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Leninora's POV
Location: Bureau of Investigation, Sacramento
Date: November 1st, mid-moring
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This kid is really going to make me shoot him. And I mean really, he did drink my nice booze; a bullet is the least he deserves....but really.
I stare him down, and mentally calculate what my chances are of getting out of a life sentence if I do shoot him...I don't have that great of a track-record. I'd probably go to prison.
I could live with that, I guess. Prison's not that bad. Granted, I would probably have to become a prison bitch but...that might not even be that bad either. I hear prison hooch is pretty damn good. Now that I think of it, there really isn't any downside.
I hesitate though. There's something dark swimming under the surface of this boy and it resonates with me. I've been where he is right now. I've felt that dark call of the other side, the sweet voices of those passed over beckoning me into the sweet embrace of the afterlife and all that it entails.
I remember that numbness....that deep nothingness in my heart that had taken over everything when I'd found Auroura. I remember the bone deep anger and denial I'd felt, holding her lifeless body in my arms. I remember the months afterward, waiting for her to come home, and the dark hole I'd crawled out of when I finally came back to myself....when I came to accept that she was really gone. That was the worst part, at least for me; that realization that the love of my life was really gone and there was nothing, not a single god damned thing, that I could do to bring her back home.
And this kid has gone through this twice. He's experienced that awful, destructive emotion twice. I feel for him. It's not an easy thing to go through.
That is the only reason I decide not to shoot him. Not even I'm that fucked up, to kick a man when he's so far down...even if the thing he's mourning over is moot.
"Her hand moved." I point out to him. I don't think he'll believe me, but it's worth a try.
He just stares at me. I do notice that the other boy, the big one with the thick accent looks up at me with the most wild, animalistic look in his eyes.
"Are you really going to do this?" The European one asks me, with that vicious gleam in his expression matching his tone of voice. I raise my chin at the challenge he's so clearly trying to give me.
"Do what?" I ask. I'm just trying to help them...and you know, point out that Cy is in fact, not dead. So really, I'm just helping Cy. They're just in the way right now.
"You come in here," He breathes out the words like an ogre, deep and raspy, "and disrespect us with your nonsensical games and expect us to just let you?"
"I'm not playing a game." I try to explain. "I wouldn't joke around about something like this."
"Wouldn't you though?" Bourne-to-be-a-stick-in-the-mud hisses at me. He's trying so hard to put on a brave face, but the evidence of his slip into human emotion is still apparent for all to see. "You live for these moments, don't you? Tearing people down when they're at the darkest points in their life."
The punk kid with the pink hair and the potty mouth sneers at me, "We all know how much you like to tell us you do." I roll my eyes. I do talk a lot, that is true. But wasn't he and his friend the one that asked for my help? I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, and if I wasn't here for Cyan. I'm not a horrible person.
I've got some fucked up priorities, and I definitely enjoy a great punchline, but I know when enough is enough. Maybe my line of enough is a little farther than most peoples, but even I have a stopping point.
The group of little pissants glare at me. I glare back. A movement catches my attention though, and I lower the gun to really focus. I note that the boy with the flowing blond hair seems to completely fall apart as the gun is pulled away from his brother's path. I think he knows as well as I do that the boy known as North Taylor was staring down the barrel with expectation. With intention.
I look away from the tears rolling down his slender face, to watch as a muscle in Cy's arm moves, almost completely undetectable, but the littlest jolting motion runs down the length, and I smirk as the movement ripples right down to her hand.
I know exactly what's wrong with her. It's just a matter of how she was introduced to it that will effect when she's able to move again.
"Look, we can either sit here and wait for her to come back into herself, or you can move and I can examine her. She's been dosed with something, and whether it was through ingestion or injection, she will wake back up. We might be able to speed up the process though."
"She doesn't have a heartbeat." The blonde tooth-extractor says, with hatred shining in his eyes. "She's-" He cut's himself off with a shuddering breath. His eyes drop from mine to look down at the girl in his arms. "Don't do this, don't give us hope when there is none."
"Look at her," I demand, getting pissed that my words are falling on deaf ears. Pissed that they won't listen. I get that they think she's dead, but what's the harm in having a second opinion? What is the worst I can do? Tell them she's....actually dead?
"This is the same girl that spent years of her life fighting to stay alive. Does she look like she was murdered?" I gesture around at the room. "If she was attacked, she would have put up one hell of a fight. She isn't the type to go softly into the night. And yet, she doesn't have a single hair out of place. She's not dead."
"I'm sorry, are you a doctor?" Tooth-taker sneers at me. "Because I am, and I'm telling you, she doesn't have a pulse. She's not breathing. Her skin is ice cold, for FUCKS sake. She. is. dead. For all you know she was blindsided. Stop this. Just stop."
"Are you?" I ask him, "Are you a doctor? Where's your doctor bag?" I shake my head at him and he looks back up at me with dark eyes. "Don't doctor's carry around stethoscopes? I bet you a kilo of coke that she's got a heartbeat, you just suck at finding a pulse." I gesture at him, shaking my own hands for effect, "You're shaking like a leaf, how in the hell do you expect to find a pulse with those little blender mittens you have for hands?"
Something sparks in the doctor's eyes and he glances at his hands. They're shaking pretty badly, making my point for me. My eyebrow raises as without another word, he shifts around to gently lay Cy's head against the chest of beefy-Greek-cakes.
The doctor slowly gets to his feet, and I back up to lean against the wall as he prowls toward me. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have referred to his hands as blender mittens. Maybe that isn't a nice thing to call a doctor.
The closer he gets, the more unnerved I feel. He's not really looking at me, but he is moving in my direction and it's disconcerting. This is the same guy that cut off my finger because I was a little mean to him. He pulled a freaking tooth out of my mouth, and he doesn't even remember that part.
Just as he's about a foot away from me, he veers off course and I take a deep breath. I totally thought he was going to throat-chop me. I watch as he heads toward a black bag that I had totally noticed before, but had dismissed in the hustle and bustle of the excitement.
"For the sake of getting you to leave us alone, I'll use the stethoscope. And when I don't find a pulse, I want you to leave us the FUCK alone. Leave us to grieve." He yanks the bag up as he's talking, and tosses it with a loud cluck onto the table.
"Sean, don't encourage her. She's just trying to get in our heads." Blackbourne growls at the doctor, but 'Sean' ignores him.
He digs into his little bag of tricks, and a long moment passes as his friends watch him with varying expressions on their faces. The nerdy boss-boy looks on with an expression that Bourne-to-be-a-bore must be proud of for all it's human qualities. The nickname-less redhead is shaking his head with a frown directed at the ground, like he can't even bring himself to watch 'Sean' do his doctor thing.
Blackbourne is staring at his friend with a frown, and it seems to me that he's watching Sean Green with a healthy amount of suspicion. Perhaps he thinks the good doctor is hearing things again?
Blondie and the pink-haired hothead are both staring at Sang rather than Sean Green. I feel the worst for them. I've watched these kids quite a bit, and those two seem to be the most connected to their emotions when it comes to grief. The heaviness of the emotion seems to weigh heavily on all of their shoulders, but those two in particular are internalizing it the most. Well, maybe. The Euro greek cake seems to be hiding a little devil on his shoulder too, but I think he's putting those emotions into something a little more....tight. Literally.
North Taylor and the Euro-boy are still curled around the little barefoot blonde and it hurts my heart to see her so still. She really doesn't look too good, she looks so skinny and pale compared to the beefy tan men framing her body.
Finally, the doctor pulls out a stethoscope, and walks back to Cyan with heavy weighted steps.
He sinks to his knees, and presses the metal diaphragm against her chest. A long moment passes as he moves it to the right spot and then freezes to listen. Everyone stills, as if they might be able to hear the beat of her heart if they're just still enough.
He waits for so long that I'm able to watch as the faces go from carefully blank to worried, to a mixture of sadness, regret, and grim acceptance.
And suddenly, Sean Green jerks his head up, a light shining in his eyes. In all honesty, it makes him look kinda crazy.
"There's a pulse." He announces to the room. His voice is high, and I let out a huff of indignation that he even doubted me at all, but the men around him give him skeptical looks, "It is slow and thready, but it's there." He insists.
Blackbourne makes a noise between a grunt and a growl, and angrily shoves himself off the wall to stalk toward the doctor. "I've had enough of your insanity, Sean. She's dead. Don't let Leninora get inside your head and mess it up any more than it already is."
'Sean' shakes his head, and takes a deep choking breath as he continues to listen to what I'm sure is a very slow and sluggish heartbeat. "I can hear it, Owen."
Ha! Beak-Bourne's first name! They'd been so careful about calling him by his last.
"I can hear her lungs moving. Leninora is right." Sean Green squawks. Another thing I love about drama. I always end up hearing those beautiful words. I'm always right.
"Let me see" North Taylor barks at the doctor, nearly dropping Cy's legs from his lap as he attempts to snag the stethoscope from his hands.
"Stop it, both of you. North, you just got done saying how cold she was. Don't do this to yourself." The nerd boy shuffles closer to the little group around Cy with hope in his eyes, despite his angry words.
"I want to hear for myself." North exclaims as he finally wrestles the tool away from the shell-shocked doctor.
"Me too," Blondie whispers, and he crawls closer to Cy.
"No." I push myself off from the wall and make a bee line to Cyan. "We need to get her out of here. I don't know who got to her, but they'll still be in the building.
My eyes narrow as the boys close ranks around North and the Euro-boy. They completely ignore me.
I sigh at their lack of urgency, and creep closer too. My mind whirls with the possibilities of the situation at hand.
Who got to her? How? I thought I'd trained her better than this. She's lucky we all got here when we did, a few minutes later and they'd have been carrying her out in a body bag. But the question we should be worried about is where is the person responsible? Wouldn't they have tried to drag her out the moment she was out?
I wait in silence as I ponder the situation, and watch the wonder and relief play across faces as, one by one, each boy gets to play with the stethoscope and listen to the paralyzed girl's heart beat.
I watch as eyes fill with tears, choking prayers are uttered, and Cy's body is patted and stroked with reverence. The two who have her sprawled over them hunker over her body, gripping at her with their whole bodies. The others find any way to touch her, and some even gently lay kisses across her hands and cheeks.
It all creeps me out on a parental level. Cyan is basically my kid, should I be beating them off with a stick? Is this appropriate?
I decide not to intervene though, as I analyze their reactions to one another being so close to her. They must not be too into her if they're all being so sweet on her. I note a lack of territorial mannerisms, so maybe one of them is under the impression they're related? Maybe they all were really close friends since they were kids and this is just relief at finding out she is alive and okay? I'm not understanding the relationship dynamic.
I'm missing something, some relevant key piece of information, and I'll have to work on that if they're going to be sticking around. If I even let them stick around.
"You all want to see a really neat trick?" I ask, after nearly five minutes of them passing the fucking thing around like a bunch of morons starts to get on my nerves.
Eyes raise and catch on me, and when I see that I have everyone's attention, I point at her hand.
Instead of watching it, like I expected them to do, the pink-haired punk grabs it in both of his own and looks back up at me. I roll my eyes, but it's just as well. I walk closer until I can crouch down and lay a hand against Cyan's head.
"Cy, I need you to squeeze your hand as hard as you can." I instruct her, making sure to enunciate as well as I can.
She might still be a little groggy, and I'm still not sure how she got introduced to the paralytic, so I have to guess on where she's at as far as dosage and metabolizing it. I don't think the kids will let me be alone with her to check for puncture wounds.
Nothing happens for the longest moment. "Come on, poppet. I know you can do this. Focus." I deepen my voice and put as much steel as I can into my tone. The sooner she gets moving the sooner the drug will be out of her system. Hopefully.
I smirk as finally another barely perceptible jolting of her muscles runs along her arm. PinkPunky gasps so dramatically that I can't help but snort at him.
"She's gripping my hand." He looks over to Blondie. Both of them look two seconds away from bursting into tears. I roll my eyes again. The dramatics of youth.
Before they can all demand to hold her hand, because I can see that they are gearing up for another share circle, I snap my fingers at 'Owen'.
His eyes find mine, and glint at me, though his expression is softer than I'm used to, and he raises an eyebrow at me. "What?" He asks.
"Who was in here with her when you got here?" I ask, my eyes already leaving the scene in front of me to scan the crowd at the threshold of the room.
"A pair of paramedics, some head of something or other, and an officer." The red-haired boy bulletpoints for me, before 'Owen' can get it out. I nod and gesture for at the door, meaning for him to point out who.
The red-haired boy nods, and I narrow my eyes at his calmness.
The other boys still have a little bit of the crazy desperation marring their faces, but he doesn't even glance back at her as he shows me out of the room.
The longer I search his face, the more I see something in his expression.
It's a tiny thing, the way he keeps his gaze forward, and the way his jaw is set. It's a glint of darkness, not of the grief sort, but more of a careful indifference that helps me pinpoint what I'm seeing.
This boy is the type who punish themselves when some tragic thing happens in their life... he's someone who doesn't value himself quite enough to fight for something he truly wants.
This guy is the one to talk to, to push. I can already tell, one little shove and all the secrets they're hiding will gush out of him like a wave of volcanic ash.
It's just a matter of finding the right rock to shove first.
And fuck knows, I love to Push and Shove.