Chapter Twenty-Five: Bullet Point
"Did you seriously up and leave the kids alone?! What the hell is wrong with you, dude?! A lot can happen when they're left alone! You do know that, right?" Tyson yelled as the two bolted out of the recently parked car, slamming their doors shut and skipping over the connected curb that they were brushed up against. The side of a busy street, in front of a line of stores? Not what he expected to come across.
"Kai, answer me, will ya?!" Tyson screamed as he followed him, the two trotting speedily along the worn concrete path.
With one last good pull on his apron straps rounding his lower back, securing it in place, Kai peered back and said, "Max is with them, he pulled up to my place when I pulled out," He turned away from him, "Zip it and let me concentrate!"
With his anger doused, Tyson said at a normal, level volume, "Oh. That's a relief, guess he came to tell you about Monica?"
"Yes, and he understands that I can't help these types of emergencies. It's part of it. He said he'd stay downstairs unless he heard or saw something off and I'm sure Kenny will be with him shortly,"
"Right. What did Joe want again?"
Tyson's question was answered the minute they entered a small, modern type of diner toward the end of the farthest street corner. Straightaway his blood ran cold, and he was sure Kai was enduring the same thing. The stench of blood invaded their noses and it was so potent that it dulled the other senses. At least it did for Tyson.
There, tightly crumpled up and knocked out within a row of unmistakably disturbed barstools on the rustic, cream colored tile floor, was Dr. Joe. And, he reckoned a bloody fright, emphasis on bloody.
"Oh my God, Joe!"
In a blur, and ignoring the still gawking bystanders, Kai dashed over to the pruney gent and went to work rigorously inspecting him. He then began cutting his apron and clothes off of him with his own pair of EMT shears. While he had a pair of giant fabric scissors too, he preferred these when those weren't in quick reach.
Tyson's face went limp and eyes as big as serving platters. As he watched him work in stunned silence, his mind backtracked. He didn't even know that level of terror was possible in Kai's vocal range, and yes even the strongest have a kryptonite of some sort, but Joe being one of his was unexpected.
He assumed Kai would never allow himself (even subconsciously) to grow close to anyone after Saori's depressing downfall. Tyson thought he'd permanently reset himself and resigned to being emotionally unavailable and verbally cold or indifferent to all life offered, but here showed signs of something different. Had Joe succeeded in doing what every one of them had failed at? Had he truly unlocked Kai's heart?
After forcibly wrenching open and moving Joe's bloodied hand away from what was his right hip, Kai thoroughly eyed the currently coagulating source of the iron smell and crimson. He'd been shot, and it looked as though it was with his own gun, but this wasn't a self-inflicted wound. So, where was the gunman?
Pinning that question to the imaginary bulletin board at the back of his mind, Kai cast Tyson the keys and while sterilizing the wound with pure alcohol, he said, "Go grab both of my small coolers from the hatch and lock it back!"
Tyson nodded after catching the keys, for once not bothering to ask why or ramble off the questionnaire in his head.
A minute later, he returned with all the doctor had ordered, placing the two box units beside Kai before moving a good distance back.
Opening the first white, blue lid and handled container, Kai lifted out a blood bag with a tube and commenced the IV lined transfusion Joe desperately needed. He'd lost enough that he passed out. Add in gravity bleeding, which had made a shallow pool beneath him, and things were swiftly tipping downward, meaning time was of the essence.
Kai wiped down the surgical instruments he kept in his apron with some pure alcoholic towelettes. Not a minute later he began slicing away at the man, removing the bullet one fragment at a time. At least he prayed there was only one of them in there.
"I need one of you drama-happy cowards to tell me all that happened, who shot him?!" Kai barked out, not daring to look up at anyone.
Tyson could see the residents of the room recoiling into themselves. Why, because the heat Kai radiated was palpable and that wasn't aiding his endeavor.
Seeing a more tender touch was needed, Tyson stepped up to bat, "Hey, listen up, I know that came off as rude, but it wasn't meant that way. He's doing a delicate procedure in order to save a life. And, that's family he's working on over there so he's scared out of his mind. Dr. Hiwatari wants to know what happened so he can try to keep this from happening to someone else,"
Once the room had registered the plea, baffled and confounded murmurs abounded and swam among the small gathering of people.
"That's, Dr. Hiwatari?" asked a teenage girl in surprise. The mousey miss dressed in her middle school uniform and looking as fresh as a new daisy.
"Gross, what happened to his face, and his arms?" said a boy around the girl's age, this one in an upperclassman's uniform.
"Are those scars or was he born like that? Totally eww," said an older lady, her two boys standing next to her and appearing appalled too.
Tyson looked at Kai to see a reaction, but there was none. Kai was stonefaced and acting as if he was deaf. To him, that was a bittersweet sight to see.
Cauterizing the wound with his lighter, followed by a miniature blowtorch a chef would use, Kai recleaned and dressed the wound carefully.
Steadily, he rose to his feet. The nerves of his lower half tingled upon getting their blood supply back, and his knees loudly popped as well, but no one uttered a sound about it.
Looming over the mass, Kai said, "I need two more people to help me. We need to elevate him on this bar behind me,"
"Why? You got muscles. Can't you lift him?" asked the teenage boy from before, finding it kind of funny.
Not batting an eye, Kai answered, "He needs to be level, even all the way around, and two people can't guarantee that. I need one on each corner. If any part of him is allowed to lay limp, dip down, his blood could pool or worse. Now, Mr. Tomo Kamaiya, I'm not that hideously disgusting or diseased. Up ya come,"
Tomo did as told, his younger friend Alicia following suit. As the girl and boy who'd voiced their feelings earlier went around to either side of Joe, she at his feet and he at his head, they nervously locked eyes. Kai and Tyson each took a side in hand and the others did the same to their chosen body parts. On three, the four hoisted Joe simultaneously and moved accordingly until he was stable on the long table.
Facing the kids, Kai said, "If you want to know, ask, you ought to know I don't bite. I chose not to cover myself up anymore."
Pulling out his phone, Tomo showed it to Kai and pressed Play on the video. In it, Kai saw what he presumed he would, though he'd wished he was wrong. Seeing that made his blood boil more and something in him shift.
Looking directly at Tyson, Kai added, "Call Max and put out a Code Silver, he'll know what it means. Stay here,"
Tyson snorted, and with a smirk, said, "Happy hunting."
The minute Kai reached the front door, he heard what sounded like fearful shuffling and people ducking for cover in whatever area they could, the co-ed pair of teens included. Glancing in all directions, he didn't see anything. But he ushered everyone outside to be safe. They ran out in droves, all happily leaving.
It being just the two men now, he strode about and checked anywhere he thought a person could hide, but he found nothing.
Then, standing in the kitchen, he picked up on a winded grunt and heavy thump and thud. Kai spun on his heel and ran back out to the front.
Before him, he saw the devil, and she seemed to be out for blood.
In her pale, nearly transparent, hands he spotted Joe's weapon. She appeared ready to fire, and Tyson was holding his head at her feet while curdled up like a fetus on the floor.
Without so much as a warning, those familiar shadows set in, clouding him mentally. This time, however, Kai didn't fight back. Letting go of himself, he metaphorically dove in headfirst.
Kai watched Monica casually turn her back to him, so he took the opportunity and tackled her to the ground. As he slammed her down, a shot fired off but was misdirected into the far wall on the other side of the room.
Yanking her head back by her fine, oily hair, Kai ripped the gun from her loose grip and got up, keeping a vice grip on it.
Turning to see her invisible attacker, she shouted, "You son of a-!"
Her sentence was cut off by an all-but-forgotten sensation. The cold gunmetal was in her mouth.
Kai waited for what was left of her to reconnect with the server known to all as reality. He wanted her to notice him, and when she finally did shakily peer up to see him, he offered her a scathing scowl for his hello.
Tyson's tight eyes screwed themselves open, his head spinning and throbbing relentlessly from the fierce sideswipe.
Hearing a couple of rhythmic, sharp, and powerful pops, his ears rang. The roaring reverberation propagated out in every path possible. After a second it decayed, letting him regain his sense. Almost immediately, the pungent aroma of burnt sawdust soaked in nitrocellulose coated graphite and charcoal encased sulfur hit his nose... A gun had been freshly fired.
Fighting to steady his pendulum-esque eyes, Tyson finally froze them on Kai.
Monica was on her back, splayed out at his feet, and the other half of her head was plastered everywhere. But the human remains, and horror movie rivaling amounts of blood and brains, were mainly on the floor, Kai, possibly he himself, and all along the back wall.
Okay, so the deed was done, now what?
To Be Continued...