Day Thirty Two
She could feel it.
It was as if nimble fingers of gentle hands were picking at the threads and the seams piecing her together, slowly unknotting them and tugging them apart, but so blandly and deliberately that she could hardly feel it. Of course though, there was that fading feeling that she could; she apperceived the metaphorical junctures slowly fading and along with it, a part of her conscious, a part of her that kept her going and willful to survive. She was a ragdoll, an injured, sullen ragdoll that no kid wanted any longer, and the manufacturing companies of the Heaven's (damn her and her religion in such a time; the irony of her damning it almost made her giggle) were doing their best to mend her, but in the end, failing, and each thread could not be put back into place.
And those vigilant fingers pursuing to piece her back together and into a whole again, belonged to Jade and Beck, each laced with a different emotion. He with foreign fear and sorrow. She, of both fear and illness and sorrow no matter if her strong, prided demeanor tried to prove otherwise. They worked, the tall girl as her physically and emotionally supporting rock and the tan boy, her non-biological older brother, acting as their guard and evidently as their leader, if all else failed. Cat could pretend she liked the idea of him putting himself in charge with a gun at his side and one with Jade, but she couldn't. She wouldn't; no matter if he was attempting to stitch her seams together so she was Happy-Cat again, instead of Wounded-Exhausted-Cat. It wasn't like she would say out loud, but they hadn't been doing a very good job. But she, even in her bruised and injured state, with blood pooling from the orifice created from the bullet in her chest, just barely grazing her lung, didn't have the will to be mean. Since when, she wondered, was she ever mean to start?
But there was more to her that they had needed to stitch up rather than her wound. It was the horrid throbbing within her heart, emitting sorrow and dread at the loss of the man she had loved. She had sobbed for hours on end it had seemed, the day before; to Jade and Beck, who mourned also, about Brent, and about the immense amount of agony that she was facing. The pain doubled up it appeared, to the point in which she felt like she could not take it. Just the simple, chaste thought that she might never see Br-his face ever again, hear his laugh or Australian accent, see his crooked smile and his messy hair, made her want to curl up in a ball and just…give up, and cry and cry until she couldn't any longer. She would cry herself to an everlasting sleep if that meant she could hug him, her savior, close to her again. Her handsome knight in shining armor. Dead.
If Brent would have told her that he loved her, given that he did, she would have told him that she loved him too – a part of her always suspected that he did essentially have feelings for her, but she wasn't one about to assume things. Now, with the atrocity committed in which brought him too his (dare she say it?) death, she would never have that chance with him, if it was, even remotely possible that he loved her back. But then again, she decided with her fingernails digging slightly into Jade's shoulder, she might not be as far away from him now as she had thought before, and she knew she'd see him again, whether it be now, or whether it be soon.
But she knew she would.
She could feel it.
With her arm slung around Jade's shoulders, hand gripping one of the Goth's as she held her limp, nearly dead weight body much too small for the average teenager, up, she couldn't help but wonder what was going on at the shore. With her friends they had left to fend for themselves on the cruelty of the island. If they were alright and well, unlike the trio in the jungle in which had unwillingly left the body of Brent with the unnamed man that had helped them (something she protested strongly, with weakened screams and sobs that resulted in the two other's holding her injured self back), what could they be doing? She could imagine Tori plundering about the shore, attempting to gain control and make things right once and for all and the thought made a small smile tug at the corners of her slightly chapping lips.
Jade, her best friend and main support, glanced over at her with a tiny frown. "What are you smiling about?" She asked, her voice fastened with genuine curiosity.
"Nothing" Cat managed out as she glanced over at the Goth, her voice hoarse and weak – she hardly had the energy any more to even utter a word, and it had been two solid days since she was wounded. "Just thinking about my brother and how he once…he once drove his brand new mustang into a ditch and cried…cried for weeks," she lied, having this horrible gut feeling that if she mentioned Tori's name in front of Jade, the atom bomb within her would tick off and:
B o o m.
That would be that.
"Even shot she manages to say ridiculous stories" She heard, though faintly due to the pounding within her ears – it was like the waves of pain were causing the sound – Beck chuckle from ahead of them.
"I…I try" Cat exhaled heavily through her mouth with a wince, nearly stumbling upon her own feet as she attempted to keep up with the pace in which they were moving; the only thing that had stopped her from her doom of embarrassment and evidently even more pain, was Jade's arm tightening around her waist and keeping her balanced and steady. The light, blood-warm (or maybe it was just her own blood that was making it hot) rain drizzling upon them did not give mercy to dry land. "Can we…can…Can we stop for a few minutes?" She asked them exhaustedly, her stomach heaving as she coughed; the sudden movement caused pain to ripple through her abdomen, and a shocked gasp escaped her mouth, nails digging into Jade's skin as if it would help ease the agony she was so dreadfully experiencing.
"Of course, Rina. Hey, Aladdin, we're stopping." Jade said rather loudly, and shielding her eyes from the quickening rain in which was getting worse by the minute, she help Cat down.
They found a place to sit relatively expeditiously, on flat rock so, not that it had mattered in Cat and Jade's case (filled with mire and blood) so they wouldn't be sitting within the mud. Her back rested upon the base of a red-barked tree and her body slumped over, hands pressing against the stone beneath her as if it was a meager support to keep her from falling all the way, and Jade sat beside her, lifting her shirt just slightly to observe the crimson caked wound. Her creamy, pale skin was stained and sullen with sludge and blood and the hole in which the bullet had caused was bleeding less than before, but bleeding nonetheless, and she was forced to look away. And so the group waited, waited until the clouds cleared a bit more, and those that remained floating within the gray sky, pregnant and fat, promised more rain to come – which meant, much to Cat's relief, that they would have to wait until the sun broke the horizon.
Even if the rain fell the next morning, soft and murmuring and bringing a new oppressive, rain-felt flavor to the air, they would be forced to move again. As the sun was setting currently and she felt as if she couldn't walk any longer (she had collapsed upon her own knees plenty a times the previous day due to the same reason), it was not a problem that they remained here. But, they could not stay in one place for too long – they were in danger with every step they took, and though they had yet to come across another of Vincent's lingering men, she was doubtful that that would last for so long.
"She's lost a lot of blood, Beck." She heard Jade mutter some twenty minutes later, and, curled up in a ball, Cat relied on the sound of their voices to observe their actions; she could barely look up to see. "It's not good. What should we do?"
"I don't know" He replied with a sigh, "there's not really much."
"Maybe Vega was right" Jade grumbled nastily, and Cat could hardly believe what she was hearing. Was she hallucinating again? Hearing wonky, jank things she normally didn't? "We should have stayed together, at the beach."
"But how were we supposed to know that this would happen? At the time, it seemed like such a flawless idea."
"Well, look how that turned out." The Gothic girl sneered, and her voice, though soft, seemed to be thick as if she was on the brink of crying.
"Jade? Everything is going to be alright, okay?"
"You're seriously telling me this when Cat was freaking shot and Brent's…dead…and I feel like I've been dying because of this stupid disease or whatever the hell it is for the past 16 days? Really Beck? Nothing is going to be alright! Nothing is okay!"
"Things are going to light up, we just have to stay positive and have hope. We're going to get back to the beach, and Cat's going to be alright again. And you, you're going to feel better once we get some medicine, okay?" Beck said, sounding wary and exasperated – she hadn't heard him sound like that in quite a while.
"God, what don't you fucking get? Do things look like it's going to light up any time soon?"
"Tori…bag…" Cat murmured as she remained slumped upon flat rock with her head slightly bowing – she was finding it more and more difficult to stay awake as the days passed, and she was thoroughly surprised she had even made it this far. But, the mention of her getting better had ignited a memory she couldn't let slip: Tori, the day they had left the beach to travel on their own, in the midst of their heartfelt hug, had told her she had slipped all types of usable medicine within her bag when Cat was asleep, in case they were in need of it.
"What?" The arguing couple asked simultaneously, both set of eyes fixed upon her.
"Medicine. She put…she put medicine in my bag, day we left" She picked her head from its partially bowed position, leaning it against the tree's bark so she could get a good view of her two close friends, and unable to form correct sentences. She could feel her energy slowly draining and wasting away – this wound was weakening her, and ebbing away at her life.
"It's a good thing I packed your things in my bag, Cupcake" Jade huffed with a shake of her head, grabbing the soaked satchel from the drowning glass and unzipping it a harsh tug of her hand.
"No, it's a good thing Tori was smart enough to put this stuff in her pack" Beck added as he kneeled beside Cat, gently smiling over at her and allowing her to lean against him for support, in which she gratefully, yet tiredly, thanked him for, even though she wasn't sure if he had actually heard her whispered gratitude at all. If he had, he hadn't made an effort to say anything in return, so Cat automatically assumed that he hadn't. It would make much more sense that way, and things admittedly, weren't making any more sense than they had before, and it was initially getting worse as the minutes passed by.
"Yeah whatever, who cares how smart she is." Said Jade with a growl, fishing through the pack before grabbing a small pink bag, yanking it out. She unzipped the baggy and peered inside, and slowly, Cat watched as a satisfied smirk marred its way upon her pretty, smug features.
"What's in it?" Beck asked.
"All kinds of pills; antibiotics, antidepressants, Tylenol…gauzes, band aids," The other girl drawled on, meanwhile, pulling the white gauze and the antibiotics from the pouch and into her palm, dropping the rest to the floor and quickly making her way over. Cat winced as she pulled her shirt up once again, undoing the gauze and demanding Beck to help her in applying it around her tiny waist, and as the pressure multiplied as they wrapped it around her, slowly and cautiously, tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, cascading down flushed cheeks in doubles. "Am I hurting you?" Jade asked quietly, her eyes downcast and focused on the task at hand.
"K-kind of" She whimpered, fisting the sleeve of Beck's soaking wet shirt. "Promise you won't let me die too? Please?" She asked her, sounding much like a small child that had lost her toy.
Jade bit her lip and swallow, and she could see the tears filling her eyes, make the steel gray irises glassy. "I promise."
And their pinkies interlocked.
So, Cat's fate still has yet to be revealed and reading your reviews, I'm not quite sure what to do yet. It's obviously in my hands, but I feel like I don't want to upset you guys or anything like that. Yet…never mind. I don't want to give too much away on what I originally planned. See what you guys do? Just kidding. I hope you liked the chapter!
Napier: Aww you're so sweet, thank you so, so much! You don't know how much that means to me (: I really appreciate it!
iSam101: Haha, I try to update as much as possible because all my readers and I don't want to keep them waiting too long! Lol. But I'm glad you're all up to date and that you like the story! So thank you!
As for my other faithful, amazing reviewers…you know I love you guys, but I just have to say that you guys are seriously so…I don't know the word for it to describe, but it's a good one. Much love!
Keep the reviews coming!
Preview;
"You're pushing it, Robbie Shapiro!" Andre shouted angrily, shoving his scrawny friend by his shoulders, once, twice, and thus causing him to fall back. "If you want out, you can leave!"
"Andre!" Tori shouted, she and Trina both attempting to separate the arguing boys. "Stop!"
"Fine, if you want me gone, I'll go!"
"Oh, no you don't!" Trina yelled, grabbing her boyfriend by both of his arms and turning him to face her, frowning and hopeless, tears leaking from her eyes. "Don't you leave me"
So much tension ;-;