"Is Tom dead?" "Is Jake dead?"- I'm loving this; confusion in the air, oh well all happiness must come to an end; I cleared everything up, and just to make it extra clear; Tom thinks Jake is dead and Jake thinks Tom is dead, so there. Happy?
Chapter Nine
"You think it worked?" Tom asked quietly.
"Worked?" Mark questioned, "Are you crazy? They probably feel for it. They'd never figure it out."
"I don't know, what about the Yeerks?" Tom said. "They aren't that stupid."
Mickey rolled his eyes, "Take my word for it; they are that stupid. Look, we gave that skull a mirror copy of your teeth, and the body is so badly burned forensics wouldn't turn up with anything but ashes. We used a dracon beam, mate; nothing beats complete incineration by dracon beam. We left the head so they could compare. You did say that your dentist has an x-ray of your jaws, right?"
"Yeah." Tom looked uneasy. "You think your remodeling technique is that good?"
"If it wasn't that good I'm getting my money back." Mickey said frankly, "Besides, we trust our old boy Benny, he's fixed us up a couple of times and we had no problems. Should be a walk in the park, this."
Mark, Abby, Mickey and Tom were sitting in Mickey's room, which was large enough to hold the entire group- but of course the rest of the group were not present. Tom Abby and Mark were sitting behind a wooden table while Mickey paced around the window and Abby looked at Tom.
"So now, my parent's would think I'm dead, my brother too. Huh?" Tom stared at the ground.
Abby gave Mark a threatening look and he squirmed, "Listen Tom, there's something we should have told you."
"Oh yeah?" He played around with Mickey's car keys.
"You remember when your Yeerk shoved Jake in?" Mark said.
"Uhuh." He flipped over the medallion and stared at it, engraved in the golden plate were the words 'Freedom Fighter'
"He sort of ended up with a knife in his gut."
The medallion slipped from Tom's finger and it clunked on the wooden table, he pushed back his chair and said, "What?"
Mark did not offer a replica of his report, just waited for Tom to react.
Tom's face paled, "Oh my god."
No one said anything, Abby sat beside Tom. "We're sorry Tom."
"I killed him."
Abby shot Mark a poisonous look then turned to Tom, she held his hand, "No, it wasn't like that at all."
"I killed my brother."
"Tom," Abby said firmly, "It wasn't like that, it wasn't your fault, it was that Yeerk. And he's dead now. We left him with what's supposed to be the rest of you."
"Oh god." Tom whispered.
Abby looked at Tom helplessly, "It was our fault, we shouldn't have been there anyway."
Mark stared at Abby and gave her a what-do-you-think-you're-doing look?! She didn't shut up. "We shouldn't have tried to get your Yeerk in the first place. We should have struck when you were alone. Its how we used to do it."
"Abby." Mark said glaring at her, he stood up and grabbed her arm, "I want to talk to you."
"Let go Mark," Abby said, "Leave me alone."
"I said I want to talk to you." Mark said coldly, he yanked her off the chair.
"Ow! Mark! You're hurting me!"
Tom looked up alarmed.
"You're right I am." Mark hissed, "And you're coming. Now."
"Hey Mark," Mickey said timidly -he looked a little worried, "Let the girl go."
"Abby." Mark threatened, "I said come."
Mickey drew closer. Tom stood up, "hey, if she doesn't want to go then she shouldn't."
"That's none of your damn business." Mark hissed.
Tom walked over to Abby and laid a hand on her shoulder, he turned to Mark, "What's your problem?"
Mickey hovered around looking confused.
"Nothing's my problem." Mark said nastily, "I just want to talk to the girl here, if that's okay with you."
"No, that's not okay." Tom said politely, "Seeing that she doesn't want to talk to you. Let her go." With that Tom put a hand on Mark's arm.
"Hey, you." Mark snarled at Tom, "Get your hand off of me. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be standing here moving your arm, you'd have had that Yeerk doing it for you."
Surprised and not quite absorbing what Mark was saying, Tom withdrew his hand. Anger registered a few beats later; "You don't expect me to thank you for very little thing you did?" Tom's eyes narrowed, "So I suppose you'd want me to thank you for killing my brother too, huh?"
"Boys." Abby said weakly. She looked at Mickey.
Mark stared at Tom for a long time. "Come on." Mark yanked Abby along.
"Mark!" Abby yelped, she tried to pull her hand free of his grasp, "What is your problem?"
Mark ignored her, he yanked her a good few yards towards the door, Abby stumbled and barely managed to stay upright, "Let go! Let go I say! Sto-ahhhhh!"
Mark whirled around and struck Abby across the face, the strong blow caused her to fall on her knees to the ground.
"DAMN YOU! You just have to mess up everything!" Mark hollered angrily.
Abby wrapped her arms around herself protectively, she didn't stand up or try to counter what Mark was saying, her shoulders shook silently.
"HEY!" Tom yelled, partially shocked and partially confused.
Mark paced in front of Abby, and then he looked down at her heaving shoulders, his face twisted in disgust, "Oh, crap. That's the only thing you're good at, I don't even know why you're fighting along side us. This isn't a job for girls."
Looking extremely disgruntled and generally pissed off, Mark stormed out of the room.
Mickey licked his lips and before bounding out of the door he uttered a hurried explanation; "I better keep him out of trouble. Freaking coppers everywhere."
Tom walked over to Abby and regarded her with a helpless expression; only she was too busy crying into her hands to notice it.
"Abby?"
When there was no reply, Tom touched her shoulder to get her attention; she looked at him with a tear-streaked face, "I'm so sorry." She whispered bitterly.
"No, don't be." Tom hesitated, awkwardly he said, "Come on, Abby, please don't cry."
Abby shook her head and buried it in her hands, "Leave me alone." Her voice was muffled and far away.
"No, Abby, come on, let's take a walk, okay? It's the least I could do." Tom wondered how he was suddenly thrust in this awkward situation. He badly wanted to get out of the house but he didn't have the heart to leave the girl alone.
"It's hopeless," Abby sobbed bitterly, "Nothing's going back to normal, it's going to stay like this forever."
Again, Tom looked at Abby feeling highly uncomfortable, "Abby, don't cry, please, I…" He wanted to say that he didn't like watching girls cry but it would have came out all wrong. Instead he tried to resolve the problem, "I tell you what, why don't I take you to a nice quite place where we could sit down and talk, maybe eat something?"
Tom offered his hand to Abby.
Slowly Abby lifted her head and hesitantly gripped his hand, and by doing so, she knew that she would inevitably spill out the history of her group.
She didn't know if it would be a good thing or a bad thing to do; she blamed it on Victor for not being there to help support her and provide guidance.
For that reason, it seemed a fair enough decision on her behalf.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Ohhh, Abby's up to something, however
unintentionally. I love this girl, where she goes so does confusion, trouble and
messed up plans go with her. Poor, poor Abby, *sigh* What did Mark do to you?
Somehow I always see her as the last person who understands what's happening
around here. She's so innocent you know, like spending a night with Tom isn't
going to complicate a billion other things. Review, pretty please?
