Chapter 16

Moi-Moi: I guess quarantine is good for something. I'm back again so soon. I hope you guys are doing okay, staying safe, staying indoors... These are crazy times we're living in. Make sure to take care of yourselves. COVID-19 is like a worse version of Thrax. It's no where NEAR as charming and charismatic, but still just as contagious and deadly.

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For all his boasting, Thrax wasn't as thorough as he thought when it came to eliminating the Pneumonia family. The few bacteria that were left had taken it upon themselves to try to reclaim their old territory. Normally, I'd laugh. What could twenty or so bacteria do against my armed and morally loosened Immunity officers? It wasn't even worth my time. Not when I had bigger fish to fry…

I hadn't gone home last night. I needed to plan. The one advantage I'd had over Thrax- the material I'd ordered his claws to be covered in- had been used up. He'd be expecting it next time. Maybe I could work with the cells in the labs to fix the material again? (Luckily for me, they'd already developed the prototype material to help Immunity when Marcus had gotten strep throat last year. I'd only offered a few tips on how to better cater to Thrax.)

"Chief! We're really getting hammered out there! Our boys need backup," one of my officers said as he pushed into my office. His eyes were wide and he was shaking slightly. Was he afraid of me or Pneumonia?

"More backup? I just sent-" I started but stopped. Wiping a hand over my face, I groaned in irritation. Useless. "When you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself," I mutter and grab my gun belt. I could see the relief in the officer's eyes as he ran off while chatting quickly into his radio. I would just have to handle this quickly. Thrax would have to wait for a little while.

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The sound of gunfire was starting to grate on my nerves. How is it that thirty-six bacteria were effectively keeping my men at bay? They were holed up in an abandoned building near the rectum with what appeared to be a small army's worth of ammunition. My men had made a solid wall of patrol car on both sides of the building, but couldn't press forward. I was crouched behind a patrol car with a hand squeezing around my leaking upper arm. Cursing softly, I yanked my belt from my waist and used it to fasten a tourniquet around my arm above my gunshot wound. I wasn't sure which bacteria had shot me, but they would all die for this. There would be hell to pay. This was a brand-new top!

Whistling loudly to a nearby officer to get his attention, I pointed to the shotgun in his hands. He looked surprised for a second before he slid the gun and his ammo over to me and pulled a pistol out from his belt. "Kid guns," I scoffed. I needed to get a bigger budget for Immunity. Slipping the ammo belt over my chest, I reloaded the gun and waited. When I heard the slight lull in gunshots, I stood up quickly and took aim.

One, two, three, four, fi-

"Spit!" I shouted and ducked down. For a second, I felt my world tilt as my hand slipped down the bumper of the patrol car and I collapsed onto the ground. My hand shook as it reached the wound pouring out from my shoulder. The same Marcus damned arm… "Bullet proof vests," I scoffed. What good are they when scum aim for arms and legs!?

"Chief!"

"The chief is down!"

"Someone call for more back up!"

"An emergency ambulance!"

I tried to keep as much pressure on the wound as I could and rolled over onto my back. This was such spit. My body was far more resilient than the average white blood cell's, but even I needed to get out and get patched up ASAP. I was losing too much cytoplasm.

"Now, that doesn't look pretty."

My eyes snapped open.

Yellow. Bright and practically glowing. I had to be hallucinating. I should be angry with myself for hallucinating Thrax at a time like this. I should be even angrier at how my organelles were flipflopping at the sight of him. I was hallucinating Thrax crouching over me with what looked like pity in his eyes. "Not good at all," Thrax muttered and tsked.

"What do you want?" I hissed and narrowed my eyes.

"I can't help out an old flame? For old time's sake?" Thrax said and examined the wound. "Looks like it just grazed you. Your luck hasn't run out yet, baby girl."

I glared at the pet name.

"Don't worry about a thing. Just let Big Daddy Thrax take care of everything," Thrax said moved to stand. Before I could stop myself, my hand shot out to grab him by the sleeve. He smirked at me. "Don't worry about me, babe. I won't leave you behind."

That ass. I wasn't worried about him leaving me. I already told him to leave! I wasn't worried about him. I just wanted to ask him how he was planning to "take care of everything". I knew what he could do, but there was no way for him to get close to the Pneumonia that were raining bullets down on us from that decrepit building. He would just be putting himself in harm's way and he wasn't invincible. I tried reaching for him again, but he ignored me.

"Did you know this old building's on a leaky gas line?" he asked me in that smooth voice of his. My mind was slow, and I couldn't help but shiver at the way his lips seemed to caress every word he said. He took a glass bottle out of his coat pocket and shook it once for me. I wasn't sure what he was trying to show me, though. My vision was blurring slightly around the edges. "Keep pressure on that, baby," he said and placed my hand over my shoulder and squeezed. I could do that.

Before I could say anything to stop him, he slipped his fingers into my top and pulled my handkerchief free. "I'm gonna borrow this, love," he said with a wink. I watched him kiss the handkerchief lightly before wetting it lightly with the contents of the bottle. My nose was burning from the smell of alcohol. Even in my slowed and fuzzy thoughts, I could piece together what he was doing.

What was he playing at? I thought he'd be furious with me. He sure acted like it the last time I saw him. This was the perfect chance to kill me. I was defenseless and dying. My men can't protect me now. He twisted the cloth and stuck one end into the neck of the bottle. "I'd ask you to do the honors, but you don't look up to the task."

It was insulting. I glared at him again and tried to summon that heat to the fingertips of my free hand. I was leaking cytoplasm from two places on this arm, but I'd be damned if I let that stop me from doing something that I could do with my eyes closed. Besides, I wanted to be the ones to burn those Pneumonia bastards to the ground.

"That's my girl," Thrax praised in a tone that almost sounded sweet. He held the bottle over my fingers and let the tip of the handkerchief catch aflame before standing and chucking the bottle as hard as he could. He was back over me in a second, using his body to shield mine from the impending blast.

The gunfire slowed for several seconds and some voices started to cry out in warning. Thrax must not have been kidding about the gas line because the entire building went up in flames with a loud whooph that ended up engulfing the buildings next to it. I could feel the heat from the flames licking at my membrane, but I couldn't bring myself to care. My brain was getting fuzzy again and Thrax's cologne was drowning out the smell of burning cells and tissue. He'd smelled disgusting the last time I saw him, but his scent now was much more familiar.

Too soon, he was pulling away from me. I was trying to meet his gaze, but his eyes were watching the flames. He looked so pleased with himself. It made his eyes come alive- like jewels. I was going to say something- what it was, I wasn't sure- but I was interrupted by one of my men shouting something that I couldn't understand. Everyone's voice was sounding muffled, even Thrax's as he replied to the officer. He still wasn't looking at me.

Thrax was rolling his eyes at whatever was being said to him. He looked so annoyed that I couldn't help but laugh. He blinked down at me in surprise. I still wanted to say something to him, but I had no idea what to say. Before I could, he slipped his arms behind my back and under my knees. The flipflopping was picking up.

"M-my…" I started. He was staring down at me so intently, it was like he was seeing through me. My hand was slick, but he didn't seem to mind as I let go of my shoulder and pat his cheek. "My…top is ruined," I croaked out. He blinked a few more times before chuckling lowly. I was shivering, but it was far too warm for me to feel cold.

I wanted to say something else to make him laugh, but someone was pulling me away from him. No. He didn't fight them, and I couldn't help but feel panic set in. No. Wrong arms, wrong smell, wrong grip. I tried to push the blue membrane away from me- blue, not red. But my arm was tired and the other was screaming in pain. Blue and cold… Blue, and cold, and wrong.

"Get her in the ambulance!"

"She's losing consciousness!"

When I turned back to see him one more time, he smirked at me and gave me a wink.

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I watched them haul Kat away before slowly slinking away and into the shadows. Her infected officers were running around in a panic, far too busy with her to care about me. I couldn't keep the smirk from sliding onto my face. I'd only wanted to see how much work needed to be done for my plan to proceed, but…

"I won't have to push my deadline back at all," I said with a chuckle. From a vacant alleyway, I watch the ambulance rush Kat to the nearest hospital. She had been so far out of it when I'd approached her. It was expected with how much cytoplasm she'd lost. I could still remember how I'd almost frozen up at the sight of her laying in a puddle of her own-

Shaking the image from my head quickly, I brushed my dreads out of my face, slipped my shades over my eyes and left the scene. I eyed the keys I'd nicked from Kat's pocket and smirked. Even though she'd been trying to leave me, she'd still managed to help me out. And if I had my way, she wasn't done helping me just yet.