Seeker: Demon Killers [Fantasy/Action | Complete]

Chapter 17: A Failure, An Utter Failure

"We'll run away," he whispered, caressing her face. She smiled, happiness blossoming in her heart like the stars overhead. "Nothing matters so long as we're together."

He was right. None of this mattered as long as she had him. He was the centre of her realm. To blazes with responsibilities and jurisdictions, the consequences and the punishments. He was all that mattered.

"You don't have to be yourself. You don't have to bring death and destruction wherever you go. You can be someone new, someone you've always wanted to be, rather than what you've been expected to be."

She kissed him softly on the lips. He tasted like honey.

"Live each day like it's our last," she said, echoing his famous words. He nodded, a smile spreading across his face. He pressed his forehead against hers.

"Live each day like it's our last."

"...haemodynamically stable."

Something hard pressed against the bony edges of Tora's eye. She groaned, her eyelids fluttering open briefly, batting the assaulting thing away.

"GCS of nine. Good. Let's keep the fluids going and let's go review her CT scan. God, what happened in that place?"

"I don't envy Charlie's team. Seems like they might as well send in the police to recover the bodies. What use are paramedics and A&E doctors when they're all dead?"

The voices faded away, leaving a constant low-volume beeping in the background. It was sort of soothing. Tora sucked in a breath and realised a plastic face mask had been stuck to her face. She must have passed out. A sudden crushing feeling of being suffocated, despite the oxygen, overwhelmed her. She reached for the mask – her left hand was tied. Another wave of panic washed over her; nausea rose up to her throat, closing her windpipe. Her right hand reached up and yanked it off, throwing the face mask as far as it could go. It landed with a thud on the ground beside her, hissing.

Gasping, Tora sat up, sucking in the sweet free air. Her chest muscles gave a spasm. A knife-like pain seared across her front and she cried out, slumping back onto the bed. Her head spun. Her face tingled. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for the sickness to fade before slowly opening them again. Another tug at her hand attracted her attention when she tried to slide away. Her hand wasn't tied, but there were intravenous lines and an oxygen meter attached. Grimacing, she pulled them out. Liquid continued to ooze out of the plastic tube. The monitor bleeped when the oxygen saturation line fell to zero. Her right arm was attached to something else – a blood pressure monitor? She ripped the cuff off. The Velcro protested. She glanced around, her heart racing, not daring to sit up again.

She was in a room all by herself. The walls were painted a dull grey. The windows were drawn – there was no telling if it was day or night. The curtains to her right were also drawn. Her door was opened just a little, allowing corridor light to spill through a slit. A headboard sat behind her with two plastic pipes. One was attached to the oxygen mask she had just thrown away. She'd been in a place like this before, but not from this perspective.

"Oh, bloody hell," she said under her breath. She was in a hospital. And what's more, she was a patient. She'd been found by humans. Heaving a sigh – and wincing again when her broken ribs protested – she stared with disappointment down at the bottom of the bed. Someone had taken her clothes off and dressed her in a flimsy hospital gown, like the ones she'd seen on the patients in that hospital.

The memories from the last fight came flooding back to her. The reanimated dead patients with their unrelenting desire to kill her. She was overwhelmed by them, as were all the other Seekers. Someone called her from the helipad on the roof. She followed and found that strange boy there. His face was fuzzy, now, like she was looking through the top of a fire. Cimerus... that was his name. She got her ass handed to her. He had telekinesis. But he was a demon – he reeked of their scent.