Chapter 3

Cockroach

I am in water again. My breathing comes freely. I hear voices in the distance. It is morning and I'm going to get up and go have breakfast, and decide which books to read. I stretch my arms and collide with the glass.

My eyes fly open.

I am in a small tank, bandages wrapped tightly across my chest. It isn't bandages really, but a plastic apparatus that I can feel vibrating slightly. My entire chest is numb.

Ah yes, the cistern. I feel the ache now. My heart rate has settled, and is a bit slow, probably from the drugs. I touch the apparatus.

Subject; Abe Sapien

Status; Monitoring

42 beats per minute

#n∆◙□◊ and more random code, data that means nothing to me.

It wasn't just a nightmare, then. I shut my eyes, staying limp, trying to forget. My arm falls back to my side.

The voices come louder.

"We had, uh, two agents die today"

This I recognized. It was Manning, of course. Like him to be here, arrogant fool. He is a biased boor. He continues, of course. This man likes the sound of his own voice.

"Clay probably won't last the night."

So Clay has been hurt as well, but not by Sammael, I would have felt it. It must have been something else. Hellboy will feel guilty, of course. He always blames himself, while it's so seldom his fault. The reason that he loses those around him so often is that he is strong where others are weak, and expects them to survive alone.

"Not now Manning."

Speak of the devil. Oh God kill me now. I'm making pathetic puns and laughing to myself.

"My problem with you is that you're reckless. These men trusted you to lead them as a team, where were you?"

I've heard enough of this blame game. I wish they would leave. I'm so tired, I want to sleep. Why are they still here? I begin to listen again, not really caring that I'm eavesdropping. They shouldn't talk in front of me if they don't want me to hear.

Now I sound like a petulant child. Wonderful.

"You have an insight, you know monsters, this whole thing is a farce because in the end, after you've killed, after you've captured every freak out there, there's still one left, you."

Two actually, numbskull, can't you count? There'll always be me. I'm harder to kill than a cockroach, which is odd because there's only one scummy insect that eats garbage in this room, and it's sure not me. I got the luck, and you got the looks.

"Manning, I wish I could be more gracious about this, but..."

DAMN!

I almost jumped out of my skin. My knees crashed up, protecting my chest, and crashed full into the glass, my eyes flew open and I felt my pulse skyrocket.

Hellboy has thrown a canister through the window. I wish I could read him. He occasionally acts without warning like this, it'd be nice to have some preview of what to expect.

I've never told Hellboy I can't read him. I suppose I feel safer if people don't know my limits. Then they can never be sure where they stand, and they tend not to overstep their boundaries.

Oh, he can't know about this. He has enough to deal with, with Clay being hurt, and Manning's stupid guilt trip.

Oh no. My chest hurts again. I see the rims of my vision growing black. I grope at my chest, which burns, and I can see and feel the blood leaking out from around the plastic. It hurts like hell, of course, even with the anesthetic. An alarm sounds somewhere, and a nurse rushes in. She fiddles with some machinery, and walks towards me. The blackness overwhelms my vision and I pass out. Before I go, I mutter "Don't tell Hellboy"