Notes:
TRIGGER WARNINGS!!!! Are as FOLLOWS:
· blood
· Gore
· Surgical-like scenes
· Suspended disbelief
~oooOooo~
PLEASE!!! DO! NOT! READ! if this will harm or affect you!
~oooOooo~
****DISCLAIMER: TRIGGER WARNINGS!!!****
There is graphic depictions of blood and gore in relation to trauma-surgery like situations. If that will harm or affect you in any way, please DO NOT READ!!!! this chapter.
There is also (as there has been for some time), the reoccurring theme of suspended disbelief which had really been present since Sven got ahold of Taehyung this last time.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, suspension of disbelief, sometimes called willing suspension of disbelief, is the intentional avoidance of critical thinking or logic in examining something surreal, such as a work of speculative fiction (i.e. this story and probably the one to follow), in order to believe it for the sake of enjoyment.
Suspension of disbelief helps readers let go of reality and accept what the story has to offer. Stories containing SOD must be expertly created to provide just enough reality to make the rest of the fantastical events believable.
~oooOooo~
No more was said as Mathan looked around, debating between Taehyung with a knife in his chest and Yoongi with a bullet tearing through him every time he moved.
But Taehyung was weaker so Mathan knelt beside him and carefully picked him up, apologizing when he whimpered in pain.
The other four mobilized, Jimin and Hoseok helping Yoongi to his feet - wrapping arms around him to support his weight as Kaelyn led the way - gun now in her hand, prepared to shoot anything that moved.
~oooOooo~
After almost two hours - maybe three - stumbling and struggling through the woods - trying to follow the path Kaelyn had taken in as they walked out, the bedraggled group finally reached their destination.
Kaelyn threw open the doors to the decommissioned ambulance, climbing up in it and helping pull Yoongi up and in, laying him on the thin bench as Mathan climbed in and laid Taehyung on the gurney.
"I'll drive," Kaelyn said. "Someone can sit up front with me. One more can sit back here. Make sure they don't die. It's still hours out of here."
Hours she knew they didn't have.
Taehyung was pale - his breathing shallow - collarbone jutting out at an odd angle.
Yoongi was pale too, hiding more damage than any of them could see, his chest heavy and wet.
Mathan sat Jimin in the front, the man too shocked to move on his own as Hoseok climbed into the back and buckled into the captain's chair there.
"Everyone good?" Kaelyn asked as she started the ambulance and buckled her own self in. "Make sure they're strapped down. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."
The suspension of ambulances wasn't that great and they weren't four-wheel drive, but Kaelyn aimed to do the very best she could.
It was a long haul out to the main road and she had to be mindful of her surroundings so that none of them would be caught.
~oooOooo~
Kaelyn drove at break-neck speed, the back of the ambulance sometimes drifting or fish-tailing when she took a curve too fast, Mathan screaming at her to slow down and watch the road.
"Shut up!" she screamed back as she almost lost control. "You drive the god-damned thing if you don't like it!"
But of course Mathan didn't make a move.
He didn't know these particular roads that well. Kaelyn had brought them out the old trails in the back - not out the main road everyone else always used.
~oooOooo~
"You need to take the Parkway!" Mathan said some time later.
Hours maybe?
Or minutes.
None of the four remaining members knew.
"I don't!" Kaelyn insisted. "I need to get to 75! The Parkway has that mountain!"
"The Parkway goes to 75!" Mathan roared.
"THEN YOU FUCKING DRIVE!" Kaelyn screamed as she spun around another curve, almost losing control of the ambulance altogether. "Shit! Shut the fuck up!"
Kaelyn's heart was racing. It was a dangerous road they drove under normal circumstances, but with all the rain and mud - parts of the hillside sliding into the road - the stretch they traveled was borderline fatal.
"You..." Hoseok managed to say, thinking they needed to stop fighting and start concentrating on the road, but afraid to vocalize much else.
"Do the sirens work on this thing?" Mathan asked.
"As soon as I hit the interstate," Kaelyn said. "I'm not stopping or pulling over for anyone. We don't have time."
She wasn't getting caught and she wasn't letting anyone die.
"I called our brother. Just so you know," she said. "If you wanna tuck and roll just let me know..."
'If you don't want to get arrested and rot in a cell the rest of your life, I'll hand you a way out,' is what she was really trying to say.
"Keep driving," Mathan said, his mind already set.
He had to get to the hospital.
Had to make sure these four made it there alive.
Had to know Kim Seokjin had made it safely out alive.
Had to have an angel to hold on to as he descended into Hell.
~oooOooo~
Kaelyn drove for hours more - the minutes feeling like hours anyway - before she hit the highway and flipped the lights and sirens on, intent on getting to the hospital in record time from here.
She hoped the ruse would hold long enough - that no one would pull them over for driving crazy.
Jimin sat in the passenger's seat strapped in by his seatbelt and his fear, eyes wide as he looked all around, just waiting for someone to pull up beside them and attack.
Hoseok was still in the captain's chair, bent over Taehyung, his ear close to Taehyung's mouth as he listened to make sure he was still alive - still breathing.
Taehyung laid on the gurney, flirting with consciousness as he fell in and out of the dreams that both called him home and begged him to stay where he was, death closer than any of them were prepared for.
And just as Kaelyn hit a lick - the miles blowing past them as they booked it down the road, Yoongi started coughing - choking - gasping as he fought to breathe.
Mathan helped Yoongi sit up - braced him as he held his chest - supported him as he threw up pure blood, clinging to Mathan with what life was left in him.
Mathan had seen this before.
Had watched friends and enemies alike choke to death on their own blood.
He knew what needed to be done, but he didn't have the tools to do it.
Didn't have mastery enough of his failing body to exert the control that would be needed - his hands trembling dangerously when he didn't have them busy holding someone up or down.
"Kae!" he called over the roar of the road and sirens. "Switch me!"
Kaelyn managed to look back over her shoulder - saw the blood pooled on the floor as Yoongi slumped weakly against Mathan - eyes closed, brow soaked with sweat.
He was dying.
Right here.
Right now.
Kaelyn didn't ask any questions as Mathan instructed Jimin to hold the wheel, speeding up as fast as she could before jumping from her seat and letting Mathan squeeze in.
When Mathan was settled with the wheel, Kaelyn helped Yoongi sink onto the floor, the bench not wide enough for what she needed to do.
She cut Yoongi's shirt away from him, the man beneath her too weak to fight back.
She thought to explain to him what she was doing but in situations like this, she wondered if ignorance wasn't bliss.
"What...what are you--" Hoseok managed as Kaelyn grabbed the supplies she would need, some of them rudimentary at best.
"He's choking to death," Kaelyn said softly as she poured alcohol on a rag and tried her best to sanitize the mark she needed to hit. "His lungs are filling up with blood. We have to..."
But Kaelyn didn't know how to explain without it sounding morbid - without causing unnecessary fear.
In the days it had taken her to get here, Kaelyn had become emotionally detached from life.
It made things like this easier.
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
Taking a breath as she poured alcohol over the knife, Kaelyn looked at Hoseok.
"Come here and hold him down," she said. "This is going to be a nightmare."
Kaelyn didn't have anything to numb the pain - didn't have anything to give Yoongi to make it better. She didn't even have a belt for him to bite down on.
"Hold his hand," Kaelyn said as she looked back at Yoongi, trying to remain clinical through it all.
She wasn't getting attached to the boys.
She wouldn't let her feelings or emotions get in the way.
She was going to see them delivered safely to trained professionals that would help them and then she was going to slip away to an island somewhere and never be heard from again.
"Yoongi, I need you to breathe deep for me," she said as she focused on the side of his chest. "And hold it. As long as you can."
Yoongi looked at the girl before him with wide eyes. He saw the knife in her hand - realized this looked like a scene from Sherlock Holmes right before they prepared to cut someone open and torture them. Realized this was going to hurt.
But Yoongi couldn't fight her. He didn't have the strength or the room, and Hoseok was so afraid he was trembling like a leaf.
As safe as they seemed to be, Yoongi wondered if the real danger wasn't now.
~oooOooo~
Kaelyn took a breath and said a prayer before she pressed the knife against Yoongi's skin - pushing until she felt it break through and a small burst of air puff out of the hole she had punched in Yoongi's chest.
Working quickly she used the knife to hold it open, shoving a piece of tubing she had found into the wound, blood gushing out of it as Yoongi still struggled to breath.
Hoseok looked on in horror as Kaelyn tried to tape the tube in place, lifting Yoongi's head and looking him in the eye, her voice firm as she told him to relax and breathe.
~oooOooo~
The pain Yoongi felt was unimaginable.
Worse than when the bullet had ripped through his side and into his chest.
He felt the tube scraping the inside of his lung - felt his life seeping from the only thing helping him breathe.
He wondered briefly if his lung had collapsed - if he would suffocate before help could find him.
Wondered if that wasn't the exact death he deserved for what he had done to Taehyung - painful and slow - a struggle.
Taehyung hadn't struggled.
Hadn't fought back when Yoongi had violated him so.
He remembered soft hands and warm words.
Love.
He remembered Taehyung calling to him - speaking to his soul - begging Yoongi to come home to him.
Taehyung was Yoongi's home and he had burnt him to the ground.
"Tae--" he breathed before the pain became too much and he passed out as well.