Nina Vale: I know. I'm so mean.
NumberOneVIP: Don't worry! It doesn't end there!
Disclaimer: I do not own "Huntik."
!#%$#^*$^&)(&#%^^%# ^$%R*I&^$UYT%R# !^Q%$#(*%^*&%T ~#^#%
Chapter 12: If Only Tears
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A scream rang out, one filled with so much pain that anyone listening would think that it came from someone who was being mercilessly tortured a hundred different ways. In a sense, they would be right.
Renee watched as Wilder gave her a small smile before he started falling. She was by his side in an instant, catching him, setting him down on the ground, and cradling his head gently in her lap.
"Daddy!" she cried out. "Daddy, no!"
"Renee," Wilder whispered. "You're alive. Thank the gods." He started coughing.
"Daddy, no! Don't leave me! Please!" Renee pulled up his shirt a little bit, revealing the place where the bullet had entered Wilder's body, and placed one hand on his wound. "Everfight!" The golden light surrounded her hand and flowed towards the wound. The bleeding slowed ever so slightly, but not enough. "Everfight! Everfight!" Renee kept trying, but the wound was too serious to be healed by Seeker powers. Wilder needed a doctor, and he needed one fast!
A group of soldiers and other servants who worked at the mansion had run out onto the field while Renee had been focused on her father. One of them was a paramedic. He immediately ran over to where Wilder and Renee were and took a look at the bullet wound. He took off his over-shirt, bunched it up, and pressed it onto the wound. Wilder bit his lip to keep from crying out in pain. The paramedic turned to Renee.
"Keep pressure on it," he instructed her, taking her hand and putting it on the shirt. As she obeyed, he called out over his shoulder to those who were listening. "I need an air-lift to the hospital in Velos!"
"Get that chopper started up!" Grier ordered two of the soldiers. "Secure that man!" he ordered two more.
The man who had chased Renee and shot Wilder found himself wearing the same kind of handcuffs that Renee had been wearing earlier. As the soldiers led him away, she glared at him. If looks could kill, Carter would have been burned to a crisp before he could blink.
"If my father dies," she shouted after him, "you'll have me to answer to!" The man just smiled at her and allowed himself to be taken away. A moan brought her attention back to her father. "Daddy, hold on," she told him.
"I'll be fine," Wilder told her, looking up at her and smiling, "as long as I know that you're alright." He started coughing again.
The chopper came around and landed next to them. Two soldiers jumped out with a stretcher and helped the paramedic ease Wilder onto it. They then picked up the stretcher and carried it onto the chopper, Renee following them with one hand pressing the now soaked shirt onto the wound and the other holding her father's hand with a grip that said she didn't ever want to let go.
Many hours later, Renee sat in a chair next to her father's hospital bed, holding his hand again and watching him as he lay there, unmoving.
The doctors had removed the bullet and stitched up the wound as best they could, but Wilder had not woken up yet. He had lost a lot of blood, and a tube now connected his arm to a bag of blood that would replace it. There was quite a bit of internal damage, and the doctors weren't sure if they could fix it all without making it any worse. They told Renee that it would have been better to just pull the plug, but one glare from the young woman told them that that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. For now, Wilder was comatose.
In Renee's other hand, she held her precious locket. The doctors had returned it to her after doing surgery on Wilder. While she wondered how it had ended up with him, since she knew that she had left it in the cave of the Hippocampus, she was grateful to have it back. Opening it up, she saw her father's face smiling at her. Looking at her father now, it broke her heart to see him so weak and vulnerable, unable to smile at her like he used to, unable to tell her that everything would be alright, even though she knew that it would be a lie. She closed the locket.
Another tear fell from Renee's eyes and she wiped it away. She had been crying on and off ever since they'd reached the hospital. She knew it wouldn't make a difference, knew that her tears wouldn't heal her father, but they just wouldn't stop.
As her mind began to replay the times she had been sick, and her father had sat by her bed and sang to her, she thought of a song she had heard a few years ago and memorized, but never sang when Wilder was around. It was too sad. The words came back to her now, and she couldn't stop them as they escaped her lips.
"How will I start
Tomorrow without you here?
Whose heart will guide me
When all the answers disappear?Is it too late?
Are you too far gone to stay?
Best friends forever
Should never have to go away.
What will I do?
You know I'm only half without you.
How will I make it through?
If only tears could bring you back to me.
If only love could find a way.
What I would do, what I would give
If you returned to me someday,
Somehow, someway,
If my tears could bring you back to me.
I'd cry you an ocean
If you'd sail on home again.
Waves of emotion
Will carry you, I know they can.
Just love will guide you
And your heart will chart the course.
Soon you'll be drifting
Into the arms of your true north.
Look in my eyes
And you'll see a million tears have gone by
And still they're not dry.
If only tears could bring you back to me.
If only love could find a way.
What I would do, what I would give
If you returned to me someday,
Somehow, someway,
If my tears could bring you back to me.
I'd hold you close
And shout the words I only whispered before.
For one more chance, for one last dance,
There's nothing that I would not endure.
If only tears could bring you back to me.
If only love could find a way.
What I would do, what I would give
If you returned to me someday,
Somehow, someway,
If my tears could bring you back to me."
One single tear fell from her eyes and landed on Wilder's hand as she sang the last few words. Unable to hold back the emotions that were now flooding through her, she buried her face in her father's chest and cried until she finally fell asleep.
!#$# ^%%$&(*^&*U^Y# $%R~ #WQ^%^$*%^&*& %#!T%#~ %#!^ #$%^
Please don't shoot me! Don't worry. This is not the end. We will see Wilder again.
If anyone is wondering, the song Renee sings is "If Only Tears," by the Midnight Sons.
Please review.