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They stood just inches apart in the small claustrophobic room that had been Ellie's cell for the past five days. The man responsible for the deaths of their friends Sam and Tino, and the reason of their return and subsequent incarceration, now lay dead at their feet covered in blood. The basement outside the room was shrouded in blackness with the exception of the bands of light flooding out from the two open doors.
Riley stared in confusion and anxiety at the small dot on the arm that Ellie was showing her. "…what is that?"
Ellie lowered her voice and raised her eyebrows in concern, more for Riley than herself. "He got me with something..."
Riley stood dumbfounded as her words caused an onslaught of fear and anxiety to flood over her. She immediately lost the control she had just managed to regain.
"No… no, no, no, no, no. We've got to get out of here. We've got to get you to a hospital now."
Ellie nodded nervously as Riley grabbed her hand and pulled her as fast as their severely weakened bodies allowed toward the basement door. They struggled up the old wooden stairs and undid the several locks on their side of the door before flinging it open.
As they passed its threshold they noticed that some scattered lights throughout the building had been turned on, a majority of them in the hallway lying just outside the basement. They could see a handful of orphans standing in the hallway and a few more of the younger ones peering from around the corners and within shadows. The noises and yelling emanating from the basement had inevitably drawn some attention.
From their perspective they observed two sickly girls, one who had deep restraint marks on her wrists and ankles, and both of whose clothes were covered in blood. As they moved through the hallway the onlookers kept staring but moved cautiously away when approached.
Riley made eye contact with one of the orphans who nervously gazed back. "Get us water. Lots of it."
The boy seemed paralyzed from the sudden command.
"Now!"
He jumped back slightly before disappearing over the counter and into the kitchen.
They continued quickly around the corner and directly into David's office. Riley reached the phone and dialed out while Ellie took a seat. She managed to speak, but not without great difficulty.
"I need an ambulance here right now… please…" Her eyes darted around in frustration. "It's my friend. Yes, right. I don't know! Just please hurry. Okay." She dropped it back onto the receiver and turned back towards Ellie. "They'll be here soon. How you feeling?"
"Okay so far. What about you though? You look like shit." She tried to lighten the mood but to no avail.
Riley just gave her a weak half-smile before she turned around and faced the door. "What's taking that little bastard so long? Hold on."
Ellie watched as Riley disappeared in a hurry out into the darkness. In it she could make out a few faces watching curiously, though none brave enough to approach. Riley came back soon with four bottles of water, two in each hand, and dropped them onto the table.
"Here."
In their extremely dehydrated state they frantically downed the first of their bottles shortly after twisting off their caps. They continued almost immediately onto the second ones and drank half of those too before giving themselves a break to breathe.
Ellie sat in the chair opposite of Riley and watched as she tapped her feet incessantly and uneasily looked around at everything, even at the slightest of noises.
"Can you settle down? You're making me really nervous."
Riley stopped moving her head and glanced at Ellie, who only then realized she was being talked to. "Sorry, I can't help it." She watched her with another prolonged look of concern. "How you feeling?"
"Still fine. A little warm."
Riley gave her a concerned look before glancing back toward the door. "Where the hell are they?"
"I'm sure they'll be here as soon as they can."
Riley shook her head. "How are you so fucking calm? I'm freaking out. I can't even… I can't-" She took difficult deep breath and spoke slower. "I can't even think straight."
"I can tell."
She broke off her gaze and observed the room again. "If we have to wait around can we at least do it somewhere else? This is one of the last places I want to be in."
Ellie matched Riley's movements and looked around at the musty office. "Yeah, let's go outside."
Riley nodded and they grabbed their water and got up from the desk. They walked out of the office still under the watchful eyes of the others who were scattered about and trying not to be noticed. They slipped out of the large wooden door, closed it for some privacy, and sat themselves on one of the curbs that lined the walkway connecting the orphanage to the street.
They had no idea what time it was, but it was completely black out and no cars could be seen for miles in either direction. The moon was barely a sliver which allowed for a great amount of the stars overhead to be visible, a faint milky way among them. The air was chilled and a decent breeze was blowing which produced a calming rustling noise from the trees around them.
Riley sat with one hand locked around her knees and the other in a tight grip with Ellie's. Her right heel was repeatedly bouncing, again making Ellie uncomfortable.
Ellie reached across with her other hand and laid it on the unrested knee. "Stop."
Riley ignored the command and instead chose to stare off into her own mind and let every possible thought have free reign. "This is all m-." Her voice cracked suddenly, making it unintelligible.
"All what?"
"This is all my fault…" She took another deep uneven breath and with it some tears began to sting the corners of her eyes. "We wouldn't be here if it weren't for me. We wouldn't be in this fucking mess!"
"Okay, so firstly, you need to calm the hell down, okay? You're freaking me out more than I already am. And secondly, most importantly, you didn't drag me here. I came because I wanted to. This isn't on you."
"That's not true, I pushed you into coming here. It was a stupid idea. It was so stupid, such a stupid fucking idea. If I hadn't been such an asshole and actually listened when you wanted to talk then maybe you wou-"
Ellie cut her off with a kiss in hopes of calming her down. "Please, Riley. You really need to-" A sudden series of coughs interrupted her. After they subsided she caught her breath and looking up at the girl already looking back in a new-found panic.
"…what the hell was that?" Her voice was shaking as a few tears broke free and rolled down her cheeks.
"It's nothing." She averted her gaze and quieted her words. "Told you I was a little warm."
Riley narrowed her eyes in disbelief and put her hand against Ellie's forehead before quickly pulling it back. "Jesus, you're burning up! Why the hell didn't you say anything?"
"Because of what you're doing now. I didn't want you to worry."
"Where the hell is that ambulance? Maybe we just should just start walking toward the hospital or… or, or something. We have to do something."
"It's miles from here."
"I don't give a fuck, Ellie!" She snapped and caught Ellie off guard. She took a couple more deep breaths and wiped her eyes before daring to meet her gaze again. "…sorry."
"It's okay." Ellie observed the building's wall before nudging Riley. "If it makes you feel any better, we did what we came to do."
"Not at all." She started bouncing her heel again. "You should drink the rest of your water, mine too. Did you want me to get some ice or something? It might help your head, maybe a-"
"Riley… relax."
"I can't! Okay? The only person I've ever loved in this stupid life, the only person who's ever made it worthwhile was injected with fuck knows what. How the hell can I relax?"
"Because you'll do it for me. And besides, it could be nothing, you know?"
Riley wiped her eyes again before resting her head on Ellie's shoulder. "Just please drink. Please…"
Ellie did as instructed not wanting to further stress her. She drank down her own first before finishing off the one that Riley gave her.
"Feel any better?"
She glanced down at the girl resting on her shoulder. "Not really."
"…any worse?"
Riley questionably stared at her in expectation of an unwanted answer. Ellie stared back before giving in to honesty and nodding slightly.
Riley turned back to focus on the distant road to watch for any approaching lights but was distracted a minute later by a several rough coughs. She turned and nervously watched as Ellie soon got stuck in a seemingly unending cycle. The coughing grew to the point where her inhales were sharp and forced, almost as though she were choking.
Riley felt increasingly useless as the bout continued, choosing to do the only thing she could think of and hit her on the back several times as it reached its peak.
Ellie was eventually able to catch her breath as the attack began to subside. She took a few more deep breaths in relief before letting her hand fall away and resting it back against her leg. She looked over to give a forced reassuring smile to Riley but instead spotted a look of horror on her face with her hand covering her mouth.
Ellie followed her gaze back down to her own hand sitting idly across her lap. She rotated it slightly and fell in equal shock to find it colored bright red. She stared at it in confusion and worry before wiping her hand on her pant leg and meeting again Riley's fearful gaze.
"…well that's not good."
Riley couldn't hold herself together any longer, not even for Ellie. Her entire body tensed up and started to tremble again as her tears flowed over her hand and dripped off her chin. "No, that's not good. What do we do?"
"I don't- I don't know… I mean, what can we do?"
She stared with a quivering lip until her worst fear voiced itself. "…I can't lose you, Ellie."
"Stop."
"I can't!"
Ellie reached over and wiped just below Riley's eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? So please stop crying." She flashed a half smile that quickly disappeared.
Riley gazed wordlessly at her for a moment before eventually resettling her head onto Ellie's shoulder again and grabbing her hand while they waited.
She stared at the stain on Ellie's pants for the next four minutes, each one seeming like an eternity. The passing time was strewn with more coughing attacks, the spacing between each shortening as the time ticked by, each with the same result as the first.
Riley's stomach was stuck in perpetual turmoil and chaos that only worsened significantly when the hand gripping hers began to lose its strength. She squeezed it even harder in a hopeless attempt that somehow she could transfer some of hers back into Ellie. Shortly after she felt the head that was resting against hers become heavier.
Riley took a deep breath before speaking out into the air in front of them. "How you doing?"
"Not great." Her words came out heavy and slow.
She swallowed back the lump in her throat. "Not great? What does that mean?"
"It means- that I feel like shit. I'm also really… really tired."
Riley hesitantly leaned up and turned to observe Ellie, finding her eyes half shut and her face worryingly sweating despite the cold bitter air. Her focus slowly shifted away from her eyes and downward toward her mouth, stopping in despair upon reaching it. The left edge of it was stained red, the same as her hand earlier. She stared at it intently, unable to look away as her nerves and emotions built up into the most potent fear she's ever felt.
All at once, all of the collective evidence of Ellie's rapidly deteriorating condition crashed down on Riley, forcing her into an almost inebriated state, one that was impossible for her to handle.
She wrapped her arms around Ellie as tightly as she could and rested her forehead on hers before kissing her repeatedly with no intention, or ability, to ever stop. Tears streamed down her face as she pulled her closer and harder into each one. Ellie struggled to return them until she regrettably inched herself backwards to catch her breath.
Ellie rested her hand behind Riley's neck and tiredly smiled at her. "Well that was… intense..."
"I love you so fucking much."
"I love you too…"
"I'm so sorry, Ellie. I'm so sorry for everything. This is all my fault. Everything is all my fault. I-"
Her words were cut short when Ellie's hand slid off of the back of her neck and the expression on her face faded.
"…Ellie?" In a single instant her entire world was destroyed. "Ellie… Ellie come on. You gotta stay with me okay? Just a few more minutes, they're gonna be here soon. Come on, Ellie, don't you fucking dare leave me." She held her tighter and shook her several times. "…don't do this. Please don't do this. I need you. I need you, you can't leave me… Come on, Ellie, you can't do this to me. Not now. Come on, get up! I need you!" She collapsed onto Ellie's shoulder and sobbed into her neck.
"Please… please… please… I can't do this. I can't… I should never have taken us back here. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I can't do this without you, Ellie... please… please don't make me…I can't…"
Exactly seven minutes later two pairs of flashing lights were illuminating the front side of the orphanage. Each time through their rotation they would reveal an entire building's worth of faces peering through the windows.
The vehicles stopped along the street in front of the walkway and two men hopped out from each. They hustled over to two girls lying on the grass not far from the building's front door.
The officers of the one car split off as they reached the girls, one going inside with his hand on his gun, the other staying behind. The one who stayed found both girls unresponsive and motioned over the paramedics who were already hurrying over with stretchers.
Not long after the paramedics had secured both girls inside the ambulance did the second officer return from his initial search of the inside.
The man's expression portrayed uncertainty. "Two bodies in the basement."
"What happened?"
"One of them has some serious head trauma, the other an excessive amount of puncture wounds in his chest and stomach region."
"Damn."
"That's not all. It's, uh… you should probably just come see for yourself."
The first cop raised an eyebrow. "Alright. Cuff the one girl then meet me down there."
The cop nodded and headed back towards the ambulance while the other moved inside and past the now completely awake orphanage. He reached the great area and looked around for a second before spotting the door at the end of the small hallway and walked through it. He stood at the top of the stairs and observed the scene that lay in front of him.
The entire basements' worth of lights were switched on and revealed an almost entirely empty basement that held no more than just a few coolers on the wall opposite him. The middle one contained a blood-soaked body lying sideways on the inside of the door frame, only half visible from his position. He walked down the stairs while cautiously analyzing the far left cooler. It too contained a pool of blood surrounding a body that lain strewn half in and half out of its door frame.
The second officer came down the stairs and took a spot to the left side of the first.
"What'd I tell ya?"
"This is some seriously messed up shit."
"Broken window off to your left. The two coolers have chairs in each of them, the one on the left with some cut restraints on the ground."
"Was it a torture chamber or something?"
"Maybe. There's a syringe lying next to the older man with the puncture wounds, so it seems likely."
"A syringe? Jesus. Alright, stay here. I'll get a team out here to deal with this."
He headed out of the basement and past the crowd of orphans back out to his car. He grabbed the handset off his cruiser's center console and radioed out while watching the ambulances drive off down the road.