Chapter Twenty-One: Pain

Dino and I got at least twenty feet from where we started; I don't know the purpose of Alejandro's questions and it seemed stupid. All he ever asked was about Dino, his natural hair color, eye color and other stupid shit. So far I made three mistakes and Dino still hasn't lost any major part of his body-not that I'm complaining. Alejandro only took a cutting of his hair, his finger and toe nail clippings. (It does help that Dino would occasionally whisper the right answers to me) I was really agitated and confused, the test has no point but to only antagonize me. It was getting cold and I couldn't stop my body from trembling; Dino noticed it as he removed his shirt and draped it over me.

"It's not much but I hope it keeps you warm." he said with a smile, even though I could tell he was just as cold as I was.

"Y-you don't have to! You're cold too!" I blurted out, the smile on his face made my cheeks burn and I had to turn away so he wouldn't notice. I clutched on the shirt tightly, my senses were drowned by his scent. Why was it that even though he had sweated like a pig, still managed to smell good? I shook the thought out of my head, I was losing focus and all because of that stupid blonde. Dino looked at me confused but I ignored it and returned to Alejandro who was only waiting patiently.

"Thank you…" I muttered under my breath, only enough for Dino to hear me.

"Next question then…" Alejandro interrupted.

"Wait...what is really the point of this?" I asked but he merely gestured at Dino with his wicked smile. Tch. He's really annoying.

"Fine Fine...get on with it."

"How about we change things up a bit, huh? It's Dino's turn to answer, if he gets it wrong, both of you will lose something. I won't be nice this time around, I won't just take a nail clipping or hair…Oh and no more coaching. I will take your tongue if one of you whispers the answer." Dino and I froze, I didn't even realize that Alejandro noticed it. Shit, I'm so stupid.

I looked over at Dino and our eyes met, I gave him a silent cheer and he nodded. He stepped forward and waited for Alejandro's question.

"Okay let's start with something easy, What is Jun's full name." Dino beamed a smile.

"Oh that's easy, Hong Yuanjun." I released the breath that I was holding, glad that Dino at least remembered my name. Alejandro nodded and gave a quick smile.

"Alrighty then; When is her birthday and how old is she?" Dino paused for a bit, I don't remember ever giving him my age or my birthday, I just hoped that Ieyasu and the others gave him some sort of a file about me-although the thought of it infuriated me.

"Uhm...She's a year younger than me so that would make her thirteen and her birthday is on…" he looked over to me, panic rose to his face. I wanted to give him the answer but I know Alejandro was watching us like a hawk.

"June third?" he finished.

Alejandro made an annoying buzzer noise and made an X with his arms. An amused look on his face as he walked towards us and he carried a small knife. His eyes never left mine, I tensed under his gaze; it wasn't until he was right in front of me did I broke out of a weird trance.

"Let's see...what should I take out? An ear? Your pretty eyes? Hm...those won't do. I want to see you writhe in pain but I don't want it to end when we just started." he twirled his knife around while he talked and pointed with it on the different parts he wanted to remove.

"Aaah~ Let's do something small…" he took hold of my hand and with a flick of his wrist, he removed the nail on my middle finger. I stared at the blood that had started to pool on the area that was once my nail. The pain didn't register right away and I stared at it for a while.

"What the hell did you do?" Dino cried out and rushed to my side, Alejandro at that point was already a few feet away from us.

"Jun! We need to…" he stopped when I looked at him with a blank look.

"What?" I asked him.

"I'm sorry! I should know your birthday, but my mind went blank" he said while he ripped a piece of cloth from the Hawaiian shirt that he lent me. It wasn't until he started to wrap the cloth that the pain finally made it to my brain. I cried out as tears swelled in the corner of my eyes, my hands tremble and Dino tightly squeezed my uninjured hand. He shot a glare towards Alejandro who was playing with the bloody fingernail that he took from me.

"Next question then?"

I pulled away from Dino and I tightly clutched onto my wounded finger.

"What is Jun's brother and father's name?" he asked. Dino should know the answer, it wasn't like my dad was unknown; for crying out loud he's a fucking boss. Dino straightened his posture and readied himself to answer.

"Her father's name is Hong Longwei...She calls her brother Wei...so I'm gonna guess his name is Yuanwei."

Alejandro laughed and I cringed at Dino's guess, not because he was wrong, but because he did it.

"Well it's a good guess, take your steps forward. We don't have all day."

"No! I am done with this you sadistic bastard!" I blurted out, the amused expression that Alejandro wore melted away and was replaced by a more serious one. One would think that at this point I would know when to keep my mouth shut.

Dino tugged at my shirt but I didn't budge, I kept my ground and glared at Alejandro, we remained silent for a while but it was broken by his maniacal laugh.

"Good good! This is the expression I have been waiting for. I know you'd be irritated if I push you long enough." He smile.

"You did all of this to irritate me?"

"I think we played around long enough...I'm just doing my job, I didn't think I'd see you here of all places, so I figured it'd be a perfect opportunity."

"To what?"

"To test you..."

I don't know where it came from, but somehow he had pulled out a square device that resembled a remote. I went into a defensive stance, Dino sensed something wrong too as he did the same. Not waiting for Alejandro to trigger his plan, Dino grabbed my arm and bolted towards the exit.

We ran until we could see the cave entrance, the adrenaline in our system gave us the push that we needed. My lungs burned and my muscles were tired but we continued on. Freedom was within our grasps but it quickly crumbled away when the cave floor shook violently, tipping us off balance. Dino tripped over air and dragged me along with him and hit the rocky ground, hard.

The cave continued to shake, any attempt of getting up to our feet ended in failure, crawling also ended with the same result. I held onto Dino and we huddled together and decided to wait it out. The exit was so close but our freedom was so out of reach. It wasn't until the ground started to crumble did we realize our mistake; we were pinned against the cave wall, the ground around us was almost gone and the tremors caused our exit to cave in and left us in the dim light of the tiki torches.

"What the hell did I get myself into?" the words that escaped my lips were laced with fear and I trembled against Dino's grip. He held me closer to him, our eyes locked with each other one last time before the ground beneath our feet crumbled and his last word echoed in my head as we fell into the pit that opened up beneath us.

"It's going to be okay…"

"...un! Jun wake up!" Dino shook my shoulders, he sounded worried but my eyes were heavy and refused to open. The cave already stopped shaking but a few small rocks still rained down on us. When my eyes fluttered open, the sudden assault of white caused me to shut them again. A groan vibrated within my throat as I rolled to my side and away from the light, that was when a pain shot up from my leg.

A yelp startled Dino but the string of inappropriate words startled him more. The fall must've sprained my ankle.

"Are you hurt?" Dino asked.

"Yeah, I think I hurt my ankle. You?" He shook his head in response but the movement made his face twist a bit in pain. I got up on my one good foot and hobbled to his side and poked at his ribs. He cried out and jumped back away from me, tears threatened to run down his cheeks.

"Why did you do that?" he pouted.

"Because you lied…" I answered. "We need to get you back to the mainland, you need a doctor." Dino became quiet and was looking up. I followed his gaze only to be greeted by the same white light. I narrowed my eyes and allowed my vision to adjust and what I saw made my blood boil. Alejandro was watching us the whole time with a flashlight in hand. The pit we fell into was approximately fifteen feet and was still climbable.

"Well you guys are boring." Alejandro suddenly spoke with a smirk, he flashed his light at us, an action that caused us to look away.

"Sorry..I overdid it again. Sit tight and I'll get help. Sasha is gonna have my hide for this..." I clenched my jaw to prevent myself from saying all the vulgar things I could think of, the pain helped distract me from him. After he departed, Dino and I were left in the dark, our eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lighting the tiki torches casted from up above us. I leaned against the wall and slid down to a sitting position, my body ached but I couldn't imagine the pain Dino was in.

"Hey, what did he mean by he overdid it?" Dino asked but my response was more of a grunt than anything. I was too exhausted to even care at that point. An uncomfortable silence fell over us like a blanket; I wondered too what it was Alejandro meant, his words hung in the air and were left for us to figure out what he was up to. Dino was so still, moving probably was difficult and I couldn't help but to feel bad for the poor guy .

"In a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain are you in?" he turned his head towards me, grateful that I broke the unnerving silence around us.

"Uhm...a three?"

"Don't lie to me Dino, I will poke you again." I quipped, a chuckle escaped his lip which ended with him almost doubling in pain.

"A seven" he breathed out. I got up to my feet and attempted to assist him so he could sit down. After a few cries from him, he finally managed to rest, breathing must've been really painful for him as it was very shallow and rapid. I sat next to him and kept my eyes on him to watch for any signs of his condition worsening and wished that I could ease his suffering no matter how small it could be. Deep in thought, I didn't realize how close I got to Dino, our faces were a hairbreadth away.

"Any closer and I'm gonna kiss you..." he whispered in a joking manner, I snapped out of my thoughts but was too late and my face burned red that rivaled the reddest tomatoes; but I didn't move, for some reason I remained still. Our eyes locked with each other, I froze when he attempted to close the gap and within seconds I felt his warm breath brushed against my lips, but our closeness was suddenly interrupted by a bright light above us.

My head snapped towards the direction and my ears were filled by the voice of our saviour.

"Thank goodness I finally found you!" It was Jemma, her light flicked somewhere else, she called out to someone and I realized that there was an entire search party looking for us.

I turned my attention back at Dino to share my joy but it was rudely replaced by panic when I saw him slumped forward and unconscious. My panic rose to full on hysterics, I called out for Jemma over and over. I was worried that Dino's injuries were worse than he had let me believe and I was a fucking idiot for believing him.

More people appeared, all were shouting different orders, some were throwing words of comfort directed to myself but everything went by as a blur. I was too tired and was overwhelmed with worry that I thought of no one else but Dino. They wanted to care for my injuries first but I vaguely remember yelling at them to take care of Dino before they bothered with me, to which they did albeit reluctant on leaving me be.

We were airlifted to the nearest hospital-which was miles away- and were treated for our injuries; I was lucky enough to get out with minor scrapes and a sprained ankle but Dino was badly injured. He suffered so much; fractured ribs which had caused his lungs to collapse and had barely gotten out of it in surgery and a possible concussion. He had to be put in an induced coma to ease some of the pain.

When my senses finally returned, I was sitting next to Dino's hospital bed a few days later. I hadn't spoken to anyone even after the entire Cavallone family had visited him; some had blamed me for what had happened and some just completely ignored my presence in the room. In some part of my brain, I blamed myself too. I had inadvertently dragged Dino into Alejandro's sick, twisted games; I should've told someone about him and yet, I didn't. I wasn't afraid. I was angry and I wanted to take care of him myself; for everything he had put Dino through.

I watched Dino's chest rise and fall, he was attached by different tubes that I can only guess what their purpose were. I was just glad that his breathing finally became stable and was peacefully sleeping. I was really worried and the thought of losing him made my chest tighten. I glanced at him again while I wondered the new feeling that somehow welled up inside.

I sat there and contemplated but the answer seemed to fade further from my reach. I shook it off, I couldn't think of anything else but the boy that laid unconscious in front me. I wouldn't even know what to say when he wakes; I'll be happy if he wakes and If he's mad at me I'll happy too. As long as he gets through it I know that everything will be okay.

A/N: What is this? Another chapter! Haha it's taking me a long time, the only times that I could write is at work for some reason. Thanks for being so patient with me. I got my spark back by reread some chapters and I could slowly write chapters, I really couldn't abandon this. If this chapter is confusing please bear with me... Haha