Diana bit her lip.
"He looks pretty bad," she said. "Let's get him inside, so we can look at it closer." Alex Barrino once again lifted Drake's limp body, and they walked towards Coates.
"Hey," Alex said suddenly, turning to the kid on her left, remembering the actual reason why they had gone to Perdido Beach, "did you guys get any food?"
"We did," Mas McCourtney said proudly. "We filled the entire back seats of the second SUV before Sam and his guys showed up. Sam and the other two left, to warn the rest, I guess, and left about four kids to deal with us. We only had to show them our guns and they were off running."
"Good, we have more food, then," Diana said, sounding relieved. "The rest of us were getting kind of worried."
They reached the double-doors that were the entrance to Coates, and Mas heaved them open. They put Drake in the first room that they saw, which was fortunately unoccupied.
Diana pulled the sweatshirt off of him, and tore his shirt where the wound was. It was an ugly, blood-covered hole in his shoulder, and Diana squinted at it.
"The bullet is definitely in there," she muttered. "I see it, but just slightly. It must've not been going that fast; Quinn must have had a crappy gun."
"What can we do?" Alex asked anxiously. Diana turned to her, a grave look on her pretty face.
"I have no idea," she replied. "Even if we do get the bullet out, he'll probably bleed to death, or his arm'll get diseased. The only one that I could think of to actually help is the healer, Lana. But she'll never do it... She's with Sam."
"Where does she live?"
"Last time I heard, she was living by herself in the Clifftop Resort. Why?"
"I'm going to get her," Alex said firmly. "We aren't losing Drake without a fight." She stomped out of the room, and Diana watched her go with something close to a smirk playing around her lips.
XxXxX
Alex drove by herself fifteen minutes later down the deserted road to Clifftop Resort. From what she understood, Lana was kind of a loner, and nobody else lived at Clifftop. And as Lana was a healer, she had no defensive powers whatsoever.
So it was a grim and determined Alex who first passed the girl jogging on the side of a road along with a shaggy dog. She stopped the car, turned around in her seat, and gazed at the girl, first wondering-
Who in their right mind jogs at two thirty in the morning?
And then thinking that she should probably go after her, as she might be the mysterious Lana.
Making up her mind, Alex put the car in drive, made a U-turn, and sped after the girl. It only took a few seconds to pull level with her. The girl looked over, paused her iPod, and pulled the earbuds out of her ears.
"Are you Lana?" Alex asked after rolling down the passenger window. The girl came over to the car.
"Why? Need something healed?"
"In a way," Alex replied. "One of my friends was shot recently. About an hour ago, in fact." Lana's eyebrows furrowed, and she knew the other girl was putting two and two together.
"Quinn said that he shot Drake after Ralph's was raided..." she said, half to herself and half to Alex. "And there was a girl with him... No. I am not healing Drake Merwin again."
Alex dismissed the "again" and said, "you'd better come with me, or else", in her best menacing voice. She hefted the gun she had borrowed from Mas McCourtney. "I don't think I need to elaborate on the "or else"." Lana looked at her disbelievingly.
"You're threatening me?"
Alex nodded. Lana glared at her, and got into the car's passenger seat. Alex smiled grimly and stepped on the gas.
XxXxX
"So why do you want me to heal him, anyway?" Lana asked after about five minutes of driving in silence. "And don't worry about the whole 'kidnap and threaten me' thing, people are always kind of desperate about healings. I had a ten year old flying-tackle me yesterday because he had pinkeye and was convinced that the world was ending." Alex forced a laugh.
"If the FAYZ isn't the world ending, I don't know what is." Lana nodded, agreeing.
"But back to the original question," she said seriously, staring at Alex, "why do you care so much about what happens to Drake? He's not exactly the nicest boy I've ever met."
"And that means we should let him suffer and eventually die?" Alex replied angrily, suddenly mad at the girl sitting next to her.
"He would've let the same happen to others," Lana said quietly, and Alex remembered that Drake had a past that was haunting him, just as her past could come back and haunt her.
XxXxX
Alex burst through the door of the room where they had put Drake, and found that it was empty except for Drake's too-still body on the bed, and Alex Barrino sitting on a stool next to him.
"I have no idea how I was appointed "nurse"," he grumbled as he took a blood-drenched towel off of Drake's shoulder and replaced it with a new one. "But I do know that he's losing a lot of blood. If you could do something about that, that would be great." He gave a respectful nod in Lana's direction.
"Okay, Barrino, you can leave now," Alex said. "Thanks for all you've done here." He smiled at her, then left quickly. "All right, Lana, you're the master here. What do we do?" Lana was inspecting the wound, and she grimaced.
"We have to get this bullet out before I can heal it," she said grimly. "I'll have to make a cut further into his shoulder, and then I can pull the bullet out. Any painkillers at all would be much appreciated." Almost on cue, Barrino burst through the door and shoved boxes of medicine into Alex's arms, then ran from the room.
"Painkillers," Alex held up her arms, grinning. Lana grabbed them from her.
"Go get a bucket of water and a lot of towels," she instructed hurriedly. Alex rushed to comply, and when she returned; "okay, we're as ready as we're gonna get."
They positioned themselves, Lana on Drake's injured side, Alex on the other.
Lana breathed out heavily. "He'll probably stay unconscious throughout this whole procedure, thanks to the painkillers, but he'll still feel a lot of this. Your job is to hold him down; make sure he doesn't thrash too much. And calm him down as much as you can, talk or something, music might help, y'know, get into his subconscious..." Alex smiled shakily.
"Well, I can sing..."
"Then do it," Lana said darkly, and gripped the handle of the knife. Alex took a deep breath as Lana began to cut into Drake's shoulder.
"Do you know what it's like when," she sang quietly, closing her eyes and holding his chest down firmly, "you're scared to see yourself, do you know what it's like when you wish you were someone else, who didn't need your help to get by, do you know what it's like to want to surrender..."
She heard Lana's labored breathing, and felt Drake's chest contract.
"How's it going?" she forced herself to ask.
"I don't know," came Lana's clipped reply. "Keep singing. It gives me something else to think about then the fact that I'm cutting into someone's arm."
"I don't want to feel like this tomorrow, I don't want to feel like this today, make me feel better, I want to feel better, stay with me here now, and never surrender..."
Alex wasn't sure why her subconscious had picked that song. It reminded her of dark things in her past, dark things that she had buried and would prefer that they stay that way.
She mentally shook herself, saying, this time isn't about you, it's about trying to save the life of someone you care about, so quit thinking about your past and focus on the present, and sing the rest of the song, dang it!
"Do you know what it's like when you're not who you want to be," Alex sang obediently. "Do you know what it's like to be your own worst enemy, who sees the things in me I can't hide, do you know what it's like to want to surrender..."
Drake's body was beginning to convulse, and Alex could hear Lana grunting with effort on the other side of the bed.
"The bullet's almost out," she practically shouted. Alex repeated the chorus, eyes still firmly shut, and then...
Her eyes flew open as she heard Drake scream. Lana swore under her breath.
"He's awake. You have to hold him down, Alex, harder. I'll try to make this as quick as possible." Alex tried not to look at the bloody mess of Drake's shoulder as she put one hand on his chest and the other on his left shoulder and pushed him down, using all of her body weight.
His grey eyes were on his other shoulder, and he was panting heavily.
"I don't want to lose my arm," he said, almost normally. "Alex, I don't want to lose my arm."
"Don't worry," Alex said, and he swung his head to look at her. His eyes were wild. "Lana'll heal it, she just has to get the bullet out first." A racking sob heaved through his body.
"I don't want to lose my arm."
"You won't," Alex said firmly, and then sang, "make me feel better, you make me feel better, you make me feel better, put me back together!"
Lana made a violent movement, and Drake screamed again, louder. Oddly, the other girl was smiling.
"I got it," she said, holding up the metal piece. "Now the real fun begins." She plunged her hands into the blood flowing out of Drake's shoulder.
"I don't want to feel like this tomorrow, I don't want to live like this today, make me feel better, I need to feel better, stay with me here, now, and never surrender... Put me back together... Never surrender..."
Drake's breathing eventually returned to normal as Lana slowly but surely healed his arm. He laid his head back on the pillow, exhausted. Alex felt almost as tired as he looked.
"Make me feel better, you make me feel better, stay with me here, now, and never surrender..."
Alex looked up at Lana, just as the other girl looked up from Drake's arm. There was no bullet hole; it looked like Quinn had never raised his gun. Lana smiled a relieved smile.
"I can't believe that that honestly worked."
Alex skirted the bed and threw her arms around the other girl's neck.
"Thank you so much, Lana."
The healer laughed softly. "Whatever happened to hefting a gun and ordering me to get in the car with you?"
"Well, you know..." Alex sounded sheepish. "I was kind of desperate." Lana laughed again.
"You people never learn to just ask for a healing. I'll help anyone. I can't stand to see people suffer."
"Well, you're free to go, now."
"Thanks," Lana said, washing her bloody hands in a sink. "I'd love to stick around, but I probably should get back to Hilltop to feed Patrick; he must be going crazy worrying about me." She walked out of the door, closing it softly behind her. Alex looked back at Drake, at his healed arm, and marveled at how close he came to death.
"Somebody must be watching out for you, Drake Merwin," she whispered, then she too left the room.
YAY! :D
The next chapter tells a little bit more about Alex's past, so stay tuned!
REVIEW!
:Hyperactive Lioness:
