There were at least a dozen Beasts, all dead, blood splattered all over the place. The floor was covered in their bodies, but there was something else, too: the unmistakably familiar, dark-brown, tattooed arm with the long scar, protruding from under them.
“Oh my God…” she whispered and dashed inside. Chad froze in the doorway, his face shocked, while she was storming through the room, throwing aside the bodies as if they weighed no more than dolls.
Marco lay on his back in a big pool of blood, his head turned to the side. His eyes were closed, and he still had a knife in his right hand, as if he was stabbing someone when he lost his consciousness. There was a big wound in his side, and blood was still seeping from it. He didn’t look alive at all, except for his chest that was rising and falling faintly.
“No-no-no-no-no…” Pain murmured, kneeling by his side, turning his face to her and slapping his cheeks – he didn’t stir. Her hair fell into her face, and she pushed it back hastily, leaving a bloody smear across the cheek.
Chad watched her from the threshold, feeling strangely hesitant, distant, as if he were miles away. There was only one feeling, deep, deep inside him, the feeling of uselessness, inevitability. He knew that he couldn’t help, that nothing could be done, and this feeling just didn’t let him move from his spot.
“Pain…” he said quietly, but she didn’t seem to hear him. She was gathering Marco’s great torso into her arms, pulling him off the floor carefully, and mumbling something to herself.
“We’re gonna get you out of here…”
Chad could barely hear her against the persistent buzzing sound in his head. It couldn’t be happening, not because of him, not to Marco. Not to her.
Somehow he unhitched himself off the spot and hurried inside, his sneakers smearing blood on the floor. He glanced down and winced as his stomach churned. Don’t stop, don’t look, go.
“He’s breathing, help me lift him up!” Pain shouted, turning to shoot him a haunted glare.
It stopped him right there, pinning him to the floor again. And then he glanced at Marco – and froze all over.
“No, he doesn’t,” he said without thinking, surprised at how distant and flat his own voice sounded. He stared at Marco’s still chest, and his blood seemed to slowly turn cold while Pain frowned and looked down incredulously.
“What?? He just- ” she broke off as she saw that Chad was right. “NO!!” she shrieked, and Chad jerked back because the air around her exploded into a seething sea the moment she realized that it really was too late.
She clutched at Marco’s vest desperately, her fingers white with strain and red from the blood, leaning over him as a sob broke out of her chest.
“Marco!! Marco, no!” she was crying, and Chad could only stand behind her as if glued to the spot, his mind blank and his head full of white fog.
She lowered Marco back to the floor and began to give him CPR, hands shaking, eyes glistening and frantic, tears falling on his face as she gave him mouth-to-mouth. But her movements were sure as she started to press on his chest, hard and rhythmically. Half a minute passed, and nothing changed, so she went on all over again until there was a definite crack of his ribs which Chad could hear even from a few steps away.
“I broke…” she exhaled, stopping. “I broke something!” she cried, touching Marco’s face, as if apologizing, as if he could hear her.
Chad could only stare. He couldn’t move or talk or think of anything that he should have been doing at the moment, some right things to save a dying man. It wasn’t just the shock of the situation – it was the glowing, the sparkling mist around Pain and Marco, mixing and pulsing and overlapping each other layers of air that kept him mesmerized. The room was filled with faint clicking, the sound of static, the scream of the disturbed electric field. And it was hot, so hot inside.
Everything seemed so unreal, Marco dead, Pain sitting on the floor and rocking from side to side, holding his head in her lap, her incoherent murmuring mixing with sobs. This room, full of light and blood, grief and tears, it couldn’t be real. Chad grabbed the wall as the ground shifted under his feet. It was just like his dreams, he realized.
Time slowed down as everything around him went whitish and blurry. Just turning his head seemed like an enormous effort now, but he looked at Pain again, wondering about the glowing. When the girls fought, when he watched them practice, the effect their power produced was almost invisible. The shimmering was everywhere now, but most of it was still shrouding Pain and that part of Marco that she was hugging, like a little girl holding on to her giant stuffed bear, frustrated over some childish injustice. Why would she glow? She wasn’t fighting or flying or healing…
Chad’s head snapped up when a realization struck him.
And then he saw Marco take a deep, long breath.
“Pain!”
Everything went back to clarity, and along with that, he was able to move again, darting across the room to her.
“Pain, look!! Look at this!”
She didn’t seem to have heard him. Her face was buried in her arms along with Marco’s head, her back rising and falling as she wept, sitting in a pool of blood. So Chad grabbed her shoulder and shook her, trying to break the spell that she was under.
“Pain, he’s breathing again! We should bring him down to the infirmary!” he exclaimed.
For a moment nothing happened. She was still crying, still rocking to the sides, and he felt helpless. Just like in a dream, when he spoke and no one heard him. But then she paused and raised her head. Tipping it back slowly, she looked at him with nothing but sheer pain and numbness behind her eyes, wide and reddish-pink, black smudges around them like a raccoon’s. It was unbearable, seeing her like this, with her look glassy and her face a mask of grief. Chad swallowed against a lump in his throat and raised his shaking hand, pointing down at Marco.
“He’s breathing,” he whispered, and finally she looked down, surprise sparkling in her eyes before she averted them from Chad’s face.
She blinked and felt another tear roll off her face and fall on Marco’s chest. It heaved up and fell back down, slowly but steadily. Her mind stiffened as she took in the picture before her eyes. It was as if time itself stopped or even ceased to exist. How is it possible?
“What?”
And as a rush of gratitude and amazement flooded over her, she was already on her feet, seizing Marco’s leather vest and hauling him upright. His massive body overbalanced her, but Chad was already there, propping up Marco’s other side. She had to move, to hurry, to catch this opportunity before it was too late.
As they burst through the doorway, a loud crash resounded off the walls to their left. One of the doors banged open, and a big shape flew out of it and slammed into the wall. Jane showed up from the room then, and in a heartbeat her two swords sank in the Beast’s chest. She spotted Pain and drew her swords back.
“Hey, you found him!” she exclaimed and hurried to them. Behind her, Ryan walked out of the room and followed her like an oversized shadow, dark and silent.
“Yes!” Pain called out, a little out of breath. “Can we go through the window?” she asked Chad and saw him shake his head.
“Absolutely not, the Beasts are still there,” he answered, readjusting his hold on Marco.
“Okay, then it’s the staircase,” Pain said and pulled him forward again, but Ryan blocked her path, sheathing his swords.
“Let me carry him,” he said to Pain, and she looked up hesitantly. His voice was even, but his expression was strained with worry, and he looked down at her intently with glistening eyes.
“I’m good,” she answered without thinking.
“It’s not safe on the stairs, and it’s easier for us to carry him,” he objected, and after a moment she let go of Marco unwillingly and took out her katana as Ryan took her place, sliding his arm under Marco’s.
“Come on, we should hurry,” she said and ran to the exit.
Ryan and Chad followed her, and Jane wa
s close behind them, both of her swords drawn out, her eyes alerted and focused on the door.
Chad thought it couldn’t get any heavier, until they reached the huge heap in the hall. Not wasting time on picking his way through the bodies, Ryan took off the floor, carrying Marco upward with him, and Chad leaped, but it wasn’t the same as flying by himself. He gasped, putting all his strength in this short leap and feeling all his muscles strain in tight cords. They landed on the other side – Ryan softly like a big cat, Chad hitting the floor hard and almost crushed under Marco’s weight.
“Carry him here,” he heard Ryan say and saw him raise his free hand to his head, “not there,” he pointed at his arm. “Then it’ll get easier.”
Chad nodded, trying to understand what the hell did that mean, but already hurrying after Pain, who paused to hold the door open for them. The staircase was empty, but still, he felt his senses prickle. If they got attacked, it could mean death for Marco. He doubted that any amount of Beasts could stand against Pain at the moment, but any delay would do them no good.
Pain didn’t waste any time and just leaped over the flight of stairs, and behind her, Ryan rose into the air, descending over them like a phantom. Relying on Pain’s vigilance and protection, Chad focused on helping Ryan so he wouldn’t be a burden rather than an aid. They landed on the square of concrete, and Pain was already at the next flight, holding up her sword in case some of their enemies would show up. She saw only a couple of Ghosts, who trotted down the stairs and didn’t even give her a second glance as she landed behind them.
Four floors down, and they hadn’t met anybody else. By the time they reached the ground floor door, it really did get easier for Chad to carry Marco. He couldn’t see if he was still breathing and couldn’t bring himself to feel for the pulse, either. It was too scary, and what if there was none? Would it mean he had to stop? No, absolutely no.
Pain slammed her fist into the door, and the sound vibrated through its metal surface and resounded off the walls like thunder.
“Open the door!” she shouted, and her voice sounded even more nervous than before.
Chad looked closer and saw that her hands were shaking badly. She curled her fingers into tensed fists and stomped on the spot, unable to stand still while the guard shouted something on the other side and opened the lock.
The door shuddered, and she jerked it to her, swinging it open at once and striding forward. There was a great gathering of Ghosts around the entrance, and she pushed them away impatiently to make room for Ryan and Chad. Gazes followed her as she walked – surprised, alarmed, worried, curious – but she didn’t see them, didn’t see who was there or how many. She didn’t really hear the exclamations of shock as Ryan and Chad walked through the door, carrying Marco in their arms, but some of the words seemed to get stuck in her head as she joined Ryan, walking with them to the far wall. Bleeding, injured, bad, cold, dead, impossible… She passed a hand over her face, and it came out wet and bloody. Over Marco’s drooping head, she caught Chad’s worried glance and turned away. He shouldn’t have seen her like this, she thought remotely. None of his business.
As they made their way through the corridor of astonished faces, Chad could feel every single gaze on him. But most of all, he could see how they stared at Pain in her ragged gear, with her face streaked with tears. They all were talking at once, muttering, questioning: What happened? Is he dead? Is it his blood? He saw someone nudge his comrade and mutter, “So she can cry, after all,” and had to hold back the overwhelming urge to jump on him and tear his head off. He gave the Ghost a blazing glare, but he wasn’t looking at him.
The infirmary door was already open a few steps away, and they picked up their pace, seeing it. A figure hovered by the opening in the wall – Doc, he guessed before he could really see him. Up close he saw that Doc was a little taller than him, had dark hair shaved close to his scalp, and looked about thirty years old. His sharp, predatory features were strangely softened by his dark-brown eyes that seemed to hold a lifetime of sadness in them.
“To the far wall, there’s a free bed,” he instructed them as they crowded in the doorway.
The room was wide, with high ceilings, just like the floor itself. There were rows and rows of hospital beds, and they all were taken. Nurses scurried from one to another, their young faces stressed, their white coats blotched with blood. There were two rows of chairs, too, and most of them were occupied. More staring eyes as Ryan pulled him to an empty bed in the corner, and Chad tried not to look at the wounded, but it was difficult. The white lights were sobering, and under their hot blaze he suddenly felt more focused; or maybe it was the smell of bleach that cleared his head at once.
They lowered Marco onto the bed carefully, and without thinking, Chad glanced down at his sweater. It was soaked through with blood, an ugly vinous stain all over his left side, and instantly he wished he didn’t do it. As Doc approached the bed, he stepped back to make room for him and the sisters.
“What happened?” Doc asked, putting on his glasses and placing two fingers on Marco’s throat.
“I’m not sure, but it looked like he was stabbed in his side, and his head is wounded, too,” Pain said in an uneven voice. “When I found him, he was still breathing, but then he stopped. He started breathing again after a couple of- ”
“She made him do that,” Chad interrupted.
“What?? Shut up,” she snapped.
“Who’s that?” Doc asked, not looking at any of them, his voice distracted once he got to see Marco’s wounds.
“Nobody, forget him,” Pain said, shoving Chad behind her back.
He rolled his eyes, but found her hand and laced his fingers through hers, unable to stand so close and not touch her. She seemed to be too distracted to pull away.
“There was blood around his head, and I think I broke his rib,” her voice broke on the last word, and with her free hand, she grabbed Marco’s forearm.
“Hardly the first time…” Doc murmured as he examined Marco’s head, turning it carefully and palpating it with his gloved fingers.
Black patterns of tattoos showed through the rubber, and Chad couldn’t tear his eyes off them. A nurse came to his side, carrying scissors. She cut Marco’s shirt and tore it away from the wound. Finally, Doc grunted.
“But his head is alright,” he said.
Pain stared at him blankly.
“What??”
“There’s nothing wrong with it.” Doc switched his attention to the real wound. “There’s a big hole in his side, but it’s not deep and the internal organs probably weren’t harmed. It has already closed up a little. He might have learned how to heal himself, finally,” Doc gave the sisters a half-smile. “We still have some tests to do, but I hope he’ll be alright.”
“But…” Pain was astonished. All the emotions along with all her strength seemed to have drained from her, just like before, when she thought Marco was dead. “There was blood around his head, so much of it…”
“Then it wasn’t his blood,” he cut her off. “We have enough of his type here. Go have some coffee. I don’t have time to deal with fainting right now, and you look really pale.” He smiled wryly and hurried them all out.
Mechanically, she turned and stepped in the exit direction, but her knees just buckled under her. The ground shifted, and then Chad was at her side, his arm coming around her and holding her tightly against him. It was oddly comforting at the moment. This way she got to walk out of the infirmary on her own so the others wouldn’t see how bad she really was. Chad didn’t attempt to take her in his arms, and she was grateful for that, sagging against him and letting him drag her to the door and out of it. Everything was spinning before her eyes – the white lamps of the infirmary, chairs, Ghosts, gazing at them and muttering to each other. Words, words, words, there were so many, and they made it so hard for her to stay there.
By the time they reached the row of chairs outside the infirmary, her eyes were gazing into space. For a moment Chad
got scared for her: could it be okay that she looked so pale, so lifeless? Or was it some kind of a severe shock that needed to be dealt with? She lost a lot of energy in that room, could she have lost too much…?
He made himself take a deep breath. Everything was going to be alright, and she just needed some rest. With wooden fingers, he unbuckled the straps of her back sheath and took off the katana, putting it on a chair. His other hand supported her as she stood numbly and stared somewhere at his chest. He sank into a chair and pulled her into his lap, feeling the skin under her disfigured gear, cool and rough under his fingers. So many – he looked down at the cuts that covered her side, back, and thigh, and stifled down a wave of bitterness that threatened to roll on him once again. The skin under the tattered cloth had healed mostly, but there were still lots of red marks, scars, and bruises. He hugged her closer and felt her lean against his chest. She was covered from curious eyes with his arm, and there was no point in fighting it anymore. No one besides him could know that she was crying, quiet and freely, with her back shuddering under his hand as he rubbed it, careful not to touch any of the scratches.
“It’s alright, everything’s alright now,” he whispered, pressing his stubbly chin to her head.
There was a shaking intake of breath against his collarbone, and he slid his left hand over her back, tightening his hold on her, his cheek pressed against her forehead. The sobs were weaker now, the shuddering almost gone. He rocked her in his lap, trying to get rid of the thought that it was just like she did with Marco before, dead, not breathing. She’s going to be okay, she’s going to be okay, he repeated in his mind, but even his inner voice sounded strained and panicked.
Jane stood over him, gazing at Pain with wide worried eyes. Her condition was not unlike her sister, though she didn’t see what happened in that room. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked at it absently. Ryan was close behind her, and she turned and raised her eyes to glance at him. Something glimpsed in his expression, something strong and sad – compassion? Ache? She wasn’t sure. He showed his emotions so rarely, and it was gone in a moment. But he definitely looked shaken, watching Pain and Chad from above.
Sky Ghosts: All for One (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1) Page 29