*Imogen pictured above*
"Stay with me, your stronger than this, I know you are." Blake? Yes, it was Blake, his voice drifted into my ears like it was being carried by a wave and I was underwater. My senses were dull, my eyes squeezed tightly shut. I smelled something like alcohol and smoke but it was hard to tell. All at once, the pain in my side jolted me upright and I banged my head on something hard and metal. I groaned and put my head back down, eyes still closed, pain still throbbing around my body.
"Stay down, and stay quiet." Blake whispered from somewhere out in front of me. I opened my eyes and there was only darkness. For a moment I panicked that the pain had literally blinded me but then I saw Blake's familiar silhouette.
I bit my lip to keep from making anymore noise, I pressed my hands to my side and found that my makeshift bandage was no longer soaked through entirely. There was a patch of wetness that I could feel but only for a moment, I couldn't press my fingers there too long without feeling like I'd pass out again.
I leaned my head back against the ground and squirmed as I tried to stay quiet. I'd never felt anything like this, a pain so real that I could do nothing about it but lie here and hope that either the end came soon and my eyes shut for good, or that I could some how crawl back to the land of the living and bare the scar forever.
I clawed at the darkness, at the air around me, searching for something to anchor me here so I didn't drift away again. Blake's hand found mine but instead of holding it, he curled my fingers into a fist and pressed my hand against my chest.
The pressure was dull and I hardly felt it at all but I knew it was there and when he let go and moved away, I felt his absence in a new kind of pain.
I didn't have the strength to object and I wouldn't dare cry out to him even if I could. He retreated into the darkness and vanished without a sound and I couldn't help but wonder if he had been there at all or if my dying mind had made the whole scene up.
I was lying down although it took me sometime to discover this since I couldn't tell up from down or left from right in the pitch black. My body was pressed against a metal floor that I imagined was cool to the touch but I couldn't tell, I couldn't feel anything but the unbearable heat in my side.
I slowly pushed my upper body up with my arms and slid back as fast as I could until my back was pressed against a metal wall. I had changed my position quickly to get the movement over with, I didn't want to worsen the pain more than it already scalded me but I also didn't want to lie flat on my back, waiting for death to come and take me willingly. I would fight whatever form He took and I would not go down easy.
At the same time, I wouldn't dare try to stand, I was just sane enough to know that if I stood, I'd have no more blood left in my body.
Maybe I was in Heaven, or on my way there at least. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I were headed upstairs, the pain would be gone and I wouldn't be stuck in the dark. Perhaps I was going the other way.
This excruciating blankness in my mind, the constant throbbing of my skull, that was Hell. The suffocating darkness, the insurmountable pain, the sent of chaos in the air even when all seemed quiet. What made it worse was the fact that I could do nothing but sit here helpless with a bullet wound slowly leaking at my side.
"Help." I sputtered. My throat was dry and raw and an ugly taste of something like alcohol stung my lips when I breathed.
The silence that returned my pathetic plea was the loudest quiet I'd ever known. Why did Blake leave me? Does he know I'm dying? Of course he does, he has to. But why...
I started to cough, gasping for the air I had forgotten to breathe. With each jerk of movement I made, I felt like a branding rod was being jammed into my side, searing my flesh and scarring my bone.
I don't know how much longer I sat there in the dark, fighting my drooping eyelids. I had to remind myself that life was what I was clinging to and my heart was slowing to a pace I couldn't imagine would keep anyone alive for long but I tried not to think about death when it was so close, knocking impatiently at my doorstep.
"Imogen?" The voice was faint in my ears, a dull sound that I couldn't afford to pay any mind to, lest I forget to breathe.
"What happened to her? She's as good as dead, Blake, and you just left her here?" That was it, that was all I could make sense of before death got tired of knocking and kicked my door down. I might have hid under my bed but it only bought me a few more seconds until death became curious and peeked underneath to snatch me away.
You can't die yet
Just hold on a little longer.
Just hold on.
Hold on.
Hold-
Blake's point of view
They say the worst tragedies always end in death because death is as final as an ending can be. I don't agree with that, not in the least. Sure, I couldn't imagine the feeling of just ending and I am by no means looking forward to it, but what I think is the worst, is watching someone you love die in front of your eyes and knowing their is nothing you can do to save them.
You can't breathe anymore than they can, your legs feel weightless but your heart is made of lead. You know they're gone but your mind continues to protest so you just stand there like an idiot, waiting for them to wake up, to burst out laughing and tell you it was all a joke. But they never do and all at once you feel like part of your soul was ripped out of your heart and burned until not even ashes remained, but of course the scar will be there forever.
Oh I ran as fast as I could, I stuck to the plan and sprinted for the nearest bunker, drawing the fire of the few monitors who we actually watching and not screwing with their communication systems. A few bullets whizzed past my ears and one grazed my ankle but it was nothing major, I'd had worse in my days with Order.
I pressed myself flat against the metal wall of the bunker, heart pounding and mind racing. I looked to my right to see Imogen running for the place she had called the Block. She must have waited to long, maybe she hadn't planned I'd run as fast as I did or she got distracted or she just didn't time it right. The monitors who had been firing at me changed their targets, blasting up snow and dead grass around her feet.
But this wasn't StarWars or some other blockbuster movie where the bad guys must all be blind since they can't hit a thing. One lucky shot was all it took to send my world crashing down around me. I saw the way her steps faltered and her pace slowed. But she wouldn't stop because Imogen Vast was a fighter. She was a Warrior. It's funny how in fairy tails it's always the knight in shining armor saves the princess from her castle by going on some perilous journey through kingdoms and across seas. But really, in our story, the fighter with nothing to show but scars was the one who saved me from my ignorance just because she was living proof that people, no matter their backgrounds or their abilities, are still people. We are all human, we should be each other's allies in this world, not enemies. It's time people like her and Taylor and Will and I, it's time that we prove that we matter. It's time to prove that what we can do makes us special, not weapons, not threats.
And now, the one who opened my eyes, who sparked the idea of rebellion against the zone in my mind, was crashing through the doors of the Block with a bullet wound who knows how bad.
I looked to my left, knowing that I had seconds before monitors came to find me or flood into the Block. I had to do something, I couldn't let them get to her since she'd be slowed with her injury.
I needed help, a variation like mind couldn't stop them, it just didn't work like that.
I focused on the wall of the bunker, liquifying the metal until there was a hole big enough for me to step through. The bunker I entered was for boys and by the looks of their height and faces, most of them were older and around my age.
One or two looked shocked at my appearance and say straight up in frozen terror while the rest lie with their head in pillows in beds that were lined up in two orderly rows along either side of the small room.
It was dark in the room but the hole I had made flooded it with light and the sleeping boys began to turn a little as it bled through their eyelids.
"Who are you?" One said in a gruff voice, characteristic to those who had just woken from a nap where they had slept in a every way but soundly.
"Blake Heron, get up and tell me your name, your real name and you know exactly what I mean by that. What's your variation?" I spoked quickly, perhaps a little too fast for a drowsy mind like his to comprehend but I couldn't help it, I was starting to hear voices shouting from outside and feet pounding in the snow.
"Uh, Mark McDaniel. What the hell is a variation?"
"Your curse." I stated.
"Why do you want to know? What's going on, man?"
"Just tell me, time is wasting." I said, tapping at my wrist like I was gesturing to a watch that wasn't there. Mark hesitated for a while, looking me over closely before replying.
"I can shape shift into anything that flys, birds, bats, bugs, I guess they all start with a B too, how 'bout that." Mark droned as though he were also just noticing this for the first time. What I was noticing was that our chances of escaping were becoming exceedingly difficult.
"What's going on?" Another boy asked, throwing the sheets off his bed and standing up.
"I think we're finally getting out of here, Beetle." Mark said, studying me closely. The one that must be Beetle walked over to to his in-broken friend, never taking his eyes off me even as Mark stood up. They were the only two awake.
"Is that true?" Mark asked turning to me, he had eyes that seemed to have a switch for a stare meant to kill that was always flipped on. I nodded hastily.
"What's your real name, Beetle?" I asked, not wanting to waste time on a formal meet and greet.
"Uh, Ben." The boy replied hesitantly. Before I could respond, I heard the unmistakable ping of bullets as a spray of them became lodged in the outer bunker wall. I grunted in frustration and ran for Ben and Mark, tackling the two boys to the ground. I told them to stay down although I'm sure they were planning on it anyway, the crack of the guns had scared them enough.
I had brought them down right behind the sixth or so bed from the hole I'd put in the wall.
"Ben, right? What's your vari- your curse?" Without hesitation, Ben replied,
"If I scream at a certain sound, I paralyze anyone who can heat it. As you can imagine, it makes training a nightmare." Ben voice was cool and calm as he spoke though I could sense the hesitation, he was freaking out on the inside.
"Scream." I whispered, peeking my head out from the side of the bed. Two monitors were inspecting the hole I had made, poking at the dripping metal. A third had already stepped through and was yanking boys by their hair out of their beds.
"What?" He asked. As he spoke, the monitor that had already entered froze. I was thankful for the small amount of darkness that shielded the area near us and even though I was confident he couldn't see me, I still ducked back behind the bed.
"Scream." I repeated. He looked at me, startled and unsure risk but after looking at Mark and finding that his friend wasn't objecting, Ben screamed.
I was smart enough to plunge my fingers in my ears and muffle the noise and Mark had pressed his palms tight against the sides of his head. I peered out from the bed again and watched all three monitors crumple to the floor and a fourth one who was just joining fell against the wall before dropping next to the rest.
When he finished, I elbowed Mark to get him to remove his hands which he did but only after Ben shook his shoulder to convince him it was really over.
"Mark, you stay here." I said, already jumping to my feet. I needed to find Imogen, make sure she was ok.
"Ben, I need to borrow you for a while." I added, reaching down for his hand. He took it and I hauled him to his feet. But as soon as I started for the door, I found that the boy wasn't following me.
I turned around and made an I pages gesture with my hand but he still didn't budge.
"Look." Ben muttered, his gaze jumping back and fourth between Mark and I.
"We've only got each other. If we go down we go down together. We made that pact the day they brought us here." Ben swallowed hard as he helped Mark to his feet who fixed his steel gaze on me.
"He comes with, our I don't go at all." I watched the boys for awhile, my brain coming up blank, empty of the right choice. I reasoned that the bond these boys had was similar to what Imogen, Taylor, and that other girl, Ant, had once had. Being the only un-broken people in their bunker, they had to stick together, they had to be by each others side no matter what because they were each other's anchors, the only things keeping them from sinking into the black void of nothingness that had claimed everyone else around them. Then if this was the case, why had Imogen left Taylor behind with little thought back in the cage room in the cellar of the monitor house?
"Alright, come if you have to, but if either of you go down, the other one can't stop to wallow. We have to keep moving." The two boys nodded and advanced to me, now almost as eager as I was to get moving. And they didn't even know the half of it.
The run to the block was a full sprit but no guns were fired. The monitors left outside had all fallen to the ground and although Ben didn't say how long they would remain down, I was praying it'd be sometime close to forever.
We reached the block and I almost didn't want to go in, afraid of what I might see. What if Imogen had only made it two feet before taking her last breath? What if I was going to see her beautiful face, bloodied and bruise contorted in a last look of pure terror. What if, worst of all, I would see her when it was too the to help, too late to tell her something that needed to be said, too late to hold her one last time, but it's long enough to watch the light leave her eyes and the fire leave her soul.
I could spend anymore time on those thoughts, I had to find her because I still had hope, hope that I was wrong and that the bullet had only grazed her. I was already scrapping the plan entirely to make sure she had lived, that she was doing her part. What would she think of that if she was ok? I would have jeopardized not only my own life, but hers, and everyone else's in the entire zone. I hadn't even thought of that.
I barged into the block, Ben and Mark close behind, their breathing ragged and short from the run.
"Imogen!" I yelled, my voice hitching from the panic I was trying to suppress.
There was a group of girls in what must be the mess hall but I had noticed them last. What I noticed first was the monitors, guns trained on bodies that I had skimmed over, their eyes cold and emotionless as they stared down at their life-emptied targets. There was so much blood. In puddles at the monitors' feet, soaking the hair of fifteen or twenty girls who lie limp and motionless at unnatural angles.
"Ben!" I yelled, my fingers in my ears as he sang out with a piercing note that caused the monitors to topple over their victims, limbs freezing on the way down.
I rushed forward, bile rising in my throat, hate and anguish replacing the blood in my veins.
"No, no, no, no." I muttered running to the bodies, legs failing me as I slipped in the crimson liquid. She couldn't be here, not with these girls. Not like this.
I searched their faces, all unrecognizable, all with eyes wide open and holes in their chest's.
A small red-headed girl, a blonde girl with big eyes, a girl with legs and arms skinnier than what I deemed as healthy, a girl with a bruise on her cheek and an arm that was bent in a way that looked painfully broken.
None of them Imogen. All of them gone in the worst way I could think to go.
"She's not here." I said, trying not to look at the girls as I padded through the puddles of blood and toward the door at the end of the mess hall that I knew from Alice and Imogen's descriptions led to a staircase.
I forgot about Ben and Mark, I needed Imogen, I needed to see her face, to know that her touch was still real, that her heart hadn't stilled, that her electricity still sparked more than just her variation.
I ran down the stairs three at a time until I reached the bottom. Blood dotted the floor and I threw open the only door I saw that I knew must lead to the training facility. Empty except for monitors, some bloodied up a bit and others dead where they stood, some still smoking so I knew it had been the work of Imogen. Hope flourished inside me for a moment but there was no sign of her here so I left and nearly ran over Ben and Mark as I charged back up.
"Imogen!" I yelled again, and then I saw her. Halfway up the second flight, slumped against the wall, hands pressed against her side and a gun at her feet.
"Ah frick, what the heck, Imogen." I grunted, sinking down next to her. Her brown hair that usually reached well below her shoulders was matted to her neck in blood and sweat. Her forehead was slick with sweat and her eyes, always the brightest emerald green I'd ever seen, were dull, glassy and squinted. Her faint freckles stood out star against her pale complexion.
I looked down at the rest of her and saw she had taken off her shirt and tired it around her waist to staunch the blood flow of a wound much to severe for that strategy to really do any good, but at least it was doing something. Or at least it had been, the cloth had soaked through and loosened, leaving the makeshift bandage useless.
"Who is she?" Ben or Mark or one of them, I really wasn't paying attention to who was asking.
I smoothed her hair back from her face and watched her eyes close, watched her chest still and her mouth hang slightly open with no air going through and I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't so I didn't. Slowly I lifted her up, she was light in my arms and I didn't want to think that that could be Fromm the ten pounds she'd bled out.
I hated her up the stairs, I knew there was an infirmary at the next door and I was sure there was something I could do for, something that would bring her back. But she wasn't gone, she was close, but she couldn't be gone.
The climb was a blur up until the point I was ordering Ben to go in first and sream until everyone was paralyzed and Mark and I could enter, a limp Imogen still dangling in my arms.
I sat her down as gently as I could in the only bed available while stepping over a collapsed Doctor.
The first thing I did was, with trembling fingers, unfasten the bandage she had made with her shirt and throw it on the floor. Blood smeared across her torso in a sickening thick river that still bubbled up from a ghastly looking source in her side. The flesh there wasted and mangled, torn away from the bullet's path.
"Who is she?" One of the boys asked again. I peeled off my shirt and slowly tied it back around Imogen, as carful as I could be to not cause her anymore pain. Imogen was tough, but there were some things even the strongest people couldn't handle.
"We need help, we need someone with a curse who can patch her up, heal her. Know anyone?" I asked them, not taking my eyes off of her. She didn't deserve to die this way. People like Imogen deserved peaceful deaths after living a life they can be proud of. Her life had only just begun, it couldn't be ending now.
"Wasp. Wasp is good with healing, but he can't bring people back from the dead, he told us that in training once. But he isn't in our bunker."
"She's not dead, but we need this Wasp person. Mark, go get him. Turn into something like a fly, no one will attack you, obviously, and negotiate with him, get him here as soon as possible." If I were in Mark's shoes, and some guy I'd never met before started ordering me around to put my life on the line for a girl I hadn't even seen before three minuets ago, I would have at least asked him to explain the girl's importance or what exactly was going on, but Mark didn't even hesitate before breaking for the door, seemingly disappearing in thin air halfway there as he did so when I assumed her traded his human form temporarily for that of a fly's. Ben looked like he desperately wanted to follow him out but he stayed rooted to the ground, knowing that he wouldn't be safe out there, he wouldn't be safe anywhere, none of us were. At least, not until we were free.
I turned my attention back to Imogen and took into detail the features of her face that I never got to look at long enough when she was awake.
I noticed her pronounced cheekbones, the thin bridge of her nose that was spotted with freckles, the way her chin came to a graceful and rounded point and the widows peak hairline that I'd never really payed attention to before.
Brushing the side of her face with the fingertips of my left hand I gripped her hand with my right, not letting it bother me that I didn't feel a pulse. She was alive, a person didn't need blood or a heartbeat to live, not Imogen. She would be fine.
Seconds ticked by and I grew restless with each minuet that they added up to. This was taking to long. Where was Mark with Wasp, the one he claimed could heal?
"We have to find somewhere to hide. Monitors will sweep this floor last most likely, but I have a feeling they're getting close." Ben said from behind me, it was the first time he had spoken since Mark left. I nodded, I knew he was right, we had to keep hidden until Mark arrived.
"I actually know the perfect place." Ben added. I dropped Imogen's hand but I couldn't bring myself to look away from her.
"Where?"
"The storage facility the next floor up is ginormous, monitor hardly know where anything is since it's just the cursed kids who maintain it. Every now and then we find a spot that Mark and I like to call a back up. Like if some disaster happened like I don't know what, we'd run there and hide, knowing we wouldn't be found." By the time Ben finished I was already cradling Imogen in my arms, blood starting to show through my shirt bandage around her just barely.
Ben was leading me up the stairs soon after and we ran into a boy just as soon as exited who looked about 13 and perhaps a bit tall for his age if that was the case.
Before either of us could react, Ben spotted a fly hovering above the boy's head and tapped my shoulder until I noticed.
Mark fizzled back into his old self and stretched his arms as if to make sure they were working properly.
"Finally!" Ben nearly yelled. The new boy, who I was hoping was Wasp, shushed him and turned to me, well sort of. He turned more to Imogen, looking at her for a long time and his expression fell.
"She's already dead, isn't she?" Wasp asked, looking around at all of our faces for confirmation. I was about to snap a stern no back but Ben beat me.
"We don't know, we're going upstairs to hide out until we figure out what to do." And so we ran up, reaching the door to the storage facility and going through the same process we did with the infirmary in which Ben goes in first, screams and clears the way for the rest of us.
Ben told Mark about the hiding place that he intended to take us to and Mark seemed to think it was an exceptional idea, patting his friend on the back in congratulations as if good ideas were a rare thing for him.
"Right here." Mark said, following Ben down an isle of crates and boxes bigger than any I'd even seen. Ben stopped us all at one box in particular and beckoned for Mark to help him push it out of the way. They grunted with the effort but eventually they were able to move it about a foot and a half backwards revealing a small, dark hole in the floor that I couldn't see the bottom of.
"Get in." Ben ordered. Normally I would have objected but I was desperate and desperation makes you do stupid things. So once everyone had already disappeared into the hole, they helped me maneuver Imogen through and then myself. We had to crouch or sit with our necks oddly bent in order to keep from hitting the ceiling. The only light came from the hole we'd come through but that slowly began to vanish as Mark, Ben, and now Wasp, started to pull on a flat piece of metal that looked to be attached to the ceiling. Eventually the circular disk budged a little and gave way with a creaking protest as it slid outward to cover the hole.
"Wasp!" I yelled, my hand gripping Imogen's. I had placed her down as best as I could in the dark. The younger boy put a hand on my shoulder and I felt him scoot over next to me and his hand took Imogen's from mine. I was reluctant to let her go but I knew I had to if I wanted to spare her from the pain I knew she must be going through.
Wasp illuminated the darkness as his entire form began to glow a bright white that hit the metal walls of the small, secret room.
He sat on his knees bent over her, eyes tightly shut, shaking ever so slightly from what was either effort of exhaustion.
I shuffled over to Imogen, sitting as close as I could get without touching her, I didn't want to risk disturbing his process.
"Stay with me, your stronger than this, I know you are." I mumbled, my voice hoarse in a whisper. The light from Wasp slowly left him and flooded into her, making her already pale skin an even more iridescent white.
All of a sudden, she jerked up, eyes darting open wide with a fury I couldn't recognize and banging her head hard against the ceiling of the small space. She groaned and dropped back down until she was flat on her back again. I put a hand on her collar bone to keep her still.
She reached her arms out a dragged her fingers across nothing. She was aching for something but I didn't know what. He actions were terrifying me, I was too busy being washed over with relief that she was living that I didn't have time to pray that she was still sane.
I grabbed her hand and she settled back down. I pressed her fingers against her chest, a way of saying goodbye without words. I held her hand there for a long time but it still felt too short.
I knew what I had to do. We were so close now, it was time to bring the zone to its knees. No, it was time to bury it forever. It was time for these people, people like me, and Imogen, and Will, and Taylor, and Ben, and Mark, it's time for them to be free. I was going to make that happen.
I could barely see in the fading white light Wasp had created, but I saw enough to watch Imogen's eyes close again. But she was breathing, her chest rising in a steady rhythm. I'd be back, I wouldn't leave her here ever in a million years. But there was something I needed to do. Something that everyone, even those who weren't blessed with variations needed to have done even if they didn't know it.
There was one more piece of the puzzle only I could place.
SO THIS IS CHAPTER TEN! I HOPE YOU THOUGHT IT WAS WORTH THE READ BECAUSE I HAD SO MUCH FUN WRITING IN BLAKE'S POV EVEN IF THIS CHAPTER WASNT EXACTLY UM HAPPY. THANKS FOR READING GUYS!