Alek turned around and paced the room again for what probably was the thousandth time. It had been nearly three hours since Dylan had left for the Leviathan. The midshipman had sworn he'd be back as soon as possible, and Alek had reluctantly let him go. Now, he was regretting that action immensely.
If Alek had been scared to let Dylan go in the first place, by now he was petrified. Images of his friend with his throat slit and left in an elevator kept reappearing in his mind. It made matters worse that Dylan could be female. What a dummkopf he had been, letting a young woman out on the streets after dark by herself. He could have at least gone with Dylan, but of course that hadn't occurred to him until now! Lord was he an idiot.
"If you keep walking back and forth like that I will have to punch you." Lilit said. She was sitting on the hotel bed pretending to look calm. But Alek wasn't fooled. The girl had probably bitten off her entire thumbnail by now and she was shaking ever so slightly.
"He should be back by now!" Alek said while walking again to the window.
"You've already said that. It's almost midnight Alek, maybe it's time we go looking for him."
"NO! He'll be here, he promised. And we can't leave, it's too dangerous. Besides, if we do then he could come back and we wouldn't be here." He knew it sounded ridiculous, but something inside him thought that any moment Dylan would be knocking on the door with Volger behind him.
Just then a strange scratching noised echoed through the room. Alek exchanged a nervous look with Lilit, realizing that the sound was coming from the balcony beside him.
"Barking spiders!" Came a voice from the balcony. Alek ran to it and opened the sliding doors only to see Bovril perched on the guard rail.
"How did you get outside!" He quickly snatched up the Loris and carried him into the room before slamming the balcony door and locking it.
"He had to go out." Lilit said casually.
"What? WHY?"
"He had to go piss."
Again with the pissing, Alek rolled his eyes and groaned. "Lilit, you can't go opening the doors just so the animal can go to the restroom! It's dangerous!"
"We're on the fourth floor Alek, Bovril can climb up and down the rain gutters but I doubt anyone else could."
"You don't know that!"
"Alek, why don't we get out of there and start looking for Dylan. Waiting around is making you crazy!"
"IT IS NOT!" He shouted.
"Alek, look at you. You've been walking in lines for three hours and staring out the window like a cat. Every time someone walks by outside you have to press your face against the glass like a kid outside a chocolate shop. Hell, you didn't even notice when I let Bovril out you were so preoccupied. I'm worried about him too, but I don't think Dylan's coming back. We need to go find him before things get worse."
"And where exactly would we start looking? This city is huge, Lilit, we would never be able to find him. Nor can we go back to the Leviathan, they'll just arrest us."
"Bovril might have an idea." She smiled and pointed to the entrance of the room.
Sure enough the Loris was scratching at the door, desperately trying to open it.
"PLEASE, HELP ME!" Said the creature. Alek and Lilit jumped. The voice was Dylan screaming. "Mr. Sharp!" Bovril proclaimed while looking intently at Alek.
"I think he might know where Dylan is!" Lilit squeaked. Alek quickly opened the door and watched Bovril scamper down the hallway.
"Allright, I'll follow Bovril and you stay here in case Dylan shows up."
"But…."
"I know the creature better Lilit, and it isn't safe for a woman to be alone on the streets at night." She scrunched up her nose in disgust but Alek didn't wait for a response. He shut the door in her face while she screamed at him and then dashed after Bovril.
Thankfully the creature avoided the elevators, of which Alek was still terrified of, and headed for the staircase. In a few short seconds they had passed through the hotel lobby and out onto the streets.
People they passed gave them very odd looks and Alek supposed it wasn't every day they saw a boy chasing after a fabrication. Luckily there weren't too many people out this late at night and Alek and Bovril scooted through the alleys of Istanbul easily.
The moon was out, sending rays of glittering light onto the smooth cobblestones of the road. Even the broken dusty windows of the abandoned shops were pretty in the silver glow. Most of the storefronts were abandoned and Alek realized he was in a much seedier area of town. Occasionally he thought he saw faces watching him from the dark corners between the shops, but he didn't stop to look closer.
Bovril ran a lot faster than was expected of such a small creature. Alek had to full out sprint to keep up and even then he was far behind the animal, just barely making out the taill as Bovril slipped around a corner.
Finally the animal came to a sudden halt at the front of a narrow alley between two brick buildings. The creature looked too frightened to walk into the passage, but Alek knew he had to see what was down there.
Delicately, Alek stepped into the dark alleyway. His eyes adjusted to the dimmer light and he made out what looked like a large cloth sack pushed up next to a dumpster.
Alek didn't think. He ran to the sack, opening it with a muffled gasp and a cry.
"Dylan!" Alek shrieked. The boy didn't respond.
Cursing himself for not leaving the hotel sooner, Alek yanked the body of his friend completely out of the bag. There was a lot of blood and Alek immediately lifted Dylan's chin to check for a slit throat.
Dylan's neck was bare and pale as the moonlight. His clothes were soaked in blood, and Alek shivered because it was still warm. Whatever happened to him must have been recently. If he had only been here a few minutes earlier….
Frantically Alek checked the boy over for where the blood had come from. Then he saw Dylan's hands. They were cut up so badly that Alek was surprised that the fingers were still intact. The gauges in Dylan's palms were so deep, he could see the bones.
Trying not to faint, Alek reached again for the boy's throat, hoping to feel a pulse. He pressed his fingers against the smooth skin and was startled with how warm it was. When Alek felt the subtle pumping of Dylan's heart through the skin he started crying with relief. The midshipman's chest was rising and falling as well, a sure sign that he was breathing. He might have been unconscious, but the boy was hanging on for life.
Alek figured someone must have left Dylan here to die, and had he not gotten here any sooner, Alek would have a dead best friend in his arms instead.
Alek stripped off his own shirt to rip up bandages for Dylan's hands. He worked quickly to tie up the wounds before the boy bled to death.
"Don't worry Dylan, you're going to be fine." He mumbled, more to himself than to Dylan. Thankfully the middie was thin as a rail, so Alek had no trouble picking Dylan up and carrying him, piggyback style, back into the street. Bovirl gave him a delighted chirp before running off again, eager to lead Alek back to the hotel.
If people were giving Alek odd looks for carrying a body across the city, none of the looks were as odd as the one he got from the hotel manager.
"I need a doctor!" Alek cried out to him from the front of the reception desk.
"Yes…Yes of course, sir." The manager said. His face had gone nearly green when Alek had walked into the lobby. "I'll see to it right away. If you could please take your…erm….patient back up to your room. I don't want you frightening the rest of the guests."
"Are you mad, man!" Alek blurted. "We don't have time to drag him upstairs. He's hit his head or something and needs attention immediately!" Alek began to hobble over to the couches in the lobby where several confused guests were watching him. He guessed it wasn't usual for an Austrian boy to come walking by with an injured soldier on his back.
"PLEASE SIR!" The manager had rushed out from behind the desk and now blocked Alek's path toward the couches. "I can't have a body in here! Hurry upstairs and I'll call for a doctor as soon as you're out of sight."
The man was sweating profusely and his eyes kept darting back and forth from Alek to the lobby door.
"If I go upstairs, you promise to call a doctor?" Alek growled.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes! Now hurry!" The man gave him a shove toward the elevators. Alek didn't have the energy or the time to argue with him anymore, so he complied and carried Dylan back up to his room.
Lilit must have seen them through the window because she was waiting for Alek when he came off the elevator. Together they gently carried Dylan to the bed.
"What happened?" Lilit asked once Dylan was safely put down.
"I don't know. Somebody attacked Dylan, obviously, and left him by a dumpster in an alley."
"You said Malone was found by a dumpster." Lilit said quietly. Alek had been thinking the same thing, but right now he didn't want to discuss it.
"I think he has a concussion. He didn't wake up at all on the way here and I can't find anything wrong with him except for his hands.
Lilit nodded and climbed onto the bed to examine Dylan's head for a few moments.
"I don't know, there aren't any head wounds. My guess is that he's been drugged. Look at his eyes." She pulled back Dylan's eyelid to show how bloodshot his eyes were and the intense amount of dilation in the pupils. "It's probably chloroform, when inhaled the chemical causes a person to pass out."
Alek bit his lip. He remembered a similar experience when Volger and his men had drugged him to get him out of Prague.
"We'll he be allright?" Alek asked nervously.
"I'm sure he'll be fine by morning." She began to look over the rest of Dylan's body. "We should get him out of these clothes, they're soaked in blood."
Alek cringed as Lilit made to unbutton Dylan's shirt. He still was having doubts about the middie being a girl or not. If Lilit did pull off Dylan's clothes, who knew what they would find beneath the fabric.
"STOP!" Alek jumped onto the bed on the other side of Dylan, pushing Lilit's hands away from buttons. "You can't!"
Lilit seemed a bit surprised by Alek's outburst, but she blushed all the same.
"I know…I shouldn't be looking at him undressed. I supposed you should be doing it. I'll wait in the other room."
"NO!" Alek blanched in horror at the thought of undressing Dylan himself. "That's even worse! You do it, I'll leave!"
"Alek, what are you talking about?"
"I just…I think…its just…there's a strong possibility that Dylan is a girl."
Lilit raised one eyebrow at him and smirked. "Are you serious?"
"You weren't there when Nene brought out the talking frog. You see, Malone had this frog that overheard a conversation Dylan had with Volger. Apparently, he disguised himself as a man for some reason."
"Wait, a talking frog?"
"I know it sounds ridiculous, but there have been other signs as well!"
"Like what?" She gave Alek a good long stare.
"Mr. Sharp!" Bovril chimed from the other side of the room.
"LIKE THAT! Do you hear the sarcasm? Bovril listened to the frog too, and he keeps repeating that sentence!"
"I don't know, Alek….:
"You haven't known Dylan for very long Lilit, I have! There are other strange things about him. Like he gets his clothes specially made for him, his voice can be extremely high pitched, he has this bizarre way of standing and sometimes, I swear, he looks at me….oddly."
Lilit stared at Alek for a second, really thinking over what he said before answering. "What do you mean, oddly?"
"I don't know! It's just…it's weird is all!"
"So, you really think Dylan is a girl?"
"Ummm, well, I'm not positive. There are a lot of things about Dylan that outweigh the few things that say he's female. He's a better soldier than I'll ever be and there's the fact that you fancy him."
"I DO NOT!"
"Oh be serious, Lilit. You've been taken with him since the first time you saw him. And there's no way you could have those feelings for a girl!"
Lilit slumped her head downwards and began fiddling with her braids. "I suppose not." She said softly.
"Anyways, whatever Dylan is, I really don't think I want to know. At least not now, not like this. Dylan should tell me face to face."
"But…it would be so easy to find out. Come on, don't you want to take a quick peek?"
Alek thought about taking Dylan's shirt off. His face got hot. "Absolutely not! I would never consider that idea!"
"Sure you wouldn't!" Lilit smirked again. "But if you insist, I guess we don't need to take his clothes off. We don't have anything for him to wear anyways. I mean, you can't even give him your own shirt since you seem to have lost it."
Alek felt his cheeks get even hotter when he noticed that he was bare-chested in front of a girl. He scowled at Lilit.
"Whatever! The bed is already covered in blood anyways so there's no reason to take his bloody clothes off. Just help me fix his hands, they look awful."
Lilit got a basin of hot water and towels as Alek untied the dirty wrappings around Dylan's palms. The cuts looked even worse than before. Alek blanched when they began to bleed again and quickly wrapped them in the hot wet towels. Lilit said that soaking them in hot water would prevent infection, so once the hands stopped bleeding Alek gently lowered them into the basin. He felt his heart droop with guilt as he noticed how delicate and thin Dylan's hands were.
"This is entirely my fault." He said sadly. Lilit looked up from where she was putting a cool towel over Dylan's forehead.
"No it isn't! You didn't torture the poor boy by cutting his hands open! Whoever is at fault for that better prepare for me to rip their arms out of their sockets!"
"But I'm the one who let him go. And if we hadn't waited so long, I could have been there to stop it!"
"Alek! You can't blame yourself for what happened. It was Dylan's idea to leave in the first place and even if you had chased after him you probably would have both been attacked. Now stop beating yourself up. Dylan is going to be fine, you'll see." Alek gave her half a smile. She was right, of course, but that didn't make him feel any better.
Eventually the hot water grew cool and Lilt removed the basin and towels back to the water closet. Together they wrapped Dylan's hands in linen strips and positioned him better on the bed.
"I don't know what's taking that doctor so long to get here!" Alek grumbled.
"What doctor?"
"I asked them to call for a doctor when I got here, but obviously that didn't happen."
"That's strange. You don't think the hotel has something to do with this?"
"Huh?"
"Well….someone had to notice the body in the elevator, but we didn't hear anything or anyone come up here. You would think they'd come up and check on us after that happened. I mean, the elevator had been stopped on our floor for a while when it happened."
"So, you think the murder is connected to Dylan's attack! I was worried that it might be."
Lilit only nodded.
"What are we going to do?" Alek asked her.
"I think it's best if we wait until Dylan wakes up. That probably won't be until morning, so we should try to get some sleep in the meantime. We'll keep him in the middle of the bed between us. Sometimes people thrash a lot as the drug wears off so we should be careful he doesn't roll off the bed."
Alek thought it was strange that Lilit knew so much about drugged people, but he agreed with her and didn't argue. She kicked off her shoes and pulled the covers down before blowing out the lamp and falling asleep.
Alek was amazed that Lilit could sleep at time like this, but pretty soon he found himself closing his eyes and dozing off as well. He heard Dylan give a murmur in his unconsciousness and felt his muscles unclench a bit. The midshipman was going to be allright, he told himself before falling completely asleep.
ALTERNATE ENDING!
BOVRIL: "Mr. Sharp!"
ALEK: "What is it girl? What happened?"
BOVRIL: "Mr. Sharp"
LILIT: "I think she wants you to follow her!"
ALEK: "What is it Bovril? Where's Dylan?"
BOVRIL: "..."
ALEK: "Did Dylan fall in the well?"
BOVRIL: "WOOF!"
LILIT: "Hurry Alek, Dylan's in danger!"
ALEK: "Allright girl, take me to Dylan!"
BOVRIL: "I'm not a dog you idiot!"
