Chapter Thirteen: Do No Harm

A woman rushed out and seeing Prince Andrei stopped, hesitating on the threshold. Prince Andrei went into his wife's room. She was dead, lying in the same position he had seen her in a few minutes earlier, and despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of her cheeks, there was the same expression on her charming, timid, childlike little face with its downy upper lip:

"I love you all and have done no one any harm, and what have you done to me?"

Count Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, page 400

Warren finally gathered enough courage to walk over across to the bloodied heap, and he swallowed hard as he reached it. What he had failed to notice previously was that Dawn's large computer chair and small lamp stand had been ripped apart, bloodied, and overturned on top of a delicate human frame. He knew instinctively that it was Dawn because from under part of the chair, a slender left hand poked out. On the ring finger of the hand was the telltale "True Love Waits" ring, smeared by blood but still intact.

"Why?" Warren choked out, at first not sure he could bring himself to touch her, and then carefully running his fingertips across the obviously fractured wrist. "It wasn't enough for that thing to make you fear it," he murmured, fighting angry tears, "it had to kill you too." His fingers finally reached her palm, and he traced her hand gently.

He instinctively jerked back and let out a sharp growl as Dawn's fingers suddenly clutched tightly over his hand.

She was still alive.

The pyrokinetic wasted no time. Grabbing the chair, Warren hauled it off first, pushing the lamp stand off of her as soon as he had thrown the chair to the far side of the room. He turned around and was about to offer a hand of assistance in her rising when he sucked in a breath through his teeth and grimaced.

Dawn's eyes were open and flicking around the room, and he could hear small whimpers coming from her mouth, but he wasn't encouraged simply by the basic life that still resided in her. Whatever their dark enemy had done, it had done it well and had left her for dead. Dawn's left leg was broken from the force of the lamp stand and the chair both piled on top of it; her left wrist was broken as Warren had previously assessed. She also appeared to be having trouble breathing, and under closer - but gentle - examination, he found out why: at least three ribs had been snapped and were now pressing down on her lung. Warren could only hope the lung hadn't been punctured.

"Thank God you're alive. Can you talk, baby?" He whispered, sub-consciously using the term of endearment and, under his breath, thanking God profusely.

"I don't…don't go down that…easy." Dawn responded haltingly, her voice coming in short gasps but stronger than he had hoped for.

Warren uttered yet another "thank God" and resisted the urge to hug her. After thinking she was dead, seeing how badly she was hurt, but hearing her voice again, he was about to cry from relief.

However, he didn't, because Warren Peace never cried in front of people.

In spite of that, he slipped his hand back into hers, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the disconcerting chill of her skin. Finally, he squeezed it gently and murmured deeply in her ear, "Your hands are cold."

"You of all…all people can f-fix that."

With a small smirk, Warren slowly but steadily increased the heat in his hand and was encouraged by the warming of hers. A salty tear ringed the lower lid of his dark eye, and he turned his head in a failing attempt to not let her see.

"H-help me…up, you emotional…boy." Dawn teased through her pain, her situation ironically reversing her normal attitude towards Warren. Her injuries forced her to be stronger, for Warren's sake, but she wasn't sure she could do it.

Warren released her, ran a hand across his eyes, and stood, shaking his head. "I'm going to go call an ambulance."

Just before he turned away, the pyrokinetic looked back down and remembered his frantic prayer to God just before he had discovered Dawn: help me tell her before I don't have the chance anymore.

"Dawn?" He gently whispered, kneeling back down and taking her hand again. The thought of how cliché this was was quickly drowned out by what he was trying to say.

"Warren," Dawn whispered back, taking minimal effort in speech and therefore shortening the gasps in her sentences, "I swear to you that…one, I don't…don't have your jacket, two…you don't need to ap-apologize for anything, and…and there is no three. Do you s-still need to say something?"

He gave a half-grin and looked down, nodding briefly, not only as confirmation but also as a sign of gratitude for her attempts at making him more at ease.

"Yeah, I do. I lo…" Warren stopped on the beginning of the next word. Did he love her?

He chickened out at the end and wouldn't complete his sentence. "Nothing's going to take you away from me, Dawn, especially since something almost did today." His bass voice was a mere wisp of sound now, since he had always been hesitant with his feelings. Ever since he was a child, people had been letting him down, abandoning him, and taking advantage of his feelings, and it took trust for him to allow Dawn to even see this side of him.

The telekinetic nodded and smiled weakly, but inside her stomach twisted more than it had before.

He never could love me. She thought bitterly, clenching her right fist but then bringing it up to tuck a strand of Warren's hair behind his ear.

Pain racked her body, but Dawn's affection for Warren had sparked a deep will to survive inside of her. In the same way, Warren's hidden affection for Dawn had created in him the knowledge that he would do whatever it took to keep her alive. However, Warren's tendency to keep to himself had unknowingly caused Dawn's emotional pain to exceed her physical pain.

He paced towards the door, his elated joy at finding Dawn alive beginning to transition into a mechanical task list in his head; the splintered door that their attacker had ripped apart lay in the rubble beneath his feet, but he ignored it. Dawn was hurt, her mother was probably dead, and this shadow had apparently gotten much more physical as the intensity of its attacks grew.

Warren decided that first his duty was to find Mrs. Odelle and determine her safety or lack thereof; the ambulance could come next. As long as Dawn's lung wasn't punctured, he wasn't on the clock quite as much. He walked carefully down the stairs, avoiding more splintered wood and fallen paintings. The trail of rubble led, surprisingly, not towards the door but towards the kitchen of all places.

"Mrs. Odelle?" Warren called, the strength of his voice returning.

"In here, dear." Mrs. Odelle's voice rang back grimly, coming from the kitchen. The response startled Warren; he didn't actually expect her to be still in the house, capable of speech, or even alive.

He turned the corner into the kitchen and blinked a few times, not sure of exactly what he was seeing.

Mrs. Odelle stood, slightly scratched up but not much the worse for wear, beside a flaring and flaming oven that had been very recently nailed closed and barricaded shut with an overturned table. The expression on her face was one of determination, and held loosely in her right hand was a regulation fire extinguisher.

Warren raised an eyebrow and gestured to the oven. "I'm sure this has an interesting story behind it."

Dawn's mother ignored his comment and gave a worried glance upstairs. "Dawn?" She asked quietly, taking a step toward the stairs.

"Broken leg, wrist, and ribs." Warren responded briskly.

"I'll call an ambulance."

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A/N: Merry Christmas, y'all.

I think chapter fourteen is going to be the completing chapter, unless I get sidetracked and end up pushing it to fifteen for whatever reason my muse inspires upon me. Hope you like this one.

Before I leave you all for the holidays, at least for a little while, I'd like to throw out a quick "thank you very very very very much" to patiens-liberi.She hasreviewed a ton of my earlier chapters before the story got as popular as it hasand is back as of the last couple of chapters with more of her insightful comments. Without you, this story would've had trouble getting off the runway, so thank you.

Like I said in my last A/N, after my last chapter, I'll try and add another special one to thank you guys specifically. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, though I warn you that it may be a little while before I get the last one up because of holiday entanglements.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Corvaisis