Chapter ten

Heart pounding, blood rushing, adrenaline coursing, Hiccup stared at the woman before him. He was breathless, speechless; thoughtless. Who was this woman? A tiny smile, formed from her delicate lips, was all it took to calm him again, her eyes were gentle; her face was angelic. She stepped towards him. As she moved, Hiccup noticed a small bag, tied together using scraps of fabric, was slung over one of her shoulders. She winked at him before fisting his clothes that were hanging over the back of a nearby chair and stuffing those in the makeshift bag, too.

"H-Who are you?" Hiccup stuttered, shrinking back slightly when she leaned over him.

"All will be revealed in time, Dragon Boy, now hurry before someone sees us!" The women hurriedly pushed her hand to Hiccup's back and held his left wrist with the other, pulling him to the edge of the bed. He pulled his wrist away and gave her his best glare- which probably looked overly pathetic- whilst trying to order the questions bombarding his brain into a line.

"Dragon Boy?!"Hiccup exclaimed, "How do you know about dragons? Why do we speak the same language? What's going on? Who are you?"

"Silence!" She snapped, continuing with trying to pull Hiccup from the bed, "We will talk later, but for now you must trust me. We must escape this hospital and take refuge in The Den."

"But I don't know you! Get off of me!"

"You may not know me, Dragon Boy, but you know whom I share The Den with. Now come on, those people will be back soon!" The stranger carefully began to lift Hiccup from the bed whilst he was still lost amongst his own confusion over what she just told him, the feeling of his foot leaving the floor soon snapped him out of it.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! N-no! Put. Me. Down!" Hiccup fought against her, wriggling madly in a failing attempt to break free. The only favour she really did him was pulling out the wires attaching him to those dreaded machines. The woman put Hiccup back down on the bed, only to hand her bag to him before hoisting the teenager up onto her back as though he was some sort of toy. It felt strange considering Hiccup was the same height if not taller than her, how did she possess the strength to do this?

"Let's go. That accursed machine is making the most dreadful noise;" (She looked to the heart monitor) "someone is going to find us." Hiccup took no notice whatsoever of what this strange woman was saying as of now, instead the words she had previously said lodged into his brain.

"What did you mean earlier? Who do I know? Are you talking about…?"

"You'll see soon enough, I must say though, you will be most overjoyed at this little… reunion." Hiccup felt her arms slide under his legs to hold him upon her back before she looked back at him, presumably to check that he was still holding her bag, before smiling and turning to the open door. Before Hiccup could even begin to protest, the woman holding him was running at a breakneck speed. Literally. He'd never seen (or felt) someone run this fast, it seemed inhuman, beyond capability; he didn't say anything though.

She avoided metal carts, equipment, and other people, with grace and precision. Everything whipped past in a blur of action, this girl was obviously doing all in her power to keep from being stopped, ignoring the yells and hollers of the medical staff working there. Hiccup's heart pumped hard in excitement and fear, he didn't really know what to feel. On one hand her was excited to finally getting out of here, but on the other hand, (he looked down to the bag pressed against his and this woman's bodies) he didn't know this person. Everything was going to plan, that was until Hiccup felt them gliding through the air; the women had leapt up and over a discarded bed, lying unoccupied in the narrow corridor. It was then that everything started going downhill.

Upon landing back on the floor, Hiccup's wounded shoulder smashed into the women's own. And boy were her shoulders solid! Pain flowed through the area and he automatically brought his left hand over to cover it, the shoulder burned like it had when he first acquired the wound. By accident, Hiccup managed to slip out of the woman's firm grasp and onto the hard ground below, the air was instantly knocked out of him. Gasping to regain breath, Hiccup curled into a ball on the ground.

"Get up!" The woman urged in a hushed voice. "I said get up, Dragon Boy!"

"Ugh." Was the best reply Hiccup could manage as he attempted to sit back up but failed miserably, his eyes clenched shut against the pain.

"Come on! We need to go!"

"What's goin' on over here?!" A man yelled as he came out from a nearby room. He took one look at Hiccup on the floor in his hospital gown and instantly ran over, shouting for support from the other nurses. "Can you hear me lad?" Hiccup saw him coming towards them when he suddenly stopped in his tracks only a few steps away.

"Get away from him!" The woman who'd been carrying him barked. So she spoke this foreign language too? Hiccup looked up at the woman and noticed her protective stance. She was leaned forwards slightly with her arms spread, as though she was going to tackle the man.

"Excuse me, young lady, but you'll treat me with respect! This patient needs medical helps, and you'll not interfere. Now please step aside." He spoke in a calm level voice. Hiccup had a feeling that a fight was going to break out soon.

"You shall not touch him! I am taking him away from here, away from you and your ways! He is one of my people, and I shall not have you interfere with that! Now back away and let us continue."

"Move away or I shall have you removed." The man threatened. Hiccup looked at the women in front of him through blurry eyes. She didn't move, she clearly had no intentions of backing down. The man narrowed his eyes and brought out a small black box and spoke into it in a hushed, harsh voice. Hiccup had absolutely no idea what it was that he'd said, but he knew from the body language of the pair that it wasn't something good. The nervous pit in his stomach rose slightly. "This is your final chance to leave before you're removed from this hospital by force." As soon as the words left his mouth, strange men ran around the sharp corner and soon found their way to them.

"I'd like to see them try and remove me from this wretched place." Hiccup could hear the smirk in her voice. He watched as her hands twitched, moving so that her palms faced the people in front of her. What was happening? What was she going to do? The man in the long white coat, the one who spoke into the black box, attempted to get to Hiccup once more. He walked around the woman and was more than surprised when she harshly shoved him back. "Get away." She bit out.

"Get her out of here, I need to get to the boy behind her, he needs medical help." Hiccup shrunk back slightly, he was beginning to regret allowing this woman to take him from his room. He should have just waited for Carol to return, waited until he was well enough to leave. His thoughts soon objected the former when he remembered this woman's words, Toothless was with her. Although she didn't exactly say his name, everything hinted towards that one answer. Two men dressed in strange, armour like clothing stepped forwards towards them, what were they going to do?

"Just leave us and we'll be on our way." The woman growled.

"I'm sorry, miss, but you've got to leave right now. The boy has to stay here. Now leave, or we'll throw you out." One of the men growled in a deep voice. The woman gave a single humourless laugh; she was challenging them from what Hiccup could understand.

"Do not joke aroun, men, you cannot defeat me! You cannot make me leave, not without this boy. You see, we have some very important business to take care of, and I shall not have you or any other man get in our way."

"Force it is then." The second man stretched his hands out to grab her, the woman protecting him violently lunged forwards and punched him square in the face, his dark brown hair flying madly as he fell back into the white washed wall. Despite her small stature, she sure packed one heck of a punch. The brown haired man spat blood at the floor, his bottom lip swelling and bleeding. "You little-"He got not further in his sentence as he was punched again. This time, both men lunged at her at once, the man in the white coat standing back away from the violence as he waited for a suitable time to retrieve Hiccup.

"Look out!" Hiccup yelled as a fury of fists punching and legs kicking broke out. The woman roared out a ferocious battle cry before extending her arms at a lightning fast speed and sending both men hurtling into the walls to the sides of them. A bright blue light appeared around her body; it rippled across the floor and crawled all the way to the ceiling. It looked dangerously beautiful as a powerful pulsing force bounced around her body, fuelling the blue light.

The woman threw her body over Hiccup as a panicked expression overcame and replaced her fiercely faced attitude. In those moments, Hiccup was even more frightened then when he first arrived at this strange place, and these feelings only escalated when he heard the words. The two little words that meant things had gone wrong, the two words that could only have you hoping for the best:

"I'm sorry."