Chapter Nineteen
Nadia frowned as she tried to make out what was ahead of them in the dark. The garage's windows were entirely boarded up; the few shafts of sunlight that made their way through holes made by time and weather provided precious little illumination. Stubbing her toe on a discarded two-by-four, she growled quietly to herself. Apparently the extra materials had just been left lying around. She guided Thomas around this initial obstacle by the shoulder, still concerned about his health. His fit of vomiting in the washroom had been worrying enough, but even now she could hear him having to stop to take a few deep breaths once in a while. He wasn't even expressing how dangerous it was to come wandering into an unfamiliar place following a man they could only hope was Orion. It was obvious that he was ill, but he was neither complaining nor backing down; she felt that a strange little part of herself was silently pleased by his determination to help her see this meeting through.
Her eyes were adjusting to the deep twilight of the room now and she was having more success at avoiding the forgotten leftovers of whoever boarded the garage up. Now able to see further ahead, she wondered where exactly Orion planned to reveal himself amongst all of this clutter. It seemed to her that one spot would be just as bad as another, so why be picky? Sighing to herself, she realized she had gotten ahead of her friend and waited for him to catch up. Placing a hand on his shoulder when he did, she let him stop for a minute to catch his breath.
"Look, I know I keep asking this, but are you really sure you're all right?" she asked, unable to hide the concern in her voice.
She saw the faint flash of his teeth in the dark, but somehow knew the smile was forced. "Yeah," he panted. "I think it's passing. Not sure what it was, though, just felt so weak. Some kind of heat stroke, maybe. Or maybe that nervous breakdown I was trying to avoid."
She gave her panting friend's shoulder a squeeze. "Well, hang in there. We have to be near the centre of the garage by now; Orion has to be here somewhere."
"Sounds... sounds good," he gasped, doing his best to show her he was all right by preceding her.
He did not make it. As he passed her by, on ground she had just walked over and knew to be clear, he abruptly toppled over. Feeling panic brush her concern, she went to his side immediately, propping his head up and off of the pavement where he had struck it. She noticed immediately that he had not raised his arms to block his fall, and felt the warm, sticky wetness of blood on her fingers.
"Thomas?!?" She winced involuntarily at the hysteric quality of her voice, but didn't much care for appearances just now.
He groaned, sounding groggy but conscious. "Ow."
"Okay, you're awake, that's good," she heard herself starting to babble and took a deep breath. "What's the matter? I know you didn't trip; there wasn't anything there to trip on."
"I don't know, exactly," she could hear a note of uncertainty in his voice, the sort that meant he had noticed something weird was going on. "It was like my legs went numb and I just... fell."
"Numb?" she confirmed, reposition a hand to his leg to give it a squeeze. "Is it all right now?"
"Not really, no," he admitted. "I can't feel my right leg. I can feel something on my left one, but it's going numb, too."
She felt the blood draining from her face. This was bad, seriously bad. Her friend couldn't feel his legs and she had no idea what to do. An ambulance couldn't get all the way in here, though, that was for sure. "Okay, um... do you think you could stand if I helped you? We could get you out of here and call an ambulance?"
His breathing was getting heavier, now, and he gasped involuntarily as he answered. "Not sure that... that'll work, Nadia. I don't... feel very well. It's getting harder... to breathe, let alone... move."
"Thomas, you have to tell me what I have to do. Is this some kind of condition? An illness you have that you didn't mention? I promise, no matter what it is I won't be mad at you for not telling me, that isn't important right now."
She almost started crying when she heard how hard it was for him to force words from his mouth. "I don't... know. Never... happened to me... before. S'getting hard... t'talk."
Very near the brink of total panic, Nadia put her head in her hands and tried to remember something, anything, that she had ever heard about addressing these kinds of situations. Nothing came to her. Not one single, solitary fact. Her friend was having an attack, or going into a coma, or dying, or something and she had no idea what to do except sit there in the dark and listen to it happen. No, no, no! This is all wrong; I should be doing something! She felt the fabric of her purse's strap being embedded into her skin from the strength of her grip and abruptly remembered her phone. Of course!
Galvanized into action, she retrieved her phone from the bag and placed her purse under Thomas' head, hoping it would serve well enough as a cushion. She put her hand against his face as comfortingly as she could. "Thomas, I want you to concentrate on breathing, all right? Don't worry about anything else. I'm going to go for help, my cellphone has no reception in here but I think I can dislodge some of the boards covering the window. I won't be far away, but I have to call an ambulance so I can concentrate on getting you out of here."
He managed a nod, but did not attempt to speak; she actually preferred this considering how ragged his breathing had become. He needed the oxygen more than her ears did. Standing and picking her way across the room as quickly as she could, she picked out the spot with the largest sunbeam as the best place to begin. Reaching it, she put her phone in her pocket and tried to pry the aged wood free with her hands, but succeeded only in scraping her skin raw against the material. Ignoring the dull pain, she felt around for a piece of anything on the ground and felt a discarded bit of timber lying nearby. Hefting it up to the best of her ability, she struck it against the boards. Once. Twice. Three times. Her hands were screaming at her now and she could barely lift the thing, but she was not going to allow her friend to die without doing everything she possibly could. Growling after a fourth hit yielded no visible result, she put the wood on her shoulder and threw herself into the impact as well. The boards gave way and she fell forward, dropping the wood in time to shield her face from the concrete floor before she hit.
Groaning from the bruises and aches besieging her, Nadia forced herself up. She could barely see in the sudden blaze of light flooding the interior of the garage, but she retrieved her phone from her pocket and flipped it open; her fingers knew the way over the numbers even if she couldn't see them. Dialling 9-1-1, she moved her thumb to the call button but felt a hand fasten around her wrist. Her hand was jerked back and the phone snatched from her grasp before she could press her thumb down. She was released and left to stagger back against the wall below the now-open window space. Regaining her footing, she drew herself up to give whoever had interfered a piece of her mind.
A man stood before her; silently closing her phone, but keeping it in his grasp. He was dressed entirely in black, weathered clothes, as though he had been wearing the same shoes, pants and shirt for a long, long time. The laces of his shoes were threadbare and the material no longer shone. His pants may have been proper slacks, once, but the material had long ago lost its crisp, ironed look; the cuffs around his ankles were frayed and, if he had any, she would not be surprised to find holes in his pockets. His shirt looked like it had once had sleeves, but they had been removed to t-shirt lengths with scissors and without a care given to maintaining the now-unravelling remains, judging by their present state.
His face was obscured to her, as he stood far enough back that the light made it to his chest and no higher, but her gaze was frozen on it nevertheless. She could not see the details of his face past the shadowy curtain drawn closed on all that was above his neck. No details, that was, except for one, but it was enough to deaden the tongue-lashing she had been prepared to give him before it ever passed her lips. He had red eyes; she could see them even through the dark shrouding his face. She didn't know if they were catching the light from the su
n behind her or if they actually glowed on their own, but they were definitely red. Almost the colour of blood, she caught herself thinking. The harsh colour gave his gaze an intense, glaring quality that she was not accustomed to, but the urgency of the situation was re-asserting itself. Giving herself a shake, she took a deep breath.
"So you're Orion, then, I presume? I know I asked you to be here so we could chat, but I need to call an ambulance for my friend, first, so I'd really like you to give me back my phone now."
The eyes narrowed slightly, though she could not tell if they were annoyed, amused, or studying her. Some combination of all three, perhaps? Remaining silent, he held the phone up in one hand.
Nadia allowed herself a breath of relief. "Thank you," she acknowledged, reaching for the phone.
Her fingers were inches from the device when it was suddenly snatched back and then thrown aside; she saw it glint in the window's light before vanishing further into the sun-deprived space. Curling her fingers into a fist, she glared at the man and marched past him without a second glance. It was easier to make her way through the garage now that there was a source of light available, at least. Finding the phone as quickly as she could, she paused for a moment as she saw a fresh stain of red upon the concrete, with her purse lying beside it. Left from Thomas' injury, she realized, looking around for her friend and not seeing him.
Frowning, she picked up her purse and turned; she was startled badly as she came face to face with the crimson-eyed man. Away from the glaring light and deeper shadows at her makeshift window, her eyes provided her a face to study. His features were fine, almost delicate, but the fact he was a very short step above gaunt likely contributed to that. Remarkably pale skin sat snug around his cheekbones and chin, sinking slightly in at the cheeks without giving him an overly skeletal appearance. His hair, the darkest shade of black Nadia had ever seen, had a wild quality to it, with strands of it stuck out at odd angles from his head. His bangs brushed the bridge of his nose, but never kept the icy claws of his gaze from sinking into Nadia's heart whenever her eyes met his.
Retreating a step or two for the sake of her personal space, she glared at him. "Where is Thomas? He was in no shape to be moving on his own, so you must have done something."
The man's silence was rapidly losing its novelty and she felt her stress turning to anger. When he calmly strode to a pile of wood to sit down she had to resist the urge to throw her purse at the back of his head. Settling on his chosen seat, he looked at her and continued to say nothing.
"Answer me, damn you!" she shouted, no longer concerned with preserving any illusions of levelheadedness. Seeing that Orion would be of no help whatsoever, she turned away to resume her search of the room. Thomas had to be here somewhere; she had only been away from his side for a minute or two at most.
"Nadia."
She froze in mid-step. "Thomas? Is that you?"
The response came, but it was soft. "Yeah, but... I don't feel right, Nadia."
Inhaling deeply to silence her ragged breathing, she tried to detect her friend's location by sound. "Keep talking to me Thomas, I'll find you. What's wrong?"
She could hear the panic and fear in his voice now. "I... I can't feel anything anymore. Not my arms, not my legs, not even my chest. I can't feel myself breathe, Nadia. What's wrong with me?"
Choking down her own fears, she did her best to sound confident for his benefit. "I don't know yet, but I'll find a way to help just as soon as I find you."
Confusion added itself to the mix of emotions in his voice. "Find me? I can see you. You're close... I think? Am I hallucinating? I don't know anymore..."
An icy feeling settled onto Nadia's shoulders, quickly descending the column of her spine and coming to rest in her toes. She felt herself, wooden, begin to turn. Facing herself back toward Orion, she saw him sitting, just as he had been. Her gaze travelled from his worn shoes to his weathered pants, then past the frayed edges of his shirt and up the ghostly, smooth skin of his neck. Resting on his face, she felt a lump form in her throat, though she wouldn't know any better than a stranger would if it was from impending tears or repressed nausea.
Thomas' left eye, nose and mouth were on Orion's face. The single blue eye was roving about, its panic obvious, as it tried in vain to understand what it was seeing. His mouth was a hard line that spoke of barely suppressed hysteria. But the heartbreak she would have felt to see her friend in such a state was shot in mid-stride as her gaze wandered across the bridge of his nose; to the encroaching expanse of pale skin surrounding the ghastly orb that sat, mockingly, behind its veil of unkempt hair on the right side of his face, even as Orion's features slowly assimilated Thomas'.
Nadia rubbed at her eyes, but the impossible sight remained. Her reasoning cried out against what they told her she saw, but it did not change. And when she turned to her heart for its opinion, the surge of emotions swept aside what reserves of strength she had left. Feeling herself beginning to fall, she was very nearly relieved, welcoming the simple bliss of unconsciousness with open arms.
In Icarus' Shadow Page 32