Project Nano - Chapter 4

The bus was in chaos as some of the students were crying or screaming out as the scene folded out in front of them. Watching Mr. Mulch trying to stop the man from taking Hiccup, and getting hit in the process.

Astrid stood up in her seat ready to rush forward she wasn't going to let the fact that she was terrified for her friend's safety to stop her. She had to help Hiccup, as she watches the large man who was clearly the leader threw him off the bus and into the hands of his partner, she took a shaky step forward.

Astrid could hear Hiccup struggling and shoutings of "LET GO!" she took another step and froze as the large man turned around to face them, glaring daggers at her.

"If anyone follows us then the kid is dead" the Gunman shouted to the occupants of the bus glaring them all down before making his way down the stairs.

Astrid didn't know what to do, if she tried to help Hiccup she could get herself or even Hiccup killed but if she stood here and did nothing those men would take him away, and there was no telling what they would do to him

More sounds of a struggle reached her as she looked out of the window next to her trying to see over the other student's heads. She could see Hiccup as the second Gunman blocked her view of him but she heard him shout "SEVEN!" mumbling followed that she could pick out but turning her head she saw Seven stand there gun raised and aimed at the Kidnappers.

She'd almost forgotten that Seven had been there to watch over Hiccup. Astrid let herself hope that Seven would be able to get these men away from Hiccup. Then the hope that filled her veins felt like ice in her system as a shoot ran out and Seven's body dropped from sight below the bus's windows.

Screams filled the bus again as the students watch him fall. Astrid's eyes moved back towards the front of the bus as she heard Hiccup's voice screaming out "NO! Seven! No, please! You can't leave him like that! He needs help! Seven! SEVEN!"

'Oh, gods Seven… they just shot Seven' the thought hit home in her mind. Shaking herself into action she shouted at her friends next to her "Fishleg's call the police!"

"oh-okay" digging into his pocket fumbling around to find his phone. Astrid ignored the twins as they seem to be a combination of shock at the chaos and ran to the front bus. She paused for only a second to look at Mr. Mulch seeing how another student was sitting next to him holding a cloth to his head, and took off throwing herself out of the bus's open doors and landing hard onto the pavement below.

She turned her head at the cries of her friend getting further away "Nooo! Put me down! Let go of me! Let GO!" Hiccup was over the man's shoulder beating his fists at the man's back trying in vain to make him let him go. Astrid's eyes meet Hiccups for the briefest of seconds before he was thrown off the man's shoulder and into the waiting unmarked white van. The man jumps in after him with a cry of "Go, go, go!" and the van took off a high speed down the road.

She was too late to save Hiccup, so she ran to the bodyguard that had been following them hoping that he was still alive, hating to think about the guilt Hiccup would feel if Seven had died trying to save him.

Astrid was terrified but this wasn't the time to get scared, she had to be strong fearless even, Seven had been shot and he was most likely bleeding out.

As Astrid reached him she dropped down onto her needs besides the Guard as he was on his back grabbing at his shoulder blood was pooling all around him. Astrid knelt beside him "Are you okay?!" She asked mentally cursing herself of course he's not okay he was just shot! She looked into his eye and decided to reassure the man instead saying "the police are on the way."

He was grinding his teeth as he spoke through clenched teeth "good... and H-Hayden?" He asked looking up at her with pain-filled eyes.

"He's... they took him" Astrid shook her head not wanting to admit it because saying it out loud made it real she couldn't believe her friend was just kidnapped right in front of her and that she had just stood there and done nothing to help him.

"Hey, kid… I'd hate to ask but...my back… did it go through?"

Astrid's blinked looking down at the bleeding guard in front of her. Taking a deep breath as she held onto his shoulder and slightly moved him to get a better look "all I can see is blood?!" she pulled back his blood-soaked shirt to see a dark wound, where blood flowed freely from. "Wait! yes… I think it went through. Is...is that good?"

"Mmm...It's good. It means the bullets not inside me."

Astrid paused at that statement and rolled him gently onto his back again, she then removed her shirt from around her waist and split it in two ripping the fabric in half before reapplying it to his wounded shoulder and pressing the second half of it into his back. "Hold on just hold on...okay" she pleaded.

...

She didn't know how long she sat there holding her sweater to his wound. Fishleg's sat beside her clearly in shock but she refused to look at him, all the focus was on the bleeding man in front of her that had lost concessions. She sat there a while longer and nearly jumped out of her skin as a hand dropped onto her shoulder, turning her head she spotted the EMT uniform and moved away, so they could work.

"He'll be okay" she repeated the mantra in her head over and over again. "He'll be okay, it'll be okay..."

"Astrid?" Fishleg's called her shaking her out of her shocked state. She looked at Fishlegs as he pointed at the officer in front of them.

"Astrid, this is Detected Mala she wants to ask us some questions about Hiccup" Fishlegs voice was shaky he was terrified just like she had been horrified that something like this could happen.

"Y-yes…" She cleared her throat as she looked up at the tall slender woman with kind eyes and short blond pixie cut hair.

"Why don't we start with your names?" She asked tenderly.

"My name is Astrid Hofferson and this is Fish…um I mean Frederick Inggermen" she paused thinking the officer would want their real names and not the silly nicknames they called each other.

"Thank you, now can you tell me what happened here?"

"We were on our way to Berk University's science and engineering building for a school trip. We were just talking and then the bus slammed on its brakes, next thing we know two men with ski masks are pounding on the door and climbing onto the bus holding guns and asking for… for Hiccup!" Astrid paused catching her breath 'oh God's Hiccup' She thought 'is he okay?'

"Hey – hey it's okay… Take a deep breath." Mala spoke calmly, patiently waiting for her to calm down. "There that's better. Now, who's Hiccup?"

"H-he's our friend Ma'am, his real name is Hayden Haddock " Fishleg spoke up for the first time.

Mala looked up quickly at that name "did you say, Haddock?! Like Haddock industries, Haddock?"

"Yes Ma'am," Fishlegs said. "Hiccup um... I mean Hayden. He's Stoic Haddock's son, the CEO of Haddock industries."

"Great!" Mala took a second to process the information the boy just gave her. "Wait, but if his name is Hayden, then why do you keep calling him Hiccup?" she asked curiously not like that this hijacking case just turned into a high-risk Kidnapping one.

"It's Viking tradition to call the runt of the litter a 'Hiccup'. Astrid stated "But we only call him that because when we first meet him he had a bad case of the Hiccup's" she laughed the sweet memory wasn't enough to lift her spirits her friend was still gone and in danger.

Mala had to smile at that herself "Okay is there anything else you can tell me? About the men or which way the kidnappers took him or which way they went?"

"The first man was huge about six-two I didn't see the other he stayed outside the bus and grabbed Hiccup once the first one throws him out of the bus telling him to get him in the van… But not before" she stopped staring down at her hands covered in blood, Seven's blood.

Fishlegs took over from there handing her a cloth that the EMTs had given him to give to her so she could clear off the blood. "The first guy threw Hiccup out of the bus into his partner's hands and that's when Seven came and the first guy shot him."

"Seven? The man that was shot?! You know that man?"

" Yes, Ma'am. I – I don't know his last name but he was hired by Stoic to guard Hiccup while he was on this field trip. "

"Hired? Why would he hire someone to guard his son? Did Mr. Haddock believe his son was in danger?"

"Kind of... You see Hiccup's helping his dad on some top-secret tech project and he wasn't allowed to tell us what it was."

"So why the bodyguard?"

"Because a little over a year ago Stoic's company was broken into and had some technology was stolen but these men left behind a small bomb destroy any evidence they may have left behind. Hiccup just happened to be on the other side of the wall in the staircase as the bomb went off, the explosion set off a chain reaction and compromised the build. Hiccup almost died in that explosion and was seriously injured, and I mean badly injured."

The detective looked up from her note-taking seeing tears in the boy's eyes and the girls wasn't far off. She remembered the incident they were talking about, no deaths but a lot of injuries were reported and one of those injured included the CEO's son. She didn't know the details beyond that so she had to ask "how badly?" She asked to know it wasn't relevant to the case but she was curious.

"A… A slab of concrete broke off of the wall and– and crushed his left leg."

Mala gasped but said nothing to him.

"They did everything they could to try and save his leg but... they couldn't save all of it. They had to amputate the lower half of his left leg just below his knee."

Mala made a note about the boy's leg then back up at the two teens. "So you're saying Stoic feared this would happen again?"

"I don't know? Maybe? But Stoic's always been protective of Hiccup. But after the attack, he got a little paranoid…"

"Understandable" Mala agreed any parent would feel that way, "but why didn't he call the police?"

"Hiccup said Stoic took precaution. Hiccup's name was never put on any of the blueprints and the only people that knew he was on the project were his father and two other technicians, who were both forced to sign a confidentiality agreement." Astrid said

"Hiccup also said that his Dad had the security team track him to and from the building and even picking him up from school on a day that Stoic couldn't. Even when Hiccup was working on the project he was in a different room than the other scientists. And communicated over a headset to the other technicians when they had questions with a voice modulator, pretending he was working from overseas. Only those two technicians would go to see him if it was a physical issue."

"Do you know their names, by any chance? The two other technicians I mean?"

"No, Hiccup wouldn't say," Astrid told the detective, it was one thing for Hiccup to complain about his Fathers paranoia and all the security precautions. But no matter how many times they asked him he would never gave them any names or details about what the project was actually about.

"Okay… Thank you. You were really brave today Astrid. The EMTs told me how you kept the pressure on Seven's wounds before they got there and it's thanks to you that he's alive, you saved his life."

"After Hiccup was... I – I just couldn't sit back and do nothing. " she took a shuttering breath trying to hold back the ties that threaten to fall.

"Well you did a good thing, Astrid you saved a man's life. Just know that there was nothing you could have done to stop those men from taking Hayden, they were willing to kill to get him. You only would have gotten yourself injured or worse had you done anything to stop them, and I highly doubt that your friend would have wanted to see you get hurt."

...

Astrid said nothing only nodded to show that she heard the Detectives words.

She knew the Detective's words were true, that she couldn't have stopped the kidnapping even if she wanted to. but it didn't make it hurt any less to see her friend dragged away like they to see the fear in his eyes and his last hope for rescue was shot down in front of him.

Fishlegs leaned into her where she looked up at him seeing that he hated watching those men take Hiccup away as much as she did.

"Okay well I'm done here, if you remember anything else don't hesitate to call me" she passed them her business card and told them to go back to their teacher.

Both teens nodded and turned towards the bus not surprised as both Ruff and Tuff came running up to them after they have finished talking to the detective not listen as Mr. Mulch tried to call them back.

"Whoa - Astrid, are you okay?" Ruffnut asked seeing the shaken girl and the blood covering her clothes. The cloth that Fishlegs had given her had cleaned the blood off of her hands but could do anything about blood that clung to her shirt and leggings as she had attempted to rub the blood off on them previously. "As good as I'll ever be..." she let the words hang in the air, knowing that she would be okay until Hiccup was home again safe and sound.

"Is that blood?! Seven isn't... dead is he?" Tuffnut looked over her in shock then over to where the Ambulance had been moments ago.

"No the paramedics got to him in time...they said he'll make a full recovery" Fishlegs answered Tuff's question as they made their way back to the bus where Mr. Mulch was waiting.

"That's good because when I get my hands on those men there going to have to deal with the world's most deadliest Viking" Tuffnut brought his hand down his face flourishing his fingers dramatically.

"And who would that be…" Ruffnut scuffed at her idiotic brother.

"IT'S ME! You know it's me!" Tuff yelled at his sister.

The banter died down as they walked up to Mr. Mulch who greeted him, he had a small bandage over his right eye from where the kidnapper that had grab Hiccup hit him with the barrel of the gun and Astrid could already see a bruise starting to form.

Their teacher gave them a sad smile as he placed a hand on Astrid's shoulder and looked into her eyes. "Don't worry lass the police will take it from here. Mr. Haddock is in good hand's" he said giving her shoulder a light squeeze and pushed them all to get back on the bus.

Needless to say, they were not going to the University after this, but back to school so their parents could pick them up to take them home.

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