Thanks for being patient fella's. Here's a longer one for ya. Sorry about reposting chapter 19 in place of 20, that was a goof on my part, not the systems. Still in therapy to get over not owning the X-men. Getting used to making due with Rhett. Don't know what I'll do when this story's over...Anyway, this chapter should both answer your questions and confuse you even more, LOL. Please read and Reveiw. Someone needs to cut the check rein on the Peanut gallery over there, they've been to silent (whispers, "It makes me think they're up to something"). Anyway, enough of my rambling, go on and enjoy the awsomeness!
"I know where we are! We're….Ahh!"
The collar lit up around Trisha's neck and she curled up in the fetal position. When Alice moved to help her, her collar lit up as well. She screamed and dropped to her knees, before gritting her teeth and crawling on hands and knees to Trisha.
Auger entered the room, clearly angry. "You just had to try it." He snarled, slamming his boot into the blond girl's stomach.
"You had to try to be a hero!" A fist connected with Alice's jaw, sending her reeling.
He grabbed Trisha by her hair. "Looks like I'm going to have to take care of you!" he growled. "It's a shame really. I had such hopes for your talent." He tsked and shook his head. "Oh well. No matter. The show will go on." He smiled nastily.
Slowly, almost theatrically, he pulled a small cylinder with a plunger on one end out of his pocket. Planting his thumb over the plunger, he placed the other end against Trisha's neck.
"NO!" Jackie flung himself at Auger, hammering him with the full brunt of his body weight. But he wasn't quick enough.
Trisha yelled as the searing contents of that syringe entered her system. Auger dropped her, confident she wouldn't pose a threat now as he dealt with Jackie.
He pulled another cylinder, this one minus the plunger and black in color, from his belt and gave it a flick. It extended, revealing itself to be a billy club, of the sort police officers often carried. He brought it viciously down on Jackie again and again, until Jackie stopped moving, taking sadistic glee in the pained cries this elicited from his captive victim.
Auger squirmed out from under the nearly unconscious boy and stood. Grinning evilly at the remaining three, he pointed at the two on the floor.
"There's your final warning kiddies." He said. "I suggest you pay attention."
He wiped blood from one of the cuts Jackie had inflicted and quietly left the room. Once he was gone Alice crawled across the floor to Jackie, who was closer than Trisha and more obviously hurt in any case, and pressed her hand against his neck, checking to make sure he was alive and doing her best to dull his pain.
Jackie groaned and groggily shook his head. "No. Not me…. Help her."
He gestured weakly to Trisha, who was curled in the fetal position on the floor a few feet away. Jeremy and Ericka had crawled off the bed and were doing their best to try and comfort her.
Alice nodded and crawled over him as gently as she could to get to Trisha. As Trisha's hands were inaccessible to Alice in her current position, Alice curled her fingers around the nape of her friends neck.
She shuddered as she felt the sheer crushing brutality of the pain her friend was suffering. Pain so deeply imbedded in the body it seemed to radiate from the marrow of her bones, from the very nucleus of her individual cells!
Alice did her best to block the pain, but deep inside she knew she was fighting a losing battle.
It is very hard to cut the feeling of pain off, when each and every cell of the body is slowly and excruciatingly dying.
Alice had no idea how long her friend would live. But she knew it was only a matter of time.
She tried to hold back the tears for the little kids sake, but her eyes remained bright. Trisha slowly uncurled and rolled over onto her back. She looked up at Alice.
She saw the slight quiver of the chin. The too bright eyes. Felt the shiver of her hand. And she knew.
Her fate had been sealed.
She tried to speak, but all that came out was a faint rasp. No. It couldn't end this way. It couldn't.
The willowy blond had always had a vitality to her. The vim and verve had always been her strongest attribute. Her experience here had strengthened that love of life.
Anger washed through her.
No. It wouldn't end this way. She wouldn't allow it. She was a fighter. And if it was the last thing she did, she was going to do everything in her power to make life harder on Auger, and to make sure that her friends didn't suffer the same fate she did.
She took a deep breath and blew out slowly. Though the voice they would hear was raspy, they would be able to understand it.
I know where we are. We are on North Bearing St. in the old abandoned warehouse's basement. She panted.
"Shhh. Save your strength." Alice whispered, patting Trisha's shoulder with her free hand.
She looked over her shoulder at Jackie, who had managed to get up on his knees at this point. "Can you pick her up and put her on the bed?"
Jackie nodded. Alice scooted out of the way and he crawled past her. He slipped his arms beneath Trisha's slender frame as gently as he could and picked her up. Walking on his knees, he awkwardly made his way over to the cot and laid her on it.
Though she remained quiet, the look on her face told him without shadow of a doubt that he hadn't nearly been gentle enough.
She sighed and closed her eyes. She felt Alice hand clasp her own, felt Alice inside her, fighting the pain that was threatening to tear her apart. And it gave her hope.
With Alice kicking her pain in the teeth, she could put her plans to be a really big monkey wrench in the works of Augers plan into action.
She quietly began to blow, and the pointer finger of her free hand slowly began to twirl.
I'm outside.
(aimed in Auger's general direction) "BOOOOO! Hissss!" I hate that guy! but he's the kind of villian you love to hate. LOL. Let's hear your perspective on it! (in game show hosts voice) "Peanut Gallery! Come on down! Your the next contestant on What's Your Oppinion?"!