Hey again. Sorry if this chapter is short, I had to leave time to watch Sweeny Todd again and still have enough time to get a good night's sleep for school tomorrow. Still, I think I've done fairly well on this chapter. It's more human than some of the others. At least, emotion wise.
If you want a song for this chapter, or at least the second section, try Braille by Regina Spektor. I wrote that part to that song, and it's one of my favorites anyway. Absolutely beautiful, it makes me sad each time I hear it. Anyway.
Things get back on track in this chapter, in terms of plot progression. Read with an open mind, mmkay? Love ya, darlings.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Hilary stretched, shamelessly exposing her small chest to the pale ceiling lights of the hospital waiting room. An odd behavior had come over her since they had all arrived – alive, thank god – at the hospital. Something unnatural, yet oddly pleasurable; a new outlook.
Hilary had always expected her life to be normal. High school, college, job, marriage, family, retirement, death. But somewhere in the early stages of that pre-determined timeline, Tyson Granger had been thrown into her life. The twists and turns that each day brought now were all things she never would have imagined happening only a few years prior. But she had been all over the world with the Bladebreakers, meeting people, seeing landmarks, shopping in the most exotic places. She had eaten things she'd never known existed, she'd relaxed by so many pool-sides that she had stopped keeping track. It had been going so well, and it was all so exciting, until that evening at the restaurant when first Rei, and then Lee had called. She remembered the blank horror on Mariah's face at the news, a look Hilary had never expected to see on the face of someone so smart and pretty.
Mariah was the image on confusion for Hilary. She was beautiful, big-chested, curvy. Her opinions mattered the world to Hilary, and yet the brunette found herself loathing the neko-jin at times. She looked up to her like an older sister, longed for her advice, and still refrained from getting to clingy; as if keeping distance would help her keep her dignity. Mariah was quick-witted and funny, from hanging out with Kevin all the time. She had a deep culinary knowledge from chatting with Gary, good leadership from being Lee's sister, and a huge heart, probably from spending so much time with Rei. The most daunting thing, despite that all, was her ability to control three teenage boys with ease, and without
having them rebel against her. And it was as Hilary felt a familiar pang of jealousy rise that Mariah sat down beside her, having finally changed back into her normal clothing. She smiled, flashing her sharp teeth, and tucked her legs up underneath her.
"Hey Hil." She cooed warmly, noting the fatigue that was evident on Hilary's face. The younger girl smiled back half-heartedly. There was another thing about her; if she liked you as an acquaintance, she would treat you like a dear friend. It was confusing.
"Hello Mariah. How are you feeling?"
"Oh, much better, thank you." She replied, adjusting the shirt around her chest. Hilary only glanced at the action, wondering what it was like to have boys stare one's chest. Mariah noticed the look and chuckled.
"Oh, sorry." She said quickly, "I keep forgetting not to do that around people that aren't on my team."
"Heh… because?" Hilary asked, turning on her seat to face Mariah, drawing one leg up with her.
"They're all used to it. But I totally get it if it's embarrassing for you to watch, it makes Emily feel awkward."
"No, no, it's fine, really. I've just always wondered…"
"What?"
"… What is it like?"
Mariah rose and eyebrow, smiling. She had such a pretty smile. "What is what like?"
"… Having big…" Hilary motioned to her chest, suddenly hot in the face. Mariah looked at her a moment before laughing, waving a hand at her.
"Oh, it's not so bad. Running can be hard sometimes, if you don't have the right bra."
"Do…" Hilary mumbled, smiling pathetically, "do people stare a lot?"
"Well." Mariah sat back, blinking and looking up at the ceiling, thinking a moment. "Sometimes. Not as much as one would think. And when it happens, I normally just make a point of it. Like, I push them together and act like a bimbo so they move closer, and then I smack them."
Hilary was silent before laughing hard. She remembered when such and event had happened with Eddy of the Allstars, and Mariah's sudden change from air-headed to rude and annoyed had made her smile and want to high-five the older. The conversation, however light-hearted, was abruptly cut off when from around the corner, Max came skidding into view. His cheeks were flushed and his blond hair fell into his face in wispy strands. Before either female could ask what was the matter, he yelled it at them.
"Kevin's being rushed to surgery!"
-x-x-x-
Twenty minutes earlier.
Kevin coughed twice into the crook of his arm. The room tilted to the right, then the left, and finally straightened out. He blinked twice, slowly. His eyelids had faded to a reddish-purple color, his face pale and beginning to sweat. Rei had lost himself in a book, trying hard to calm down from the trauma that was happening all around him. He hadn't noticed Kevin's coughing until then, and worry passed over his face like a cloud in the sky.
"How are you holding up, Kev?"
"I'm okay." Kevin replied, smiling ever so faintly. Rei tried to return the smile, but failed and compromised with a withered grin. His eyes studied the younger a moment before falling back to the page, scanning each line with interest. It was a story about a young man, hardly sixteen, who had such a scheduled, stressful, full life, that it almost made Rei drop the novel. But in the first chapter, as the young man was almost done with his driver's test – passing it, as well – another car ran a red light and caused a horrible accident. Hooked, and thankful for the distraction, Rei kept focused on the page. Time passed slowly, the silence lifting every once and a while when Kevin would cough.
And cough he did, suddenly, after a stretched silence. His eyes closed tightly, and as he attempted to swallow immediately after the cough, something salty and thick filled his throat. He coughed again, and the substance swelled higher into his mouth. The coughing was non-stop now, fierce, and he pulled himself into a sitting position unconsciously. Rei had dropped the book, and the sound of its clatter on the tile floor echoed through the ICU as he sprang to his feet. Kevin coughed twice, choking, before blood spluttered forth out of his mouth onto the white shirt he was wearing, and the bed sheets. He stopped, suddenly, eyes glazed over slightly before they fell closed all together, and Kevin fell back down onto the bed, unconscious. His head rolled to the side, blood trickling across his cheek as his chest heaved. Rei was yelling now, for help. Nurses raced around the bed, and a doctor with a white lab-coat pulled a stethoscope from around her neck and handed it hastily to a nurse before she dove in to do what she could.
The world reeled. Rei was pushed back until Kevin was out of view. His heart fluttered, skipping beats, flipping this way and that. His eyes were wide, watering, but he wasn't aware of it. Suddenly, Kevin was on a gurney, being wheeled passed him. Rei turned and felt himself run after it, despite a male nurse calling him back. He pumped his legs, feeling the dizziness and confusion surround him. The hallway lights were blinding, and as his friend – his childhood friend, so young and hopeful, so eager to please – was pulling farther and farther away, around a corner, and through a double door. Rei was racing towards it, ramming into it. Men and women in green scrubs were hastily scrubbing their hands, pulling on face masks. A large man caught hold of Rei and calmly but forcefully pulled him from the room. Kevin vanished behind the surgeons, Rei just catching a glimpse of his forest green hair before the doors swung shut and he was standing in a waiting room, the chairs offering little comfort, the magazines of no interest to him. He paced, once, before he turn and ran.
Tears streamed his face. This was unfair, this was so unfair. He could do nothing to help his friend, his teammate, himself. His pushed harder, the hospital halls nothing but a blur to him. He twisted corners, climbed a flight of stairs, and found himself before Kenny and Max. The two were playing cards, enjoying a coffee of some sort. They looked a little bored, but as they lifted their eyes to Rei, the cards in their hands dropped. What is it, they had asked, what's wrong. Rei told them in a swirl on words, unsure if it was coherent. He sobbed, his heart racing in erratic patterns, his eyes shimmering and brimming over with tears, again and again. Max said something – what was it? Going to get Mariah? Rei didn't listen. Kenny jumped up, so short he hardly met Rei's shoulders; like Kevin, Rei thought. The little guy.
Kenny pulled him along, back the way he had come. Suddenly, Rei was aware of every detail. Every doorframe, every potted plant, every painting on the wall. He noticed the design on the carpet, the small speckled dots on the ceiling, and the chairs in the various waiting rooms. For a moment, Rei felt like it wasn't actually happening. He was having a bad dream; Kevin hadn't been drowning in his own blood, he hadn't run full speed halfway across the huge hospital, Max wasn't going to get Mariah and Lee. Things were fine, he was just bored of that book, and he'd fallen asleep. But in the next instant, Rei felt the harsh reality of his situation slap him across the face, hard. The tears came back. He gasped for breath, noticing those double doors that he had been pulled through however many moments ago. He collapsed into a chair and let his face fall into his hands. He cried while Kenny mumbled nervously to himself. Time passed like it was nothing; Rei didn't notice anything at all. His tears had dried by the time Hillary and Mariah raced into the waiting room.
Mariah's eyes were watering, puffy. Hillary looked exasperated, shocked. Rei looked up at them both sullenly and shook his head, catching hold of Mariah as she fell onto his lap.
"He said he was fine," Rei heard himself whisper. "He said he was fine."
-x-x-x-
"Fuck."
Kai shot Tala a slide glance. "What?"
"I'm not staying there."
"Fine. There's a nice alley over there."
"Kai."
"What?"
"Have you seen those television specials where they go into a motel like this and turn on a strobe light, and reveal all the 'mysterious' stains on the bed?"
An agitated sigh. "Suck it up, Tala."
"No. There's a nice hotel right down the street, what can't we-"
"Because there are a lot of people there. They'll make a scene, and we'll lose the element of surprise. Now get out of the goddamn car."
The ensuing silence was profound. Tala broke it with a groan and finally, despite every screaming voice inside his head, complied. The steps that followed played out in stop-action sequences; crossing the parking lot, checking in inconspicuously, finding their room, locking the door behind them. Tala complaining. Kai turning on the television to the news, looking for updates about Dickenson or the others. Nothing, just famous media heads dragging on about the events. They ordered in. They ate. Tala turned over the cushions on the sofa and covered them with pillow cases off of the extra pillows from the closet. Paranoid, Kai had said curtly.
The night lasted forever. Tala slept first, then Kai, the other keeping watch on the news and out the window at the stars, bored as hell. Three hours would pass and they would switch, until they each had about eight hours each. They checked out in the morning and, yawning, climbing back into the expensive car and pulled away.
"We'll park behind the place." Kai was saying. Tala played with the radio, and then the window. He was excited; he had at one point imagining himself kill Dickenson, but it was while his mind had been corrupted by Boris Bolkov. Though he had recovered from that era, some of the thoughts and longings still lingered, and here he was about to fulfill one.
"You listening? We'll go in through the underground garage – the one Pav showed us – and from there we'll make our way to the labs on the top floor. That's where Dickenson would be, if the blueprints were right."
"Yeah, right. What about staff and security?"
"Don't worry about that." Kai said, waving him off. "We'll be fine."
Tala doubted each word. You just want to shoot people, you damn prick, Tala thought bitterly, smiling despite himself. The car stopped in a back street and the engine died. Silence fell like a thick blanket over the two of them. What they were about to do could end in millions of ways, but it bubbled down to two distinct realities: Either Dickenson would die, or they would.
-x-x-x-
"Poor kid."
"Not letting emotions get in the way, are we Church?"
The surgeons made small talk as they worked, the time slipping past like breeze on a summer afternoon. Blood stained the chests of some of their smocks, white latex gloves glittering red in the special lamp above the operating table. Kevin Ki lay unconscious, sliced open, covered by special green sheet-like covers, spare the exposed area they were working on. His hair had been pulled back into a hair-hat, and a tube was down his throat into his lungs, filtering air in and blood out. An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose, and his eyes were closed, eyelids faintly purple.
A shuffling from behind. Two surgical assistants turned and gasped before falling suddenly to the ground. The quick sound of escaping air startled the surgeons, who glanced over their work momentarily, over to have a dart fly into each of their necks. Both stumbled and fell, one knocking over a tray of tools as he went. The movement that followed was like clockwork; practiced and swift. Three men, dressed in blue surgical smokes, stepped right over the fallen men and picked up new, sterilized tools. They started in where the surgeons had left off, none speaking. Things fell back into order, despite the sudden change.
Forty minutes passed, and they were not disturbed. Finally, the head man closed the incisions with expertise, his hand moving skillfully as he began to stitch up the boy on the table. The surgery drew to a close, and as preparations were made for the next step, Kevin's index finger twitched, as though he were flinching.
Protocols were dropped. After things were pushed away, cleaned up, the men washed their hands and lifted the patient onto a wheeled stretcher. They strapped him down, pulled off the hairnet, checked his breathing. He was fine; the operation had been a success. They would have to move fast to get him to the respirator in the helicopter. Dressed in legitimate scrubs, they vanished out of the room with their captive, unconscious as he was.
The launching pad was suddenly below them; things were moving so swiftly, it was hard to tell how long it had taken to get out there. By that time, actual hospital officials had found the unconscious surgeons. They were being pursued, as they loaded the boy onto the helicopter. They climbed in and it took off. Lights flashed below, police showing up and leaving their cars, squinting into the late afternoon sun as the helicopter vanished into the sky above.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
xChewy; … Uh-oh.
Kevin; "Uh-oh"? "Uh-oh"?! LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE, WOMAN!
xChewy; I know, I know, but it needs to happen. Just sit tight.
Tala; I don't think he has a choice.
Kevin; -near tears- You're so bloody mean! I've done nothing to you, and you always – ALWAYS – beat the shit out of me!
xChewy; … Sorry?
Kevin; -becomes serious again- I'd tell you to go to hell, but I go to school there, and I don't want to see you every day.
xChewy; Hey, I go to school their too! Coincidence?
Kevin; … Sure.