Chapter XXIV
"Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds, they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material."
–F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Elizabeth
I was somewhere soft and comfy; but not quite heavenly. My body was numb and I could barely hear anything. The only sound I heard was a sound similar to a breathing machine...
My eyes slowly opened to see splotches of color...
Red namely...
Then a person's form could be made out...
And half the person's head...
Wait...
The person only had half a head and the person's strained breathing was the only thing I could hear. His clothes were tattered and he held a syringe in his hand. A.o.D.D. is back from the dead, just like they said!
He filled the syringe with air and with passion stuck it into my IV's and emptied it...
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Hoarse, I screamed myself out of sleep...
"YAY!" Sarah half-screamed, "She's awake!"
"Sarah!" Walker's voice said, "Shut. Up!"
Sarah pouted, crossed her arms and left the room. Thread Walker shook her head and rolled her eyes at the door Sarah slammed in the last parts of her departure,
"Brat." Looking to me she smiled, "How are you feeling?"
I tried to regain my breathing,
"You look paler than yesterday-"
"I'm fine-" I snapped, and tried to get up and get the IV out, "help me take this off."
"Ready to walk around already?" Walker pulled a curtain and peeked through the sun lit windows,
"Ambitious aren't we?"
I stopped for a moment and remembered when Gabriel had said something like that. However, the Memory-Lane was short, and I started at the IV's again.
"How long was I out?"
"A day," she said leaving the window, "not to long darling."
Her Spanish accent always seemed fitting to her,
"Has," I struggled with the IV and finally got it out, and I continued after a sigh of relief, "anymore of your hair fallen out?"
I sensed danger and steel in her once kind voice and gaze,
"I don't know what you're talking about."
She was tacitly holding a knife at my neck saying, 'Don't tell anyone' or 'NEVER happened... got it?'
"Forget I asked," I said as I tried to stand up-
And braced myself on the hospital wall; nearly falling on my face...
"Help?" I groaned out and Walker laughed at me,
"Over ambitious I guess?"
She came over and propped me up and then I wondered aloud,
"I thought my leg was broken!"
"Waya seems to have a healer of some kind, but anyone who visits him, her or it is knocked out for secrecy."
I scrunched my eyes, "Why?"
She shrugged, "Waya's Waya, everything can be a secret sometimes with that guy."
She held out an arm to catch me,
"C'mon let's go."
I hobbled along, my muscles in my leg I had broken a little stiff,
"So..." I started as we made our way down the hallway with everyone's rooms, "how is everything blowing over?"
She breathed a sigh, "It's not over yet; the city is still in half a riot."
Then we heard a muffled shout from the Baron's room,
"No!"
Silent in cautious curiosity we both went to the door. It reminded me of old high-school movies when the two gossips would eavesdrop on the principal and another student. The Baron and Alien were talking,
"Baron," Alien said, "she's not going to be able to continue her education unless she gets a tutor."
"The answer is no." He replied stubbornly.
"Don't let your bad experiences with tutors hinder the edu-"
"The answer's. NO."
"You're going to get. Her. Killed."
There was a long tense silence that followed and the Baron sighed,
"At least give me time to think about it. Get out."
Striding steps came towards the door and it slapped open just after we silently backed up and Alien walked down the hall away from us without a glance back. He exited the hall...
And then Walker's phone began ringing...
It stopped and then the Baron peeked out from the room, confusion on his face which deadpanned along with his voice,
"How much did you hear?"
"Something about Sarah's education I guess?"
His face twitched, "Yeah," he opened the door wider while saying, "I was going to check up on you and have you look to see if AllFall was walking but since your here," he ushered me in, "sit. I have an assignment for you AllFall."
"I'm gonna go." Walker said somewhat pale.
"Are you okay?"
She added before pulling her head out of the room, "Yeah, just-" she tried an explanatory gesture with her hand, "everything."
I read it as, 'I'm going to die soon.' The Baron's shoulders slumped in either guilt or the pain of his newly wed wife being deathly sick. I couldn't tell which, but I don't see how being with the Baron would make hair start falling out. After she left the Baron, bid me to sit in some of his living room chairs, he looked at me a moment and said bitterly,
"Well aren't you getting loads of sensitive information." He didn't expect me, or even wanted me to comment and added, "How are you feeling AllFall? Are you ready for a small assignment?"
I wiggled the leg that I had broken just the other day,
"How small?"
He pulled out a syringe from somewhere...
Great...
I was just trying to get as far away as hell from syringes...
"Headsman is in a chair downstairs, plug him up but read this message to him before you do," he pushed a note toward me and I took it, "I've got an appointment with the Wo Shing Wo that I am going to." He smiled, "Waya will lead you along with the assignments following."
Once he left I was alone in his room, and I saw the boarded up door. It was once a highly ornate door but now boards and plywood were sloppily nailed to it in a ugly and purposefully marring fashion. If I wasn't caught already for snooping I might chance a look in there...
But I looked at the note instead... I was going to be the one reading it after all and after looking at the single sentence I smiled.
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"The Baron says, 'I am your Godfather.'" The Headsman relaxed in relief, blindfolded and relaxed himself into unconsciousness as the needle emptied into his skin.
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"So..." I asked MasterLock, "the Headsman is basically going to do a job for the Wo Shing Wo..."
"So the Baron can earn their trust, I guess."
"You guess?"
She tapped a door in the shut down subways of China; unlocking it,
"Yeah, I guess." She said in her lazy Eyore kind of way.
"Are we going to get any action?" Obsidian Owl said impatiently.
MasterLock groaned, "Your here to keep us out of action."
"I'm anxious as hell."
"Well," I asked for conversation, "haven't we all had to much action these past few days?"
Obsidian's glaring silence was my only reply and MasterLock was to backward to break the awkwardness. I sighed and we continued on,
"Who are you texting MasterLock?"
Her head snapped up as if she were caught unawares,
"Nobody."
I smiled and glanced back to see if Obsidian was out of earshot,
"Who are you texting!"
And I tried to snatch her phone from her hands but failed. However I was able to see the contact name, and some of the emojis and words sent. This included the word 'love', plenty of the '😏' emoji and the contact which was simply another emoji: 👽...
I gasped and MasterLock fumed,
"Good gawd! What the hell girl!? You really have a talent for getting into other people's business ya know that? You're worse than Walker..."
"But Alien's worse?" I tried to deflect playfully and she blushed,
"Your right, WAY worse."
"Don't worry," I lied, "your secret is safe with me."
She rolled her eyes, "What-ever."
"Is that it?" Obsidian said from behind us.
We were sent to find an operational train ready for Headsman's evac, and then transport the Baron to our evac after he received his 'payment'. I quote payment due to the fact that the rumor (which MasterLock told me) was that the Baron might get a favor in return instead of a few million.
"So..."
"That's it." MasterLock said and she climbed into the caboose of the three car train and tapped the doors leading to the cab.
"What now?" Obsidian asked.
"We wait." I said.
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