Let Me Hold You //Apply Fic//

//chapter .03//

The rest of the teens scraped food of their plates, only to reveal to same message on all of them. Corben's food remained untouched.

Blair slammed her hands on the table. "We gotta do something! Surely there's a clue or something to tell us what to do?"

"Maybe it's underneath the plate?" Kai asked, lifting their plate to check. "There's got to be something."

Corben pinched the bridge of his nose. "Right. We all need to help search. Kai, you and Carmen check through everything on the table. Azalea, you and Maylea check underneath the table, let us know if you find anything."

He pointed to the cluster of boys. "We need to check the walls and surrounding areas. This place is big with lots of nooks and crannies, so be thorough." His gaze scraped over them, before his gestured at them. "Well? Get going!"

The teens broke into their assigned roles, Azalea practically running into a table leg in her haste.

Everyone worked in determined silence, only broken when someone called out that a space was clear, nothing useful there.

There was a loud clatter and thud.

"Carmen!" Kai rushed to the younger girl's side, lifting up her head. "Are you ok?"

Carmen gave her a weak smile. "I'm fine," she soothed. "Just dizzy."

Corben knelt next to her, brushing hair out of her face. "Look at me." He gently tilted her chin, studying her. "Her pupils are dilated." He pressed two fingers to the side of her neck. "And her heartbeat is faster than it should be."

Kai held Carmen close as Corben tugged off his sweatshirt and rolled it into a makeshift pillow. He shifted the girl's head to rest on it, face creased with concern.

"Ok," he said, getting up slowly. "Everyone get back to work. Carmen must have had the poisoned plate, and we don't know how fast acting it is, so it is imperative that we find out how to stop it."

He stooped to whisper in Kai's ear, quietly, so she was the only one to hear. "Keep her awake, no matter what. We don't know what will happen if she becomes unconcious."

Kai nodded, and turned to the girl now under her care. "Hey, you're gonna be ok. I promise you."

Carmen bit her lip and nodded. "Ok."

Blair cast a worried look at the two girls as he passed by, and he tapped Corben on the shoulder. "Is she going to be ok?"

Corben sighed. "Truthfully, I don't think so. Our only hope is to find something to fix it." He checked his watch. "It's been five minutes since we first found the message, which means it's been around ten minutes since she first ingested it. I have no clue what it could be though, so I'm not sure what our timetable is on something like this."

Blair quirked one eyebrow up. "Man how do you know all of this stuff?"

Corben shrugged. "I read."

Azalea suddenly popped out from under the table, a paper in her hand. "I found something!"

Everyone in the room dropped what they were doing and crowded around her, each trying to read the words.

Corben reached over everyone and plucked it out of her hands, turning away from the group. He mumbled out a few words of it, then sighed, exasperated. "This makes no sense."

Juno took it from him, reading it aloud. "If yet we once and yet now we are, and yet all we were was to look to the stars, and yet let us take flight on wings and dreams, thus to reach forth, to clouds and things."