thirteen
He steals a motorcycle from outside the shopping arcade, where a riot has broken out and gunshots report every few seconds. No one seems to notice when he kicks the bike into gear and takes off with Fujin perched behind him, her arm around his waist and the GPS on her phone enabled. Whomever owned the bike deserves having it stolen, anyway, leaving their keys in the ignition like that.
Seifer peels around the edge of a barfight spilling out onto the sidewalk, and the brawlers scatter like bowling pins, screaming obscenities in his wake. There is a minor explosion behind him, and the shot misses by a mile.
Amateurs.
He drives recklessly, like an idiot, weaving through standstill traffic like this is one of Rai's racing games (although by the time they all took driver's education in Garden, those games were cakewalks, and it took most of the fun out of them.) Fujin taps his sides when he needs to turn, and he makes a left on red at one point, avoiding turning them both into roadkill by centimeters, pinning the bike practically on its side as he jerks just out of range of a massive sport-utility vehicle.
He can feel Fujin's burst of laughter against his neck, and a tug on his right side.
Seifer turns, and skids to a stop just before he barrels into a construction zone, the orange-striped barricades taunting him as they impede his path. The road is a disaster, full of potholes and equipment that will only spell failure if he tries to navigate through.
"Shit," he snarls, but there, up ahead, not even a half a block away is a tiny alleyway that Fujin thinks will avoid most of the mess. They'll have to take their chances. There's no time, and no way to know if Quistis is even still alive.
(he knows, in his chest, he knows)
The alley is too small to really be safe for pedestrians, much less to barrel through on a motorcycle going sixty, but that's exactly what he does, pulling in his knees and arms and shoulders to avoid flaying himself alive against the brick that closes in on both sides.
He comes too close at one point, just enough to send the left mirror hurtling off behind them, and he feels Fujin flinch, her fingers in a deathgrip with the fabric of his coat.
There is no time for apologies, no time to slow down, no time to be careful. No time, no time.
-no time, existence denied.
Seifer guns it, and they leave the alley behind, rocketing out into a twisting labyrinth of faceless warehouses and factories missing windows like teeth.
For some reason, he has the copper-rotten taste of blood in his mouth.
xx
There is a blaring siren descending the stairs behind her as she runs down them, stumbling at the end and catching herself on the railing before she completely collapses. Her leg is on fire, and her skin feels like it is covered in spiderwebs, the drug slowly, slowly, slowly working its way out of her system. It leaves her wanting to get on hands and knees and crawl at points with the way it wraps around her, tugging her toward the ground.
(Not good, get up, focus, focus.)
The alarm means that someone has found the bloodbath she's left in the prison cell, which turned out to be one of those metal-lined bomb shelters built right in the middle of a laboratory. She has been lucky so far, coming across few other people and avoiding them just in time. That won't last, though. It's never that easy.
Right now, though, that isn't important. She'll take care of that when they arrive, coming to put her back into a cage or to launch her into space or to put a bullet in her brain.
Right now, she is bleeding; there is a long serrated tear in the back of her thigh that she's not sure how she got, and everything is starting to go a little bit to the right, melting out of reach. She had stopped long enough to tear a long strip of her shirt off, wrapping it around her thigh and knotting it with shaking fingers, but the thin fabric has already soaked through red. When she looks behind her, she can see drips of it on the stairs, breadcrumbs saying, look, I'm right here, come and finish the job.
There is no time to change the bandage. There isn't even really time to stand here like this, gasping for breath like a Balamb cod as she holds onto the railing.
Cure, she breathes, and this time, the spell makes it to the bare edges of her wound before it shatters apart. The adrenaline that has fueled her this far is ebbing away the longer she spends wandering the impossible corridors of the building, where staircases lead to dead-ends. There is no clearly marked exit sign, not here.
Glancing out a window reveals a fall of at least five stories. Jumping is out of the question, unless one of the innumerable rooms happens to contain a parachute. A rattle of the window reveals that it's locked and painted shut, anyway.
Any moment, any moment.
That is when she expects to die, because Quistis Trepe doesn't know if she can go through another battle in the state that she is in, superhuman manifestation or not.
"Come on," she whispers, pushing herself up from her half-slump in the window alcove, "now you have to walk, Quistis."
She limps forward, and then flattens herself nearly immediately against the wall as voices come from the t-junction that she has just reached. They are accompanied by the sound of running, and two men in faded fatigues, the mark of home-grown rebellion, turn the corner, guns at the ready.
(You have no choice.)
Quistis pushes herself out of her hiding-hole and grabs the closest one around the neck. The crack of vertebrae echoes even above the siren, but there is no time to dwell on that. She lifts the gun from his dead hand before he can drop it and brings it up firing, putting two black holes in the other soldier's chest, and then one right between his eyes.
There is a radio squawking on one of the dead men's chests, and Quistis fumbles for the power button, knocking it into silence before her position is given away.
She takes his weapon, too, checking the safety and stuffing it awkwardly in the waistband of her jeans, for lack of better options. A quick rifle of their pockets brings forth a few gil and a butterfly knife. No potions, though, not that she really expected it. Potions are expensive.
It's not the arsenal she would like, and it's certainly not Save the Queen, but she feels a little bit better.
Now you have to escape, Quistis.
She stumbles down the hallway, feeling like she's making more noise than a herd of Mesmerizes, and when she sees the service elevator, it is the most wonderful thing she has ever laid eyes on. The carriage opens with a pleasant ding, allowing her into a space big enough to fit a grand piano in, and when she presses her finger on the button for the first floor, the doors slide shut just as easily.
Maybe she should've gotten off at two. That might've been the smarter choice, although she can't really recall why. It doesn't matter. She presses her hand against the back of her leg, trying to staunch some of the blood flowing freely.
The elevator descends.
xx
Fujin's directions put him in the neighborhood of the right warehouse just as a SeeD team is rolling up in a gleaming black vehicle that screams, bomb me, I'm the enemy.
Seifer rolls the bike to a stop right alongside the SeeD car, studying the team as they pile out. He knows most of them on sight- Chesterly, Evans- but it's Rai who surprises him the most, his voice booming out from behind the small group as they stop and stare at Seifer.
"Hey, what the hell, ya' know-"
Seifer flicks them a lazy salute, keeping an eye on Evans, who's already reaching for her radio. "Xu said there was a party around here." He digs out his phone. "I was invited, before anyone tries to shoot me."
Evans snatches the cell phone out of his hand and looks at the message, signed with the authorization code of their dear commander. It's as good as a direct order, and Seifer knows they know this, because Evans eventually holds out his phone and nods. "He's clear."
"Fantastic. Now, anyone have a gun I can borrow?"
The entire team is bristling with weapons, and he would murder for Hyperion right now.
-nowyouhavetorun-
Raijin is handing him a weapon when Quistis' voice shoves its way into his brain. Seifer snatches the gun out of his friend's hand and takes off running, Fujin on his heels and Raijin just behind, and if the rest of them want to come, that's their perogative.
I'm coming, he thinks as hard as he can. It shouldn't work- this shouldn't be possible, not by any stretch of the imagination- but she is back in his head, and her voice is faint:
Hurry.
xx
The elevator opens onto an empty corridor. Down the hall, though, she can hear people, many of them, screaming into phones and at each other. Her welcoming committee, all waiting for her arrival.
(You can do this.)
Well, if the voice in her head has any ideas...
The roiling sensation in her chest slams into her and Quistis thinks she might throw up with the force of heat rushing upward. The sensation leaves her fingers tingling and her ears ringing. One last burst of adrenaline, then, she supposes. Or something else.
(You have one chance.)
Distantly, she is aware that someone is shouting at her, that the voices are coming closer, and Quistis keeps moving forward, the gun held out in front of her like a shield. People are advancing, a great mass of them, all reaching for her, all wanting her blood.
The tingling intensifies, burning now, flames licking up her veins and chasing away the cold still lingering there. Her arm is on fire... her whole body is, it feels like.
She pulls the trigger of the gun once, twice, three times, and still the crowd does not scatter.
The corridor is expanding, melting, collapsing. She's losing too much blood already for them to take any more.
(Three.)
She has a glimpse of his face, his perfect face, before it disappears. Is this it, then? The last time she'll ever see him? Not even time for a goodbye. I'm sorry, she thinks, I'm so sorry.
Quistis fires again, again, and the chamber clicks empty. She throws the gun aside, pulls the second from her waistband. Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
(Two.)
And their hands are on her, grabbing her, ripping the weapon out of her fingers, but her skin is burning hot, too hot to hold onto. They are shouting at her, something about revenge, murder, all the misery she has caused. She is weary of hearing some other girl's problems blamed on her.
Quistis Trepe closes her eyes.
(One.)
xx
They are two blocks away when the warehouse explodes, and all Seifer hears is, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-