Hello again, you people, and thank you for your reviews. I had wonderful fun writing this chapter, for obvious reasons. (I like writing, duh.) Review again, and I will write again.
By the way, this may sound very vague to any of you living in New York, but it's been a while since I lived there, and then only for a very few months. Of course, I just moved back, but I'm still unpacking. Besides, I didn't want to limit myself to being exact. The Anthonys and the Butlers can do whatever they feel like, so long as it's within reason, and this is, after all, fairly close. Not real, but close. After all, this is fantasy.
Ahava: Yes, in future chapters, Butler gets quite angry, playing the fatherly figure and whatnot, destroying some possibilities. Of course, I resolve that later. It's very sweet in the end. I was glad to hear from you!
AgiVega: You reviewed again! You know, after the fourth book, I decided I like you almost better than Colfer. Truely. I can't stand what he did. I was so pleased that you liked it! Thanks, I appreciate it.
Disclaimer: Juliet Butler and all references to the Artemis Fowl series are in the sole possession of Eoin Colfer. I do not own anything except everything else.
Juliet stirred slightly, choking on water, and forcing her eyes open. It was dark now, and cold. Very cold. The water wasn't helping her any. Not at all. A shiver ran through her body, and she crawled forwards under the shadow of the bank.
A fiery pain shot through her arms, and suddenly, her hands were burning while the rest of her was cold. It felt a little strange. To be burning, and freezing at the same time.
She tried to move a finger, and moaned, slumping back. It wasn't going to work. She wasn't in any condition to move. Not like this, at least.
There was a rustling sound above her. Juliet froze. Just an animal… it had to be.
But it wasn't. She knew it wasn't. She could smell wet leather. And hear soft footsteps as the person above slipped along the bank. They had heard her. And now they were looking.
A little ways up, she heard a low splash. For a moment, she bit her lip, straining to reach her gun. Her fingers couldn't move. Her arms couldn't. She was helpless.
Juliet shut her eyes.
Justin heard something below him somewhere. A low noise of pain. He stopped. It had to be her, though how she'd gotten this far was beyond him. And it made sense. If she'd gone through the rapids, she must be half dead by now. Who wouldn't?
Slowly, he slipped along the bank, and down into the water, wincing at the splash he made. It was dark now. Too dark, and hard to see. He wished he'd brought a light of some kind. It would have made things much easier.
The current pushed him along, and finally he found his way back to where he had been standing when he heard it. Right in front of him, the bank curved in, shallow, and smooth. The water wasn't so rough there.
He squinted. There was something there. He thought.
It moved. Justin stepped closer, moving to the side where he could see it better.
It was her. And it shocked him.
She lay huddled on the bank, eyes closed, shivering in the cold. Her arms and hands were twisted wrong, in a badly broken way, and blood coated her upper body. A knife lay beside her in the sand, glittering.
"Hey…"
She jerked at the sound of his voice. "No! Oh damn. No!"
"I'm not going to hurt you." For a moment, he was amused, but he let it pass.
"Go… please. Just leave me here, and let me die. I'd rather." She forced her eyes open, looking at him. "I'm serious. I would. You're not that cruel, are you? You wouldn't."
"I would." Justin laughed slightly, though he felt more than a little sorry for her, and ducked down beside her.
For a moment, she struggled to pick up the knife, but she couldn't move her fingers.
Justin picked up the knife for her, tucking it into his pocket. "That was a stupid thing to do, going through the rapids. If you hadn't, you might have gotten away."
"If I hadn't made that noise, I would have," she snapped.
"I doubt it," he said, curtly.
She shut her eyes again. "If I had wanted to, I would have."
Justin did not argue with that statement. He was sure it was true. Anyone so desperate would have survived, if only out of pure spite. "Anything besides this knife?"
"Possibly."
He leaned over to search her, and got a vicious kick in the stomach, that sent him backwards for the second time that day. "Hey! I wasn't going to hurt you! Calm down."
"You want me to calm down?" She spat at him, and lay still. "What do you want?"
"Your weapons. You're dangerous enough without them. I couldn't imagine what you could do to me if you were able to throw a knife or pull a trigger. It wouldn't be pleasant, that much I know. And I'm not risking you killing yourself. Chance is mad enough."
"Take them. I dare you."
His phone rang. Both of them started. For an instant, her eyes met his, miserably. Then, they looked away, accepting that there was no way out things this time.
"When are you coming back?"
"I found her. Why should I come back? You guys come down here. She's on the far bank about a mile below the rapids." Justin could almost hear them punching the air.
"We'll be there in twenty minutes. No, thirty, sorry."
Justin hung up, and looked at her. "That's all then. Anything you want to tell me while we're alone? I assume you'd like to at least stand, rather than be carried. I don't blame you either."
"You're in charge?"
"Yeah. Underneath Chance, that is, but I'm in charge here, until he gets back. Today sometime. It's Thursday already."
Juliet muttered something, blinking sand out of her eyes. "And your name is Justin?"
"Yeah. You want to tell me your name, so I can call you something besides girl, or are you going to be contrary?" He moved closer cautiously, and as she made no move to stop him, began to slide his hands over her in search of her gun and the other knife.
"You may call me Butler. I prefer the last name."
"Why?" He put her weapons into his own pockets after her knife, and leaned back.
"Only my family calls me Juliet." Her eyes narrowed. "If you try it, I will hurt you."
Justin nodded. "I believe you."
"Help me up." She forced herself up on her good elbow, face contorting in pain.
Without a word, though he secretly wondered why he was doing this, he helped her up, and leaned her back against the steeper side of the bank, careful not to bump her arm.
"Get my phone out of my pocket, open it for me, and hit the first autodial. I need to talk to someone."
"Your brother?" Justin fished it out, looking a little surprised to see that the tiny phone still worked like it had never entered the water. His would have been fried by now.
"Yes."
He held it out, and she bent her head, catching it between her shoulder and her ear. "Hey."
"So you got out after all, little sister! What happened? There've been some pretty wild rumors going around. They have a picture of you up on already on one of the web sites. Some kind of crazy stunt that involved driving a motorcycle into a river?"
"I didn't… get away. That was temporary. And driving into the river was necessary. I had no gas left, since Justin hadn't filled the tank before letting me take it, and they had me close to cornered. I drove off, and jumped."
"And why are you talking to me?" Butler seemed a bit confused about this part.
"He's been kind enough to let me talk to you. Justin. He's in charge over here. I went through the rapids, and I'm in pretty bad shape."
"How much is pretty bad?" asked Butler suspiciously.
"Really cut up, a lot of blood loss, a shattered arm, broken wrists and fingers. All of that," said Juliet matter-of-factly.
"So that's why you're talking to me? You got hurt bad enough to let them catch you, and then they were nice enough to let you call and tell me all about it?"
"Pretty much."
"You don't sound like you're hurt that bad."
"I'll live. I just won't be pulling any triggers for a while."
Butler laughed. "So the foot fighting whatnot comes in handy after all. And I thought it was a waste of time…"
"It's foot wrestling," growled Juliet impatiently.
"Yeah whatever. By the way, the picture was really bad, but it almost looked like— like… no, never mind. You wouldn't do that to me, would you, Juliet? You wouldn't…"
"Sorry brother, I did."
"Juliet!"
"Hey, don't yell at me, I'm the one who's lying out here in the middle of nowhere with a Anthony, waiting to be toted off to who knows where with my broken arm and all."
"Sorry."
"Yeah, whatever. I know you're not. Just remember what you promised me, and I'll forgive you. You promised, brother, and if you don't keep your promise, I'll never forgive you for it."
"I know."
Justin snapped his fingers at her, motioning for her to hurry up.
"I have to go, okay?"
"I love you, Juliet. Don't go running into concrete walls anytime soon, okay? It's bad for your health. And try to leave the motorcycle stunts alone. You'll get enough publicity as it is."
"Love you too. Goodbye." Juliet lifted her head, allowing Justin to take the cell phone. "Thanks."
He nodded, and stood, listening to footsteps and voices. "You want to stand up now, or can't you?"
"I'll stand."
Justin reached down, pulling her upright smoothly. Juliet gasped, swaying slightly, before righting herself. "Sorry. I lost more blood than I thought I had. It needs to be stopped."
He couldn't help but shudder as he looked at her hands and arms. He could almost feel the pain coursing through her, just looking at them.
The voices got closer.
Juliet made a last effort, and stood straighter, tossing her wet hair back over her shoulders, and fidgeting herself into looking a little neater than she had before. If it could be called neat.
There. Juliet is partially helpless, but not quite. For those of you wondering, foot wrestling is a complicated kicking match type of thing, that Africans developed while they were enslaved in Brazil. We watched a clip of it in Social Studies the other day. It looked like the kind of thing Juliet would have liked.
You know, I have written this entire story so far in one night. Every chapter of it so far was written Saturday, April 16. I'm serious. Even this part. I go a little nuts sometimes, and just write, and write, and write.
Please write me, I'd like to hear from you. Email me at yahoo, or at gmail. It doesn't matter which one you use. If you would like gmail, send me something saying so much, and I'll send you an invitation. I have plenty left, and nothing to do with them.