7

“Deqar!”

I’m at his side in an instant.

“Quickly, grab his legs,” Amethyst instructs.

Together, we manage to lift him as gently as possible onto a bullet hole ridden desk. He’s in so much pain he can’t even scream. Blood has soaked through his entire lower left side, his legs kick and jitter, his eyes are nearly rolling back into his head.

“Help me get his shirt off,” she continues. Together, we wince through his gargled screams and pull the blood soaked fabric off him. Varan and now Deqar, bleeding out before me. Varan however, didn’t have Amethyst.

She opens her med kit next to his head and pulls out what looks like a needle and thread. “Lorick! Get over here!” she hollers.

The burly, curly haired man tears his eyes away from Janns’s dead body and shuffles over to us.

“Get his legs. Kallix hold down his arms,” she tells us, not even looking up.

I do as instructed pinning his arms down with my weight.

Amethyst begins, and with it comes a blood curling scream. Deqar convulses, and blood and foam start to bubble from his mouth. I clench down harder on his thrashing arms and look at the floor.

Lorick jolts as Deqar’s knee hits his gut.

To my amazement, I see Sekera pulling herself off the ground and hobbling over to us, helping Lorick.

Don’t die. Don’t die you son of a bitch. Please don’t freaking die on me. Not now. I can’t take it. You’re all I freaking got left, you know that? I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick to you all your damn life. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that the one person who would stick by this whole time was right in front of my god damn nose. Just please don’t freaking die.

Deqar’s eyes roll up into the back of his head, and his arms fall limp against the table.

“Shit!” Amethyst cries. Her fist slams down on the metal.

“Is he dead?” I ask.

“What’s happened?” asks Sekera.

“Out!” she screams. “Everybody get out! Now!”

In the short time I’ve known her, I’ve learnt that doing what she says saves lives. I sling Sekera’s arm over my shoulder, and the three of us move through the rubble, stepping over dead bodies and make for the door.

I know it’s my messed up brain doing tricks on me, but I swear I saw Janns’s cold, dead eyes look at me. As soon as I looked back, they flick away.

~

“Do you want to try and walk?” I ask.

Sekera snorts. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She gazes at the dirty bandage around her leg. Her nose twitches.

“Well you got any cards then?” I ask, more out of exasperation than anything else. “I’m bored as god damn hell!” I clamber to my feet and pace around the hangar.

“Can you relax? It’s not even been two hours yet,” she replies coolly, glancing at the analog clock that I practically tore from the wall out of rage.

“Why the hell won’t she let us in?” I kick a dismounted tire that’s nearly as tall as I am.

Sekera shrugs. “Better not to think about it. Amethyst knows what she’s doing.”

“Yeah I’ve learnt that,” I mumble.

Lorick grunts, pushing into his fiftieth pushup.

I don’t like the pig faced brute, but he might’ve saved Deqar’s life. Probably mine too. “Hell are you working out for?”

He finishes the set before collapsing to his side, panting. “Blax always said that we got to stay fit, even in the most dire situations. Going to kill Blax is a pretty dire situation.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Sekera calls, shifting her position. “Who said anything about killing him?”

“We can’t just leave this! He’ll probably come looking for us anyways,” Lorick continues. “If he knows that we know, he’ll kill us. Better we kill him first.”

“Amethyst isn’t going to like that,” I mutter. “She practically worships him.”

“Used to,” Sekera intercepts. “She’s practically worshipped people before and then turned her back on them like the flip of a switch.”

I hide my flinch with a fake sneeze. I wasn’t the only one she told about that? “No matter,” I continue, “I don’t want her on my bad side. Anybody but her.”

“She won’t be. Don’t worry, we’ll…” her voice fades away as we hear a door creak open.

Lorick and I are on our feet in an instant, bolting towards the door and forgetting about Sekera’s injury.

Amethyst stands in the doorway. Blood drips off her fingers and stains her shirt. Her jaw is tight and her eyes are stoic.

I swallow. “What… happened.”

Lorick’s finger’s are twitching. Sekera is craning her neck to see what’s happening. The left side of my lip starts to bleed. I hadn’t even noticed that I was biting it.”

Amethyst takes a deep breath. “He’s… alive.”

We make eye contact for a brief moment. As usual, I’m the only one brave enough to ask. “Will he stay alive?”

Slowly, her chin tilts up, and then back down. It takes me a moment to process that she nodded.

“So then what’s the problem?”

“He’s not moving from here anytime soon.”

“He’s paralyzed?” I gawk.

She shakes her head quickly. “No. He’s ok. I stitched him up. The bastard is luckier than should be physically possible. It missed mostly everything, but his liver is slightly torn. Nothing he won’t recover from, thanks to the medical facilities, but he’ll need to watch what he ingests. He’s not moving from here for a weak. I’m afraid moving him might mess up something.”

“Then we go without him,” Lorick decides, pushing hair from his face.

“Are you insane?” Sekera calls. “He’s just been shot, and you want to leave him here alone? What if there are still other surviving enemies?”

“So what? You want to wait until Blax pulls up here with Garner, Flack and Yurall? They’ll be fully loaded, ready to reinforce the assault. They won’t be very happy once they find out that we’re just sitting around. I’m going back and I’m going to kill Blax. What he’s done… the way he’s manipulated us… it’s unacceptable. He’s going to die because of it. I’ll kill him if I have to. I don’t give a damn if the rest of you come with me.”

“You won’t succeed. Bax will kill you before you can even get into his vicinity. You need somebody who knows him inside and out. Who knows how he thinks, how he acts and moves.”

“Like yourself?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What the hell?” Sekera hollers. “We are not leaving him. No way! Kallix tell them!”

Everybody turns to me. Even Amethyst is looking at me expectantly. I swallow. My saliva tastes like dust.

“Amethyst?” I ask, stalling.

Her brow furrows with thought. “I can hook him up with a makeshift drip. I’ll work something out. He’ll survive on his own until we get back. I’m with Lorick.”

Sekera is incredulous. Her eyes swivel to me like she’s got rabies.

I nod.

“Hell does that mean?” she demands.

“I agree… with Lorick.”

“What?” Sekera, the laughing, colorful haired girl who makes me fluttery inside without making my dick stand, stares at me appalled.

“I’m sorry. It’s the… best move for all of us,” I say. It’s a feeble remark in defense of my shitty actions. I’ve been a good person for a while now. I’m allowed to be shitty for a bit.

“This is hilarious. This is actually hilarious,” Sekera says. She grips the edge of the last tire on the stack and with what looks like an enormous amount of effort pulls herself up. I wince as she hobbles over to me until we’re an inch apart. She looks at me, teary eyed. “You know I thought you were different. I thought that you, unlike everybody else, despite acting like a tough guy all the time, was actually something more. I thought you were brave for all the things you did. I thought you actually cared about the people you love, but you’re just a cowardly, sick, disgusting, selfish piece of shit. You want what’s best for you, and you don’t give a damn about who you hurt! You befriended me because you needed an ally. Someone to watch your back after you ditched Deqar. You’re smart. You’re tactical. You tried on Amethyst and it didn’t work, so you moved to me. Now, you’ve got someone else, so you’re just going to hop onto the next way to get yourself out of all the shit you’ve gotten yourself into.”

My breath is shaky. I close my eyes. “That’s not true,” I manage.

“Yes. Yes, it god damn is, Kallix, and you know it.”

That’s the first time she’s called me by my real name.

“Stand down,” Amethyst orders, stepping between us.

Sekera looks straight up into her eyes. “And who the hell are you to tell me that?”

“You’re military superior. With Janns dead and Blax assumed renegade, I’m your sergeant. So kindly, stand down.”

“With all due respect, sergeant, why don’t you sell your damn body to somebody else instead of the one damn person besides Deqar that I thought was my friend.”

Amethyst’s fists clench. She inhales sharply. “Leave.”

“No.”

By the time the thought of intervening even comes to my mind, Amethyst’s fist has made contact with Sekera’s chest. She sprawls onto the ground with a cry.

“Sekera!”

I dash to her side. She’s crying, shuddering, clawing at her throat and gasping for breath. I prop her head up on my lap, but she pushes me away and tries to get to her feet but falls.

I rush to her again, but her elbow knocks against my forehead.

Amethyst’s eyes are fiery, and her nails dig into her palms.

Lorick looks at the scene through squinted eyes, seemingly unphased.

The knot in my throat tightens as I watch her pathetically scrabble away. I want to help her. I want to get away from Amethyst. I want to hug her and cry. I want to cradle Sekera and tell her that I’m sorry. I want to curl into a ball and dissolve into the soil that’s as arid than my soul.

Amethyst strides away, her long legs carrying her out of the room before I can process. Lorick looks at me, his disgusting, distorted face making my bices twitch with anger.

“Shit. Girls are messed.”

Blood trickles out the side of my mouth. “You’re a… I can’t even think of a curse word to describe you.” The sounds flit out my mouth hollowly.

Lorick shrugs and wipes sweat from his forehead. Is he not scarred? He killed the man he trusted with his life. Does he feel nothing? Is he hollow like me? Am I hollow? Am I even still a shell? Maybe my body is just a host. A host for the virus that is my soul. Sunshine and rainbows.

~

My steps are uneven and cross over each other as I half stagger, half shamble through the hanger. The plastic pillbox drops from my hands and clatters to the floor. A feeble echo sings.

I drop to a knee, barely registering the pain shooting up my thigh. I pick up the box and clutch it tightly in my clammy hands. I reach a rover. One in a line of identical, uniform, clandestine others. My hands find the handle and the door swings open.

I slug myself inside, opening the pillbox as I go. They fall onto the seat, little more than faint splotches of white in the darkness. I grab a handful of them and begin to swallow. They’re smooth and glossy, like my tension meds. It comforts me. It warms me.

The twelve different painkillers inside me prevent me from shouting as the back of my head knocks against the seatbelt clip. The seven more that slide down my throat are giving a brief hinderance in their journey.

Pain means your alive. Pain means you’re awake.

I feel nothing as my incisors puncture the skin of my forearm. Warm, soft, forgiving blood oozes onto my clothes, comforting me. A flash of a smile flickers over my face as I shift positions. The pills scatter to the floor.

I twist.

I shift.

I contort.

I reach them, scooping them up as many as I can and downing them. My throat is probably swollen, but who cares? Who the freaking hell gives a god damn shit about me right now? I’m happy. Screw them. I don’t god damn need them. I don’t need any of them.

I pull the switchblade from my pocket and press the cool, calm, gentle blade to my bicep. My heartbeat slows and the darkness sharpens.

Deep breaths calm me.

The blade glides lightly across my skin, like a lover’s caress.

I’m vulnerable.

I’m powerful.

I’m in control.

I decide what happens.

I hear a click and the darkness scuttles back into its crevices. I however, cannot do the same.

“Oh my god… Kallix what are you…” The colorful haired girl stairs at me, horror in her eyes.

I growl.

She snatches the blade away from me, releasing it so that it slides across the floor. She pushes up next to me and closes the door. Petrified darkness surrounds us.

The colorful haired girl’s soft touch makes my wilted soul twitch. Her scintillating spirit is like a candle, cast in the obsidian that surrounds us. I claw at her hands, but she pulls me close. Her warmth is different. It’s not like the warmth of a struggling electronic beneath your red fingered hands, but rather like the warmth of an old dog resting on your lap.

I let her envelope me. Right now, the colorful haired girl is within me. Buried deep inside my emotions. The layers of torn ethical walls, slain morals and feeble scruple.

With her, my spirit needs no shield.

My eyes need no shades.

I need not hide, fore the darkness surrounds us.

We lie together, a still bleeding carcass and a fiercely flaming spirit, invisible within the cowl of darkness.