Hiya!
Sorry about the lateness of this! mad weeks going on!
Anywho, thanks for reviewing and enjoy this one!
Chapter 25: Ember's New Mission
When Ember started to wake up, she felt her entire body aching as if she'd been fighting with Arkon. As she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the white ceiling with cracks in it. Looking around, she realized that she was lying in a hospital bed, but she was all alone.
Ember pushed the blanket that was covering her off and slowly started to sit up. She sucked in a breath of air when she felt a shot of pain shooting through her side. Because of this, she looked down at herself to find that she was wearing a set of pyjamas that were way too big on her, so much so that they were slipping of one shoulder. Ember frowned for a moment before lifting up the shirt to find that there was a crisp white bandage covering her wound.
"What the hell..." Ember muttered.
After thinking and frowning for a moment, Ember pushed herself to her feet. She slowly started walking over to the door, making sure that she didn't make a wrong move with her side and end up hurting herself again. Not knowing how long she'd been unconscious bothered her, all she remembered was that she started to feel really light-headed as she walked with Caleb through the corridor of the hospital, but after that things went pitch-black. But this didn't really bother her, it wasn't like she hadn't fainted before, it bothered her that she didn't know where Caleb was, the fact that he wasn't in the room with her, despite the fact that he believed that he was now a monster, she doubted whether he would just leave her on her own while she was unconscious.
"Hello?" Ember called as she stepped out of the room. "Is anyone there?"
Just as Ember started to slowly go down the corridor, an older woman and two men her age, twins by the look of them came walking down the corridor towards her. Ember didn't know whether these people were friendly or not, her suspicions were leaning towards the 'friendly' option seeing as they had tended to her wounds but until she was sure, she wasn't going to take any chances. Despite the fact that
"Ruby." The older woman said once she'd reached Ember. "You should be in bed."
"But I..." Ember started.
"No buts." The woman replied sternly. "Come on."
Ember didn't have the chance to protest, seeing as the woman took her by the arm in a firm but gentle grip, and lead her back to the bed she'd waken up on. She didn't even get the chance to react as the woman had caught her off guard by the way the lady was treating her. She was acting somewhere between a concerned grandmother and nurse.
"What the hell is going on here?" Ember demanded after she'd been forced to sit on the bed. "Who are you?"
"It's alright." The woman replied, covering Ember with the blankets. "My name is Dr. Lindsay Newton, I'm the leader of the Cat Faction, or Hippocrates faction as some would know it."
"I'm Rory, by the way." One of the twins, the one with the longer hair and blue eyes, remarked.
"Rory, shut it." the other twin, the one with the shorter hair and brown eyes, ordered.
"You're such a buzz kill, Stu." Rory replied. "I'm just saying hi."
"Stu, Rory, attend to your duties, please." Lindsay said calmly.
"Yes, ma'am." Rory said, giving a mock salute.
"Idiot." Stu said, slapping his brother against the back of the head.
Ember stared as the twins left the room, closing the door behind them, but through the window, she could see them starting up a slight argument, which Stu was clearly going to be winning by the looks of it.
"What's going on?" Ember asked, turning to face Lindsay again. "Where's Caleb?"
"I'm sorry, Ruby, but Caleb left." Lindsay replied, her face showing nothing but compassion.
Ember stared at Lindsay as the information that she'd just been told sunk in.
"No... No, he wouldn't leave... that's not like him..." Ember shook her head after a few moments. "He wouldn't do that... he wouldn't leave me like this... why the hell didn't you stop him!"
"There was nothing I could've done to stop it. I'm sorry, Ruby." Lindsay sighed sadly before taking out an envelope and the modified scanner. "Caleb told me to give you this."
Ember felt her hands shaking as she took the scanner and envelope from Lindsay. She dropped the scanner down on her lap before opening the envelope to find that there was a letter inside of it.
'Ruby,
By the time you're reading this, I'll be gone. The reason for this is because I want to make sure that you stay safe which means that we have to be apart. I want you to go back to FutureGate; Cybele will make sure you can go home.
Please, don't come looking for me, Ruby.
Your friend,
Caleb;
It took a few re-reads for the information to actually sink in. She didn't think that Caleb would do something like that, but the letter in her hands was the evidence of him actually leaving her behind. When that realization set in, tears started to form in her eyes.
"No..." she whispered as the first tears started to fall. "He wouldn't do that..."
"I'm sorry, Ruby." Lindsay repeated sadly.
"My name is not Ruby, it's Ember!" Ember yelled in anger. "Why the hell didn't you stop him? You know what; don't even bother telling me, I've got to..."
"Ember, I can't allow you to go anywhere." Lindsay said calmly.
"Bollocks to that!" Ember yelled angrily. ""I've got to find him!"
"Ember, you've not yet fully recovered." Lindsay said, displaying the patience of a saint as Ember started to climb out of the bed.
"I don't care." Ember replied walking over to where her clothes were. "I've got to find Caleb. Nothing is more important than doing that."
"Ember, he wanted to leave you behind. He wouldn't have done that without having a good reason for it." Lindsay stated as Ember changed into her own clothes before sitting down on the bed to put on her boots.
"Bollocks to that. You don't even know him the way I do, so don't even try to pretend you know his reasons for leaving." Ember replied, her voice deathly quiet as the initial anger passed while she buckled the belt of her gun holster up. "His reasons are wrong, he is wracked with guilt. He's got this stupid idea in his head that cyborgs are evil because he killed a man to safe my life and now he believes that he's a danger to me because of that. I know exactly what he's thinking, Doc, and I'm telling you, he is not thinking straight. So I don't care what you think is going on or what you think I should be doing. Bollocks to all of it, I'm leaving, now."
At the end of her rant, Ember zipped up her vest before moving over to the door, only to find that the twins were blocking her path. She didn't know how it happened though; the two of them were leaving.
"Out of my way." Ember ordered calmly.
The twins just stood there, watching Ember as they calmly crossed their arms over their chest. Rory stood with a slight smirk on his face while Stu stood beside him with a look that told Ember that he wasn't planning on going anywhere, no matter what she said.
"I said, let me pass." Ember said firmly as she started to get angry again.
"Stu, Rory, you know what to do." Lindsay said calmly.
"Sorry about this." Stu remarked.
"Yeah, it's for your own good." Rory agreed.
Ember didn't even get a warning as Stu and Rory reached out and grabbed hold of her and dragged her back to the bed.
"No!" Ember yelled as she fought back to get out of the twins grasp. "No, get of me! Let go of me!"
It didn't matter how much Ember fought back to get free, the two of them didn't give her an inch to work with. They pinned her down on the bed while Lindsay set to work fastening straps around her ankles and wrists to tie her down.
"Stop!" Ember yelled as she struggled. "Let me go!"
Once Lindsay had fastened the last strap around Ember's ankle, the three resistance members stepped back from the bed, but not before Lindsay had taken the gun from Ember's holster and put it aside on the bedside table.
"I'm sorry Ember." Lindsay said. "We can't let you leave until you're fully healed."
"I swear to God, if you don't let me go right now you're going to regret it." Ember yelled in anger. "No matter what good intentions you might have, you're going to regret all of this!"
"This is all for your own good, Ember." Lindsay replied as the twins left the room. "You'll see this in time."
"Yeah, and when I get out of here, I'm going to make you pay." Ember snapped.
Lindsay just gave Ember a solemn look before she left the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Ember alone in the room.
"Biggest mistake on the planet..." Ember muttered to herself.
She started to test her bonds and a few tries to see how much movement she had showed that she was able to reach the pockets of her vest if she moved her body closer to one of her hands. With some effort, and a slightly sore wrist, Ember had been able to grab her switch blade from one of the pockets and opened it up. She was glad for a moment that it was just the tip that had broken off and the rest of the blade was undamaged, meaning that it was still sharp. After adjusting the knife so she could use it properly, Ember started to cut at the strap around her wrist.
A while later, Ember had been able to cut through the leather of the strap, unfortunately though, she had slipped a few times and that meant that she'd cut into her skin. Even though the cuts hurt, Ember couldn't care less, all she could think about was escaping the Cat/Hippocrates Faction and finding Caleb.
The blood on her hand made it more difficult to remove the strap around her other wrist, but the second she succeeded; she removed the straps around her ankles and climbed to her feet.
Despite the fact that she had threatened to make Dr. Newton pay, Ember decided to ignore that in favour of escaping the hospital. So after grabbing her gun from the bedside table and stealing bandages and gauze pads from the cupboards and stuffing them into her pockets, she moved over to the door. After glancing around the corner for a few moments to see if the coast is clear, Ember left the room and started walking down the corridor in the hopes she was going to the right direction to the exit.
She found out that she was going in the right direction a few seconds later as she recognized the corridor as the one that she'd passed out in. She started running as fast as she could despite the pain, wanting nothing more than to just get the hell out of there and find Caleb. not to mention that she didn't want to waste any more time in the hospital as she didn't know how long it had been since Caleb left.
A few minutes later, Ember reached the exit and she shoved the door open. The second that she'd done that, she heard an alarm going off somewhere deep in the hospital, you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that it was because Ember had been able to escape. Trying to ignore the pain in her side, Ember started to run as fast as she could down the street in the direction of the location where she and Caleb had left the jeep behind.
10 or so minutes later, Ember reached the jeep and she skidded to a halt when she saw that the twins were waiting for her. Knowing that there was no time to run, Ember decided to stay and fight.
"Hey." Rory smirked. "Going somewhere?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" Ember asked, pulling out her gun and aiming it at the twins.
"Stopping you from doing something incredibly stupid." Stu replied, crossing his arms over his chest, not looking intimidated at all.
"You don't know me, buddy." Ember replied angrily. "Get the hell out of my way or you're going to regret it."
"We can't do that, Lara Croft." Rory smirked, leaning back against the jeep. "We've got our orders."
Ember didn't know where Rory had heard the name Lara Croft, but she shrugged the thoughts of as she steadied her aim.
"Get the hell out of my way." Ember repeated, her voice turning deathly cold again. "Or I swear to god, you are going to regret it."
"Yeah, even if we believed in God, we still wouldn't move." Stu replied, looking calmer than someone should with a gun aimed at them.
"Well aren't you the pessimist?" Ember snapped. "Get the hell out of my way, now!"
Ember stared as both Stu and Rory just kept leaning against the jeep, watching calmly her.
"You're not a killer, Ruby." Stu stated. "Put the gun away and we can talk."
"Yeah, how do I know you're not going to tie me up again?" Ember challenged.
"We had our orders." Rory shrugged. "You really don't want to ignore Doc Newton's orders."
"Does it look like I care?" Ember snapped. "And like hell am I going to trust you."
"Look, we know how much you care about Caleb." Stu remarked. "And we want to help you."
"Yeah, we wanna help you find him." Rory agreed. "I mean, he's the guy who saved the planet, the least we can do is help you."
"Go on." Ember replied, slowly lowering the gun, wondering if it was a good idea to trust them.
"You're not fully healed yet." Stu explained. "Leave now, you're just going to get infected again and after a while, your blood will turn to poison and you die. How can you help Caleb when you're dead?"
"Why don't you just give me the antibiotics instead?" Ember challenged.
"Because they don't exist anymore." Stu replied. "We've been forced to go back to herbal remedies."
"Fine, then give me those herbs and I'll be out of your way." Ember replied.
"Not going to happen, sister." Rory smirked. "You wouldn't know how to use them."
"I used to be Wiccan so I know how to use herbs, thank you very much." Ember replied, giving Rory a glare.
"It does not gonna happen either way." Stu shook his head.
"So what then?" Ember asked. "You wanna come with me? That's not going to happen either."
"It's either that or we're going to take you back to the hospital until you're healed." Stu remarked. "Imagine the amount of time that you'll have to catch up on when that happens."
Ember glared at the twins, she knew that they were right, that and she didn't have a chance against the two of them. Plus that she knew that they knew the same thing.
"Son of a bitch." Ember swore under her breath before deciding. "Alright, fine, you've got a deal. But double cross me, and you'll regret it."
"Awesome." Rory grinned.
"Don't get excited, little brother." Stu stated. "You know what to do?"
"Yup." Rory grinned.
"Alright, good luck." Stu said before turning to Ember. "I'm going to stay and make sure that Lindsay doesn't find out about you leaving until you're a good distance away. And I'm sorry, but I'm going to make her believe that you've kidnapped Rory to get away."
"Great, make me the bad guy why don't you?" Ember replied, somewhat sarcastically. "You know what? I don't care, whatever you need to do, do it."
"Alright." Stu nodded before turning to his twin. "Be care full and remember what I taught you, alright?"
"Yeah, yeah." Rory waved his brother off. "I'll be fine."
Ember watched as Stu and Rory exchanged a brotherly hug before Stu started to walk back towards the direction of the hospital, passing her in the process.
Ember sighed deeply, despite the fact that she was forced into the deal, she was grateful for the fact that the twins were this willing to help her.
"Stu, wait." Ember said, turning to face him.
"What?" Stu asked, turning around too.
"Thank you for doing this." Ember said, genuinely meaning it.
"No problem." Stu nodded.
Stu turned away and kept walking towards the hospital while Ember turned back to face Rory, who was grinning at her.
"I know why you're grinning, but not gonna happen, buddy." Ember said firmly as she climbed into the driver's seat. "Keep it in your pants, got that? I'm taken."
To prove her point, Ember held up her right hand to show the silver ring with a Lapis Lazuli stone set into it that was sitting around her ring finger.
"It's just a ring." Rory remarked.
"Yeah, one that was given to me by my boyfriend." Ember replied. "Don't forget that, alright?"
Without another word, Ember started the engine and barely gave Rory enough time to get in before driving away.
She gripped the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip before she glanced down at her ring, remembering the time that Rutger had given it to her. It was their three month anniversary and it was supposed to be this romantic night in at Ember's house, but of course, it was interrupted by Bryce. But after Ember had kicked him out of the room, Rutger had pulled out the ring and intended to slide it around Ember's ring finger, but somehow Rutger had misjudged the size and it had turned out too big for her ring finger. Because of this, it had to be remade first before it could actually fit around Ember's finger.
Ember smiled a little at the memory of how flustered Rutger had looked when he had slid the ring around her finger for the first time, but after a few moments, she shook the memories out of her mind and turned it to finding Caleb. She didn't have a clue where she was going to start, but she did know that she would need help from someone who knew about surviving in the terrain of 2110. Sure maybe Rory knew how to survive, but she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him, so that meant that she needed someone she could trust. This meant that she would have to go back to Utrecht in Holland to seek out Tweaks. Ember hoped that she would be willing to help out in finding Caleb, if not; Ember seriously didn't know where she would be able to go to search for help. Maybe it wasn't the right move to go back to Utrecht first, maybe she had to grab her laptop once she was a good distance away from the Cat/Hippocrates Faction, but she needed someone she could trust by her side, and Rory just didn't qualify as that person.
"So, where are we going?" Rory asked, leaning back in his seat, smirking smugly.
"To find a friend." Ember replied.
"A friend huh?" Rory repeated. "What kind of friend?"
"It's none of your business." Ember replied coldly. "Just because I agreed with this deal you and your twin forced on me, doesn't mean that I'm going to trust you, got that? So instead of questioning my actions and choices, you might want to just sit back and let me make the choices I'm going to make."
With that, Ember turned back to look at the road and didn't give Rory a second glance.
So that's it for this chapter!
Unfortunately I can't promise when I'll be posting the next one, but it'll be soon!
X Abby