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Chapter Two
Ed fell to his knees, gasping. The arrow was sitting straight through the right side of his abdomen. The arrowhead was coming out in the front, the end still sticking out of his back.
And damn did it hurt.
Mustang was kneeling beside him in a flash, gripping his shoulders.
"Okay, Fullmetal, we need to get you to a hospital."
"But what about Anthony? And you could maybe still catch this son of a bitch if you'd just run in the direction of where the arrow struck from."
"And he could have an accomplice and the arrow could be poisoned." He sounded slightly annoyed.
"Fine." Ed coughed.
"We can't pull the arrow out, that would probably cause it to start bleeding like hell."
"Great. Help me up, we need to get to the car."
The Colonel turned around, and put his right arm behind Ed's back as Ed lifted his left arm to rest on Mustang's right shoulder. It hurt like hell as they straightened out, and Ed leaned most of his weight on the older man as they slowly walked to the car. Each step was agony, and Ed was glad that people saw Mustang's military uniform, which meant that nobody asked any uncomfortable questions.
They got to the car after about fifteen minutes, and Ed could hardly walk by the time they reached it. He ended up lying on his side in the back seat, moaning slightly each time they hit a bump or a hole in the road.
"How are you doing, Fullmetal?" Mustang sounded worried, and Ed couldn't blame him. There was quite a lot of blood by now.
All in all, Ed didn't think he was going to die, but he didn't particularly enjoy this either.
Roy was both angry and worried. The kid wasn't looking too good and he had a bloody arrow sticking out of his stomach. Damn that man!
He was gripping the steering wheel tighter, noticing the lack of speech from the back seat."Fullmetal, is there something you're not telling me?"
"There's a lot of blood."
"How much?" Damn that black and red the kid always insisted on wearing.
"A lot."
Roy hit the steering wheel while uttering another string of curses.
When they finally reached the hospital, Fullmetal was really pale and his gloved hands were covered with blood. Still, he insisted on walking into the hospital. Roy did see his point though, if he were to be carried, it would most likely shift the arrow around and cause him a great deal of pain and maybe start even more bleeding. So the kid was leaning on him heavily, barely holding a third of his own weight.
Once they got inside, Mustang shouted for help.
"Oh, my! Right this way, Sir!" a nurse told him upon seeing them.
Fullmetal was soon surrounded by a team of doctors and was in for surgery in five minutes.
Roy sat in the waiting area, worried. Every rational thought told him that this was never meant to kill the kid, but there were a lot of thoughts concerning morbid "what if"s.
Roy was still wondering why someone would target him and Fullmetal like this. And who would have reason to harm Fullmetal in that way? Of course he had made some enemies during these last seven months after he joined the military, but still, a fucking arrow? And who knew about Anthony? Did this have something to do with Amsel?
After two hours, a doctor came out of the double doors.
"Are you the one who came in with Edward Elric?"
"Yes. How is he?"
"He lost a lot of blood and there was some internal damage, but we did our best and are confident that he will make a full recovery."
"Good."
"You can go see him now, but he probably won't wake up before tomorrow."
"Okay, thank you."
"He's in room 217."
"Thank you, doctor." He stood up and shook his hand.
"Just take care of that kid, it seems he has already seen way too much pain for someone his age."
You have no idea.
"I will."
Roy found Fullmetal's room, and sat down in the chair next to the bed. He felt extremely vulnerable right now. He was separated from his team, from backup, everything other than this unconscious kid who three hours ago had an arrow piercing his stomach.
Though he hated to admit it, right now, he was completely at the mercy of a sadistic madman and his sick "game".
Roy kept on musing through the night, only interrupted by the occasional nurse and/or doctor, until the small body next to him shifted slightly in the early hours of the morning.
"Hey, Fullmetal."
"Colonel, what, uh, oh." He shifted under the covers before he pulled up his hospital shirt and found the bandages around his midsection. He winced a bit and put his hand on the wound. "Damn, it hurts."
"Don't doubt it. How are you feeling?"
"Tired and in pain."
"Understandable."
"You find out anything else about our kidnapper?"
"No, not really."
"Great. Anthony must be scared as hell."
"Listen, Fullmetal, we'll get him back, I swear."
He didn't answer.
Nothing more happened until about noon, when a nurse suddenly came into the room.
"Excuse me, Mr. Mustang, Mr. Elric? Someone came in delivering this letter to you."
"Who? What did they look like?!" Fullmetal demanded.
"A young boy with light brown hair. He looked scared, but he said he was alright."
Roy shared a look with Fullmetal.
"Thank you, Miss," Roy told her, and she bowed and left the room.
Roy tore open the envelope.
I'm proud, you two have done very well,
And Anthony's fine, as you can tell.
And as for days, you only have two,
Otherwise you both know what I'll do.
Roy handed the letter to Fullmetal.
"Two days, huh? I guess that's at least a bit more generous than last time," Fullmetal said.
"He's taking your injury into account, he wants you to keep playing, I think."
"Oh, great! How considerate!" he said sarcastically.
"But you honestly shouldn't move from this hospital. You could bleed to death if your wound reopens. The doctors told me that you should really stay in bed for at least a week."
"Screw that, I'm not risking Anthony's life!"
"I figured you'd say so."
"Good, then we agree, now what about that riddle?"
"Golden dirt."
"Well, the last clue hinted to a specific place, so first of all we should get a map of the city."
"They'll probably have one in the shop on the ground floor here."
"Great. Go get one."
Ed was angry. He was in pain and he had a freaking hole in his stomach. He didn't say it to the Colonel, but he was scared. If this guy didn't mind shooting him with a fucking arrow, what could he do to Anthony? And to be honest, he was scared of what this man was planning for him and Colonel Mustang too. Ed had a feeling that this wasn't the first time they'd get hurt during this "game".
Mustang returned holding a map of East City. He pulled his chair over to Ed's side so that they could both face the map from the same angle. He then unfolded it and soon they were staring at it, trying to figure out what the "golden dirt" was.
"I'll take the left side, and you do the right?" Mustang suggested.
"Yeah, sure."
Ed scanned the map, looking through it, once, twice, five times.
Nothing.
Then Ed stopped on his sixth time, suddenly pointing at the map.
"Hey, Colonel, the church here, isn't that the one that sends golden light over the graveyard when the sunlight hits the paint?"
"You're right! Golden dirt, indeed."
"So we know the place, so what are we waiting for?"
"Fullmetal, you could die if you leave here."
"Fine, then I'll go in a wheelchair!"
"Are you sure? You can't keep your IV, then."
"Screw that, needles are evil anyway!"
"You really do sound like a kid sometimes."
"Shut up! Now get me a wheelchair!"
Mustang stood up and left the room, and Ed ripped the IV out of his left arm. Mustang returned ten minutes later with a wheelchair. Ed gingerly stood up, heading for the wheelchair, when Mustang suddenly stopped him. "Wait a second." He went over to where his heavy, black coat was hanging, and turned back to Ed. "This way we can shield your hospital clothes."
He helped Ed get his arms inside the overly large garment. It touched the floor. He helped Ed gently get into the wheelchair. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah." Ed grimaced a bit, moving around was absolute torture.
Maybe this wasn't really such a good idea.
Mustang had left his military jacket back at the hospital room in order to stay slightly more unrecognisable, so he was in his shirt and military trousers. They kept looking down, hoping not to meet anyone who recognised them and forced Ed back into bed. They somehow got out of the hospital, and Mustang lifted Ed inside the car, despite Ed's many protests.
They drove for about thirty minutes until they reached the graveyard. Mustang pushed Ed along, trying to find whatever they were looking for. They must have passed over two hundred gravestones before they found something that made Ed's blood run cold. Someone had plastered two of the gravestones with pictures of them. In the middle of each of the gravestones, there was written "ROBBIE-BOY" and "THE GOLDEN BOY", one for each of them.
"How the hell does he know about the nickname I used for you in Amsel?" Ed asked incredulously.
"I'm more worried about the fact that they know what the serial killer called you in her diary."
"She did? And I thought she couldn't get any creepier."
"So then we can be sure that this is about Amsel, then."
"And that he plans to kill us, judging by the way that he used gravestones."
"But there's no riddle here."
Mustang bent down and started removing the pictures, trying to find anything under them. He searched under the one with the pictures of Ed and the title "THE GOLDEN BOY", but found nothing. When he searched "ROBBIE-BOY", there was suddenly a click, and the next thing Ed knew, Mustang had thrown him to the ground underneath him, and the gravestone exploded.
"Colonel? Are you okay?" Ed asked, his wound was screaming in pain.
Mustang just grunted.
"Colonel!"
"I don't think so," he croaked.
"What do you mean?"
"HEY! ARE YOU TWO OKAY?!" A young man came running towards them.
Mustang rolled off Ed, and Ed gingerly sat up, noticing that the sharp pain in his abdomen most likely meant that he had reopened the wound. He took a look at Mustang's back, the back of his shirt had been burned off and most of the skin had been slashed by rocks, leaving the whole back a bloody mess. There was especially one deep gash that worried Ed. He slid the coat off his shoulders, pressing it against the Colonel's bleeding back.
"Call for an ambulance!" Ed noticed the steadily growing crimson stain on his hospital shirt. "For two, I think."
The man ran away, and Ed was left in the graveyard trying to keep both Mustang and himself from bleeding out.
Someone came over to Ed and handed him a note.
So sorry about leaving you here,
But I guess I just had to be fair.
You called my dear sister insane.
And so I will deal you both a lot of pain.
Then the stranger hit Ed in the face and he slammed to the ground and was soon welcoming sleep as Mustang shouted his name in a fainter and fainter voice.