Interval 6 – Unforeseen circumstances
Quentin couldn't breathe as he watched the light drain from Jin's eyes.
Her lips parted, stirring vainly when words did not come. One of her eyes was sealed shut from the hit a Replica soldier had scored with the butt of his rifle, but the other one was wide open, jerking about as it tried to focus on his face.
Quentin knelt down beside her. He saw the blood and felt his throat constrict, for each beat of her heart pushed the blood out of her body, where it gathered as a pool on the rough cement.
He tried to touch the huge shard of glass protruding from her chest. His fingers had barely made contact with the fragment when Jin cried out in pain, blood bubbling, dripping down her face.
He hadn't known this would happen.
The Replica soldiers had them cornered behind a large crate. He returned fire, even though he knew that defeat was inevitable. The enemy shouted to each other again, and he realized that the soldiers had advanced closer to their location. He groped for a fragmentation grenade on his belt, and it wasn't there. He looked at where Jin had been two seconds before.
Only when the enemy began shouting in fear did he realize what had happened. Seconds later, the deafening explosion shook the building, and silence fell after a shower of glass fragments.
"Jin…" he said, powerlessly trying to cradle her. She had made the ultimate sacrifice so that he could continue what he was meant to do. "You're gonna be okay." Quentin knelt above her. He got a good grip on the glass fragment, gritted his teeth and began to pull.
This was the only way he knew that could save her.
Jin struggled, crying out loudly, clamping her good hand around a fold of Quentin's jacket. The glass came free with a sickening squelch, splattering blood over them both. Quentin felt water cloud his vision and couldn't keep the tears from sliding down his face.
"Q… Q…"
Relief flooded him. "Jin!" he cried, but her body was lifeless, her eyes open but vacant, her mouth closed. He shook her, and she didn't make a sound.
Alma laughed ironically behind him. When Quentin turned to face her, she was wearing her flapping hospital gown and holding her younger son's hand as though she were his older sister. Quentin rose to a half-crouch, fingering his sidearm.
"Too bad about your girlfriend," Alma whispered, baring sharp teeth.
-
He awoke with a cry. Slumped next to him in the car, Jin gave a start and opened her eyes.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
Quentin's eyes scanned Jin's face. In the darkness, illuminated by a distant streetlamp, the young woman looked pale, slightly sickly perhaps, but otherwise breathing. Quentin leaned back against the seat, trying to calm his breathing.
"Are you alright?" Jin insisted, prompting Quentin to nod briefly, unsure of whether she could see him acquiesce.
"How's your leg?" Quentin tried to peer at Jin's ankle.
"I'll live."
Quentin nodded silently before looking around. Night had fallen over the city. Earlier, he had parked the commandeered vehicle at the end of a solitary stretch of gravelly parking lot, near a disused center where the city's electrical current's tension was converted. To one side of the complex, tall grasses stood as still as hairs on a frightened animal. Behind the structure, the converters themselves stood tall against the sky. Across the ill-maintained street, a soccer field catered to school children during the day.
Quentin wet his lips, opened his mouth and breathed deeply, preparing to tell Jin about his dream.
"Jin… I…"
He cut off when he saw the flood of light thrown across her window. Crunching gravel beneath its wheels, the car pulled up near their SUV and stopped, motor purring. Jin's eyes widened. She half-turned, scanning the blurrily lit window.
Instinctively, Quentin reached behind him, feeling the backseat for a gun. His fingers touched the coldness of a submachine gun. Pulling it to him, he checked the ammo and opened the door.
In a second, he was next to the other car, already pulling open the driver side door. He pointed the gun's nose at the driver and was met with a surprised shout, a voice he recognized immediately.
"What the hell?" Rowdy Betters exclaimed.
"Sir!" Quentin said in disbelief, as Betters batted the gun away.
"How did you –?"
"Later," Betters said, getting out of his car. "Where's Jin?"
"She's in the car." Quentin felt relieved that Betters was taking control of the situation. He heard the car door open.
"Rowdy? Is that you?" Jin called.
"Yeah, it's me," Betters said, running over to her, Quentin following. Jin tried to lever herself out of her seat, without much effect. Betters told her not to move and knelt to gingerly examine her ankle. When Jin gasped in pain, Betters looked up at Quentin.
"Let's get her inside."
Between the two of them, they helped Jin to the building. Betters unlocked a side door, which opened without much of an argument. The inside of the building was completely deserted, although the electricity still functioned.
"Someone paid the electrical bills," Betters commented as the lights flickered on. Jin was too tired to comment. She sat down in a rusty chair, while Betters busied himself verifying the condition of her injury.
Quentin paced nervously, examining his surroundings. Other than the odd shadow, the building was empty, with nothing but cobwebbed control panels on one wall, revealed under the bluish fluorescent lighting. A solitary unisex washroom was enterable through a door on the far wall. Quentin took this all in. He checked the gun again. Finally, he turned to Betters.
"Do you have my vitamins?" he asked.
"Yeah," Betters replied, digging in his pocket for the bottle. Quentin took it and walked away.
Betters' eyes followed Quentin into the washroom, and then returned to Jin's ankle.
"I think we'd better get you to a hospital," he said. "Your ankle looks pretty bad, not that you don't –"
"How did you find us?" Jin cut in.
The F.E.A.R. coordinator hesitated a moment before answering. "They'd put a chip in our friend's head. It's a transmitter of sorts, led me right to you two." Betters dug in his pocket again and extracted a small PDA-like object. He turned it on. Instantly a map of the city appeared and a dot flashed bright red, displaying their location.
Jin took it, examining it on all sides. "Who else knows about this?" she asked urgently.
-
The door shut behind him, Quentin felt his way blindly in the darkness. His bare fingers touched a cold wall, then a light switch. He flicked it on. Everything in this washroom was rusty, from the leaky tap to the moldy toilet bowl. Quentin fiddled with the tap to see if it worked properly. He turned the handle, spinning it uselessly a few times. Water leaked from the dragonhead in a fine dribble, though possibly enough for his purpose.
Quentin opened the pill bottle with difficulty, unused to the necessity for finger dexterity. He hastily tilted the bottle to let two orange tablets fall into his palm and swallowed them, feeling them catch in his throat.
Nearly gagging, he cupped his hands under the trickle of water and brought them up to drink. "There's something in the water." He remembered the words, whispered into his ear, a hollow caveat. Quentin shook his head, putting Bill Moody out of his mind. He drank the water. A lingering aftertaste swilled about in his mouth, but the pills disappeared down his gullet.
Quentin looked up and was startled to see the face staring back at him. He lashed his fist against the vision, cracking the mirror. His breathing grew shaky and erratic. He stared long and hard at the fragmented, bloodstained features in the mirror before finally convincing himself that it was indeed him. He ran a hand over his unfamiliar features. It was him, not Fettel. Never Fettel.
A gut-wrenching shudder went through the pipes that lined the wall. Water sprayed out from the tap with a growl, sickeningly yellow. Quentin pushed his sleeves up and ran his hands under the blisteringly cold water until his fingers went numb. He raised his hands up and splashed his face, washed away the blood, his brother's smile still imprinted on the inside of his eyelids.
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Author's note: Please review this chapter and give feedback regarding plot, characters, etc. Also, I would like you to tell me what ending you think would be appropriate for this fic. Thank you.