Hey! I’m so sorry I took longer getting this up, I meant to every day this week but kept forgetting! :o so today was my last day of school. Two days of exams and then I’m out for the summer!! And I only have a chapter and a half left to write of Omega! (no I haven’t been studying lol but whatever) so yeah please vote and comment and stuff, pleaseeee comment it means loads :) and have a great day/end of school/whatever! Love you guys! Sorry for the wait :/

Gracias!!! <3 vb123321

Chapter Twenty-Seven



♥ Astrid ♥



I sat stooped over in the backseat with my face in my hands as the car began to move, barely registering the hushed words of the agents though I could feel their eyes on me. The sirens of the ambulance soon screamed their way into the distance, faster and much farther ahead than us, but I couldn’t see why they bothered. He was gone – I had seen the fatal shake of the head from the agent who took his pulse – they only wanted to arrest him anyway – why did they care?



The blood had already clotted in the graze on my arm, sticky against my skin. I barely felt it or the cold clink of the handcuffs at my wrists as we drove to some place I didn’t care about, some place I didn’t want to go to. It must have been about an hour’s drive, but I had lost all sense of time by the time the car rolled to a stop.



“Get her inside,” someone said. “Hold her somewhere.”



I still didn’t look up as the door next to me opened and an agent took me by the shoulders again. Only when he began to pull me out of the car did I raise my head to look blearily at the building in front of me. I caught only a glimpse of bricks before an agent tied a white piece of cloth over my eyes. The other man pulled my arms in back of me again, though I was handcuffed, and the barrel of his gun poked me in the small of my back as he growled, “Walk.”



“Am I really that dangerous?” I asked. “That you feel the need to blindfold me?”



The gun jabbed into my back in answer, and I moved forward compliantly. The whiteness of the blindfold was blinding, frustrating my eyes as I strained to see what was in front of me but failed. Closing my eyes instead because the black was more calming than the white, I was tugged and shoved by the agent behind me towards the building. I could tell we were inside when the wind was abruptly cut off and my hair fell into my face.



I moved through the building, guided by the gun at my back, and after I had gone down a flight of stairs and rounded enough turns to make me sufficiently confused, the agent at last told me to stop. Doing so, I stood still and listened for some clue of where I was, some noise that might tell me how to escape and get back to Charlie. The agent grabbed my arm again – I stifled a protest at the spurt of pain – and I was tugged several feet forward before halted once more.



The grip on my arm was released, but I couldn’t move my hands up to my eyes to remove the blindfold, so I worked my eyebrows in an attempt to get it off. Turning slightly at the sound of voices from behind me, I staggered backwards slightly as something collided with my head and someone said roughly, “Cut it out.”



“Do it,” said another voice, lower and harsher, and I tried to look in its direction. The agent who had spoken first took me by the shoulders again, pushing me forward and down, my stomach flipping slightly with panic as my body involuntarily went horizontal. My back fell against something hard, shoulders and head soon following as the agent pressed me onto what felt like a long board.



“What –”



My attempt to speak was cut short by another smack to my head. Confusion jumbled my mind, but then I felt ropes looping around my waist and ankles, my hands yanked above my head and also tied down, and suddenly I knew what was happening. Reacting violently, I jerked my body upwards, fighting the agent as he finished tying the ropes and hit me in the face with a curse.



“Don’t do anything stupid,” he snarled. “You’re going to tell us some information now, you hear me?”



“Where’s Charlie?” I demanded, my voice high-pitched. It hadn’t been an ambulance, he wasn’t on his way to the emergency room, because if I was facing this interrogation what could he possibly be going through? What had they done with him?



“I’m asking the questions here.”



A cloth fell over my face. The panic inside of me was rising though I tried to squash it, knowing that it was the desired effect of this treatment. I had been trained for this – there was nothing they could do to me – but where was Charlie – where had they taken him?



“Where’s the Red list?”



I could sense the agent hovering over me, my mind spinning desperately as I struggled to remain calm. “I don’t know,” I said as evenly as I could, though my nerves were twitching. “I don’t have it.”



It was true; I didn’t have it, and the fact that they had to ask meant that they didn’t have Josh and Joel. The agent clearly wasn’t convinced by my honesty: Something fell on top of the cloth over my face, heavy and oppressive and wet. My lungs immediately seized up and I began gagging, the panic almost overflowing as my mind tried to convince my body that it was drowning. I was holding my breath involuntarily, forcing myself to release it once I realized I was doing it.



The cloth was suddenly whipped off my face, allowing my lungs three grateful, gasping breaths of air. I still couldn’t see the face of the agent in front of me, though I could hear his voice grating in my ears as the cloth was replaced.



“Where’s the Red list?” the agent said again, more harshly, and this time he didn’t even wait for my answer, just poured more water on top of the cloth.



My head was spinning, colors exploding in my black vision as the agent asked again and again, his voice rising to a shout as the water increased. Even though I knew it was all psychological, I was sucked into the vortex, fighting for air and panicking as I found none. I was drowning, his voice floating away as my hearing dimmed, but I didn’t try and force my way out of the bonds, didn’t try to get the cloth off my face. It was over anyway – Jay was dead – Charlie was dead or in their hands facing the same as me – what did it matter?



“What the hell is going on here?”



The voice burst through my semi-consciousness, loud and angry and vaguely familiar. I gasped in relief as the cloth was torn off my face, my vision blurring as I sucked in huge breaths of air. Someone was yelling furiously at my interrogator, his back to me as he shook the cloth emphatically. The second agent who had stood by the door all this time came forward, saying something sharply that I couldn’t hear.



As my vision slowly returned, I could make out the dark hair and familiar stance of the man who had saved me and the annoyed face of my interrogator. My lungs slowly began to breathe in oxygen at a normal rate, the sound of my heart pounding in my temples dimming as I listened to what they were saying.



“What were you thinking –”



“You have no authority here, get out.”



“This kind of crap’s illegal!”



“And since when have we been the most legal chaps around? She knows where the Red list is, and we need to know. Don’t be fooled by her pretty looks, kid.”



The interrogator’s face crumpled under Pierre’s fist as he shouted, “You bloody idiot!”



For a moment, I thought the agent was going to kill him, one hand gripping his gun very tightly as he glowered through a swelling eye at the teenager in front of him. Then the other man came forward with a careful look, saying, “All right, cool it, Brooks. He’s just a kid.”



Pierre’s shoulders tightened as if he was going to explode. “Just wait till I tell someone about all this,” he seethed. “And don’t think I won’t mention your name too, Jamieson.”



Brooks almost growled, shoving Pierre aside with one arm and striding over so that he was standing directly over me. Pierre came forward furiously, but Jamieson caught his shoulder with a warning look. I stared up at Brooks, my chest still heaving and my arm throbbing now that I could concentrate on it again. He crossed his arms over his chest, saying, “So where’s that Red list, then?”



“I don’t have it,” I said again, struggling against the ropes around my ankles. “What have you done with Charlie?”



One hand whipped across my face so quickly that I didn’t even see it coming, knocking my head to one side from the momentum. Cheek stinging, I glared at Brooks as he leaned over so that his eyes were inches away from mine, burning with intensity. Though his voice was calm, an underlying threat matched the look in his eyes.



“I’m only going to ask you once more, and then your friend LaPointe and his morals can go to hell. Where is the Red list?”



I spat in his face.



He went red, his eyes livid as he jerked backwards involuntarily. Pierre tried to grab his arm as he made to hit me again, but Brooks shoved him backwards so that he stumbled into the wall. The other agent didn’t even move, looking almost indifferent as Brooks reached for the cloth once more. I held his eyes defiantly, knowing that I was probably killing myself. Only the thought that I was quite possibly killing Charlie as well made my heart afraid.



Everything happened at once. As I prepared my lungs again, Pierre drew his gun and pointed it at Brooks, daring him to touch me. The look on Brooks’ face made me think that maybe Pierre wasn’t a coward after all as the agent advanced on him, but at that moment another voice came from the doorway of the room.



“What’s all this?”



Brooks and Pierre froze; I strained my neck against the ropes to see the newcomer, taking in the sandy hair and light brown eyes in the serious face, the familiar Aussie-Brit accent. Where Pierre had had bluster and anger on his side, it was clear that Stephen Mauser had authority over the men in the room: Brooks instantly stepped away from the board I was on, and Pierre lowered his gun with a surly look.



“What’s she doing here?” snapped Stephen when no one replied. “Jamieson, you’re senior agent here; what’s going on?”



He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old, as I remembered, and yet a steely look in his brown eyes squashed any thought of arguing. Jamieson gave Brooks a dirty look, saying, “We’re trying to find out where the Red list is.”



“Using water boarding!” Pierre was still furious, his voice shaking as he glared at Brooks and petitioned Stephen. “These idiots were freaking torturing –”



“Why do you even care?” I snarled at him, unable to help myself, and a flash of real hurt entered his eyes. I moved my eyes back to Stephen, fighting to look like I was in control whereas in reality my mind was spiraling with blackness. “I don’t have it, I swear. Where’s Charlie? What have you done with him?”



“I know you don’t have it.” Stephen exhaled loudly, running his hands through his sandy hair so that it stuck up in tufts. “We just got a call that your friend Josh and the Nicholson kid are in a police station nearby. I got to talk to him, and he says he has it, though he wants to talk to your director before he does anything. We’re bringing them here as we speak.”



I didn’t care for his shrewd look. “Are you going to water board him, too?” I growled, attempting to pull my arms downwards in frustration.



Stephen shot Brooks and Jamieson an annoyed look. “No. I don’t know what that was all about, but I offer you an apology for it. Rest assured that these two will be roasted for it.”



“I’ll make sure of it,” Pierre snarled, sparks still flying from his green eyes.



I ignored him, asking Stephen again, “Where’s Charlie?”



“Let me get you out of there,” he said, avoiding the question as he ordered Brooks and Jamieson out of the room with a glare. Flicking a blade out of his pocket, he went to work on the ropes at my ankles. Pierre came forward as well, working with the knot at my wrists as I forced myself not to look at him. He was very close, leaning over the rope so that I could smell his hair.



I waited until the ropes had fallen away and then tried to stand, immediately regretting the motion as my head and stomach lurched violently. My knees went weak, threatening to give way as I gripped the edge of the board. Pierre grabbed my arm to steady me, but I shook him off, taking a couple deep breaths to get my fuzzy vision under control.



“Where is he?” I demanded.



Stephen stood at the end of the board, a strange look on his face. “They took him to the hospital we have here,” he said at last, his voice quiet. “He was still alive when I last saw him.”



Still. I clutched the board more tightly, forcing myself not to fall to pieces as I felt the scream rising inside of me again, yet relief was washing over me. The paramedic had been wrong – he was still alive – still... Pierre was at my elbow, exchanging a look with Stephen as the latter flicked an eyebrow in some unspoken statement. Straightening, I looked the blonde in the eye, saying quite calmly, “Take me there.”



“Can’t do that, sorry.” His eyes were apologetic but firm, iron discipline taking over as he exerted his authority. “And I’m not going to let you do something dumb like try and find your way around either.”



“I’m not –”



Stephen didn’t let me finish, grabbing my arm so suddenly that I couldn’t help crying out, even though it hadn’t hurt that much. Pierre’s eyes flashed in concern as he looked at the bullet graze, saying, “Careful, Mauser, she’s hurt.”



“I’m fine,” I snapped, fear cracking my voice. “You have to let me see Charlie! Where is he? What are they doing to him?”



“I’ve already told you.” Stephen was losing patience fast. “He’s in the hospital. It’s the safest place he can be, I promise. Will you just listen?”



But I was far past that point, my mind slipping as I tried to move towards the door, thinking only of finding Charlie in that hospital where who knew what they were doing to him. I made it all of five feet before the floor tipped vertically all at once, causing me to fall backwards heavily as my head spun. Someone caught me – I wasn’t even aware whom – and I could hear another voice swearing angrily as the world went black.







A bright light hovered above my eyes, barely blocked by my closed lids as I slowly rose to the surface of my consciousness. The light dimmed slightly as a shadow moved across my vision, a familiar voice sounding wordlessly in my ears as slowly I opened my eyes to look into another, blue-green pair. They were filled with concern as they fixed on my face, one of them purple and swelling. I licked my dry lips, trying to form words.



“Josh…?”



His irrepressible grin was brighter than any light. “Welcome back.”



Still feeling befuddled, I moved my eyes around the tiny room I was in, registering the bars six feet away and the cell door beyond them. I was lying on a simple cot, once white but now stained with the blood and dirt from my sweatshirt. Josh was seated at the very edge of the cot, looking much healthier than I thought was decent, even with his rapidly-blackening eye. My forehead was sticky with sweat; I could feel more trickling down my back and making my jeans thick and heavy.



“Where’s Joel?” I managed to ask at last, my teeth chattering slightly though I wasn’t cold at all. “What happened to your eye?”



The grin slid off his face, his eyes tired. “They took Joel somewhere, not sure what they’re doing with him.”



“Don’t they know they don’t need him anymore? Not now –” I curled my hands into fists, clenching my jaw to keep the tears in check.



“Yeah, I know.” He sighed wearily, looking away from me for a moment and taking a deep breath. “Well, anyway, we got to the station and apparently they were looking for us, because the chief called them and I got to talk to that Stephen guy. He said he could contact Young for us – I dunno, it sounded good.”



“Do you have it?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer as guilt entered his eyes.



“Well – no.” Josh winced as I exhaled loudly. “I’m sorry, okay? Those agents – Omega or whatever they’re called – they came and we tried to talk it out, but then I realized they just wanted to take the Red list and the kid or whatever. So I refused to give it to them, and they just sort of rushed me,” pointing to the black eye. “I didn’t really have much of a chance, especially with Joel and everything.”



I closed my eyes, concentrating on breathing. “It’s okay,” I said softly. “Not your fault. I guess we can only hope Young can get us out.” That bleakness swept over me once more as my eyes filled behind their closed lids. “It’s all over anyway.”



Josh tapped my nose, forcing me to look at him. “Hey. Don’t go defeatist on me, okay? How ‘bout you tell me what happened to you guys? Where’s Charlie?”



“He’s gone,” I whispered, and suddenly the tears were sliding down my face again, warm and wet against my burning skin.



“What are you talking about?” Josh’s voice was sharp, his body tensing on the edge of the cot. When I didn’t – couldn’t – reply, he took my hands and tugged me into a seated position. I swung my legs over the side of the cot so that he could lean back against the wall next to me, burying my face in his shoulder and trying not to scream.



“Astrid?” His voice was gentle, his arm around me.



“Cloying shot him,” I said between great, gulping breaths. “He was going to shoot me and then Charlie jumped in front of the bullet and then he was on the ground and the Omega agents were there and the blood – oh no – the blood!”



And suddenly all my emotion poured out, sobs wracking my body as I clung to Josh and cried into the front of his jacket. He held me tight, just as Charlie had a few hours before, moving one hand gently across my back even as it shook violently. I could feel his shock radiating off of him. Images of Jay and Charlie and the fire and the red, red blood swarmed my mind, filling the room until it was all I could do to hold the scream in.



“They’re gone,” I murmured into Josh’s jacket in an attempt to force myself to accept the reality. I needed to stop crying – why did I cry so much – but their faces swam before my eyes in a pool of tears.



“Astrid, listen to me.” Josh pulled away from me so that I had to look in his eyes, holding my arms so tightly that pain sparked up one side. His eyes were very fierce, fixed intently on my face as he spoke firmly. “You need to think straight a moment and tell me what’s going on, okay? What happened?”



My mind was swirling dizzily again, but I found myself talking in a dull, distant voice, telling him what had happened after the first explosion. “Stephen said he’s in the emergency room,” I said, thinking only of Charlie and where he was and how he was doing – he could already be dead, and I would have no idea. “He said he’s still alive –” but at that point my voice cracked too badly to continue.



“So he’s going to be okay.” Josh moved his hands down to mine, gripping them very tightly as he looked at me earnestly. “Right? This is 2012, Astrid. Loads of people have survived bullet wounds, and I’d be willing to bet this place is very experienced at it. He’s going to be fine.”



Why was I still crying? I nodded and shook my head at the same time, fighting the tears as I did my best to listen to him. “He better,” I whispered, my chest aching as I thought of that deep, deep red and his burning grey eyes and the glint of the sun on his dark hair as he lay on the cold ground. “He has to.”



Voices rose outside the cell door, causing us both to look in that direction as the door banged open. Josh got to his feet as an irritated-looking Stephen Mauser swept into the room, his brown eyes glowering at the guard at the door before he looked over at us. I remained on the cot, feeling strangely detached as Josh said,



“So? Have you gotten hold of Young?”



Stephen ran his hands through tousled sandy hair. “Yeah, we did. We’re just having a few – technical difficulties.”



Josh’s voice was ice. He walked forward so that he was clutching the bars of our cell, glaring at Stephen through them as the agent looked at him with wary eyes. “Technical difficulties? Cloying’s dead, Jay’s dead, we have the Red list – what difficulties could there be?”



“Your AWOL,” said Stephen flatly, dropping his hands. “I’m doing the best I can here, all right? It’s not my fault Delta has this fanatic obsession with rogue agents –”



He knew we weren’t CIA, I realized; he’d known all along. Of course, it only made sense, since Pierre had always known about Delta – heck, he’d been part of Delta, how could I have forgotten? What other lies had I been living? Only fourteen years old…



“Because Omega doesn’t!” Josh was saying. “You’ve been chasing us since Michigan, too; don’t even try to deny it – and you were even following us in France, before we even knew about the Red list, because you wanted Jay, too. Omega is just as obsessed.”



Stephen was looking at him strangely. “Young told us you guys had no idea who we were. Did Nicholson know?”



“What?”



“That we’re Omega. We don’t exactly publish it in the paper, you know.”



I could see only a tiny sliver of the confusion and surprise on Josh’s face as he stared at the agent. All at once he started laughing, releasing the bars and falling against the adjacent wall, shaking his head as Stephen and I watched him in bewilderment. “Wow,” he said after a moment, still grinning. “We were joking when we called you guys Omega – it was just that symbol and stuff…so we were right?”



“Well, damn,” said Stephen after a long moment.



I still didn’t get it but didn’t care, just looked at the Omega agent until he met my eyes, immediately understanding. “No, I haven’t heard anything from the hospital, sorry. But I do have good news – why I came here, actually. Your director managed to convince ours to let you guys out of here, though you’re not allowed out of the building and are going to be kept under surveillance.”



“Thank you so much,” said Josh sardonically, but he looked relieved as Stephen gestured to the guard, who came forward to unlock the cell. I stood up slowly from the cot as the cell door swung open, walking out as Josh ushered me before him. When we both had emerged, he kicked the door shut, giving it a look of satisfaction as it clanged loudly.



“Screw you,” he told it, and then to Stephen: “That goes for you, too.”



Josh wasn’t exactly the type that enjoyed being locked up. The agent gave him an annoyed look.



“So where’s the kid?” Josh asked. “Done torturing information that he doesn’t have out of him yet?”



Stephen looked like he was going to grab the guard’s gun. “We’re not torturing him,” he said with infinite patience. “We just wanted to ask him a couple questions. It was pretty clear he knew nothing, so he’s going to join you in a moment.”



“Where are we going to go, anyway? And what are we going to do if we have to have surveillance or whatever?”



Stephen glanced at me. “I’m afraid I can’t let you go to the hospital yet –”



“What do they think we’re going to do, stab some patients?” My voice was shaking in my ears, my mind still in a swirl of panic. “I need to see him! He’s shot, damn it, and he didn’t have a pulse and there was so much blood –”



Josh’s hands landed on my shoulders, massaging them gently as he said, “Calm down, baby. He’s probably in surgery right now, okay, so we can’t see him. He’s gonna make it.”



My vision was blurry with tears, my tongue heavy in my mouth. “How do you know?”



“Because I don’t know if you realize it, but Charlie would never leave you. It’s, like, not in his DNA.”



Josh wasn’t exactly the best therapist, but I couldn’t help laughing shakily over the tears that were threatening to spill down my cheeks. He was right – he had always been right – why had I been the only one who had been unable to see it? And Charlie’s face swam in front of my eyes again, that pained look in his grey eyes as his lips moved: Why is so easy for you to kiss Jay, or Pierre? But why was it so hard to sort out exactly what I was feeling?



“Yes,” Stephen was saying, looking relieved, “Josh’s right. We can go somewhere near the hospital, though, if they let us. There’s this lobby thing that has some couches and stuff if you want to crash, and it’s easy to guard. You can wait there.”



“Just like old times, huh?” Josh gave Stephen a crooked grin.



We exited the room, Stephen leading the way with the guard following Josh and me with annoying proximity, his face as cold as the barrel of his gun. Josh looked like he was restraining his irritation with extreme difficulty, attempting to amuse me by sticking his tongue out at the back of Stephen’s head when the agent wasn’t looking. I tried to smile, tried to let him feel like he was succeeding, but I just felt so, so empty.



The lobby was wide and spacious, couches and armchairs lining the walls as if it were a hotel instead of an espionage agency. Stephen showed us to one corner, where a table laden with a canteen of water and paper cups stood along with a couch and armchair. The only damper on the atmosphere was the presence of three guards standing at the walls of the room, and most likely there were more at the doors.



“Man, are we living it up or what?” Josh sank onto the couch, lying down and propping his feet up. Stephen gave him a look that said he thought Josh was being utterly inappropriate; he really, I reflected vaguely as I collapsed in the armchair, didn’t know Joshua Steiner as I did. Josh always became more obnoxious as the situation became tenser.



“I have to go now,” said Stephen, apparently deciding to ignore him. “I’ll try and come back later, see if I can work something out for you.”



I was barely listening to him, but Josh raised his head slightly and said, “Yeah, run along to your Omega director, find out whose life you’re going to ruin now.”



Stephen gave him an extremely dirty look and told him in equally dirty terms where he could go, adding, “I forgot what an immature chap you are.” And as Josh smirked and folded his hands behind his head, the British agent stalked out of the room.



Josh didn’t seem to be able to think of any way to start a conversation, and I didn’t want to, so we were silent as somewhere a clock ticked loudly. The throbbing in my arm had settled into a slight prick of pain now and then, and I sunk deeper and deeper into the blackness, my mind swimming through it as I struggled to latch on to something positive. The armchair seemed to be swallowing me, the room edged in black as I stared at nothing, seeing only the agent’s shake of his head as he felt for Charlie’s pulse and the shrieking of ambulance sirens and the red that stained everything.



At some point – it might have been ten minutes or an hour – another commotion outside the lobby door stirred me briefly out of my stupor. I looked up, feeling suddenly hopeful and expecting to see someone that could give me the words I wanted to hear, but instead I looked into the green eyes of the last person on the earth I wanted to talk to at that moment.



“Young’s flying over soon,” he said by way of greeting. Josh’s eyes, which had been lazily half-closed, flew open at the sound of Pierre’s voice, and he sprung to his feet with a dark look on his face. Pierre glanced at him, raising a sleek eyebrow, but his attention was with me. I could think of nothing to say, though he was clearly waiting for my reply, and his brow furrowed in confusion as I just stared at him.



“I said –”



“She heard what you said,” interrupted Josh in an unpleasant voice. “Does it look like she wants to talk to you right now?”



Pierre gave him a dirty look. “You don’t even know what’s going on here.”



Josh had his hands stuck in his pocket, a petulant expression in his eyes. “Actually, I think I do. You lied to us for, like, two years about being in Delta and then up and left without explaining anything, even when your real agency was after us.”



I put my hands over my ears as Pierre opened his mouth furiously, bringing my knees up to my chest in a childlike position. “Will you both shut up? It doesn’t matter!” None of it mattered, nothing mattered but the red and the white hospital room and the grey of his eyes.



They both looked at me, identical expressions of brief confusion on their faces, and then Pierre’s eyes began to burn. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened, really, but can’t you give me a chance? I’m sorry about Charlie too, but do you really think it’s going to make a difference now if you notice him? You’ve only been ignoring him for six years.”



My eyes widened in shock, my lungs seizing up as I searched for something scathing enough to say in return, something that would stop the threat of tears again. But Josh got there first, turning to face Pierre and saying roughly, “You want to shut up? You really think you can say that when you completely walked out on us?”



Pierre was still looking at me, something flickering in his eyes. “I thought you said you couldn’t live without me, when I left. Remember? Amazing how quickly you change your mind, don’t you think? Flighty little –”



Josh punched him square in the face. My jaw dropped as Pierre staggered backwards, the stunned look on his face rapidly replaced with fury as he clenched his fists. The guards that had until then looked on quietly now came forward, guns up and pointing at Josh as one of them ordered him to sit down again, but Pierre told them to stand down.



“Whatever,” he panted, his eyes still sparking, “it doesn’t even matter. It was nice knowing you guys. Hope you make it back to the States in something other than handcuffs.”



And he stormed out of the room. I watched him go, feeling nothing but bewilderment, and Josh said something quite rude under his breath as he threw himself down on the couch again. Watching him as he folded his arms behind his head and made to close his eyes again, I said suddenly, “Thanks.”



He glanced at me, cocking an eyebrow. “No prob. Just don’t tell Charlie I was being Prince Charming, okay?”



I tried to smile but it came out a little twisted because of the pain in my chest. Josh closed his eyes, the exhaustion suddenly plain on his face as he visibly relaxed, probably for the first time in almost a day; I had no idea what time it was. I curled myself into a ball on the armchair, putting my face in my knees, my hair falling over my arms as I shut my eyes and tried to drown out the world.



Time sort of slipped away as I hovered somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, my mind swirling around and around with the events of the last few days and the wild colors – red, red, red... When at last I felt someone shaking me back to consciousness, I felt as though I had been sitting there for hours, though I didn’t bother to look at my watch. Josh stood over me, his lips moving. It took me a moment to realize what he was saying.



“Stephen says we can go see Charlie now.”



I blinked, struggling to connect the dots. My mind felt loose and heavy, as if I had been drugged. “Is he – okay?”



Josh’s face was pale and tired, his eyes glassy with fatigue. “He was in surgery for a couple hours, apparently. I’m not sure of anything else; Stephen says the doctor will tell us.”



Was that positive or negative? I slid my legs off the armchair, attempting to get my bearings as I stretched them slightly. The bleeding had stopped completely in my arm now, the area around it numb as I moved it carefully. Still feeling lightheaded, I got to my feet, Josh catching my arm as I staggered a little. I took a moment to straighten myself out before shrugging his hand off my arm and looking around to see another agent standing nearby.



“I’m here to take you to the hospital,” he said, expressionless, the gun at his side clearly evident.



“What time is it?” I asked Josh groggily as we were escorted out of the lobby into a long corridor. I was still feeling sort of detached, as if it were someone else walking in my body as I watched from a distance.



He glanced at his wrist. “Four in the morning,” he said, and I understood the exhaustion in his voice. “It’s been about ten hours since we got here. You must have fallen asleep in the lobby – lucky you.”



I scrubbed my eyes as we passed a row of doors and entered a hallway with hospital-style pure white walls, completely disorientated. “What have you been doing?”



Josh shrugged, his hands deep in his pockets. “They let me out of the lobby around eleven, once Young had cleared up a few things, so I just talked with a few people, checked up on Joel. The kid’s doing okay,” he glanced at me, “all things considering. I think he crashed somewhere after they were done questioning him.”



“So…Young’s here?” I asked, looking into every doorway for a glimpse of dark hair. I wasn’t sure how I felt about having our director in the same country as us.



“Not yet, but his plane should arrive soon.” Josh grinned a little at the expression I produced on my face. “Maybe he won’t be too bad. At least he seems to be pretty happy about the fact that we got the Red list.”



And that Jay was dead, I added to myself but couldn’t say. I had forgotten how much I hated hospitals – the scent of antiseptics floating through the air, the blank whiteness, the quiet of the air punctuating by strange sounds now and then, and the overwhelming odor of death. Maybe it was a good place that helped people get healthy, but all I could think about was the ominous hum of the machines that surrounded the patients in an effort to give them their lives. My nerves began to jump again, rocketing through the haze in my mind.



“No visitors allowed,” said a guard in front of the hospital room we stopped at, crossing his rifle across his chest.



“It’s all right.”



The agent that had led us there showed something to the guard that made him pull up his rifle a little reluctantly, the distrust plain on his face. As he stepped aside to open the door, I found that my hands were shaking, my insides spinning as I walked carefully into the room, my senses immediately inundated with the familiar hospital aura. Something seemed to break inside of me as my eyes fixated on the occupant of the bed in the center of the room.



Almost tripping as I went forward, I stood next to the bed and just looked at him, my entire body shaking. Josh came up behind me, his presence steadying as I felt myself go lightheaded again, my breathing seeming too loud in my ears as Charlie’s chest barely rose and fell with every shallow breath. His face was whiter than the pillow underneath his dark hair, his features barely visible under the blue and purple swelling although most of the blood had been washed away.



I wanted to find his hand and hold it, let him know I was there, but the rest of his body was hidden by a light sheet that barely stirred as the oxygen mask lent air to his lungs. More tubes than I had ever seen before were attached to him, leading to strange machines that worked his body for him, water and blood and air dripping into his veins. He was deathly still, eyes closed and hair drifting over his forehead, and all at once I was terrified for him once more.



“I assume you are the agents that were with him?”



Josh and I both jumped a little as a new voice entered the room, turning to see a man in doctor’s scrubs standing a few feet away. He was pulling gloves off his hands, wiping his face wearily and readjusting the glasses on his nose as he tried to smile at us. It had to have been a long night for him as well.



“Yeah,” Josh said after a moment. “Is he –?”



The doctor came forward, holding out one hand. “I’m Doctor Harry Neil. I’d be glad to answer any questions you have for me, but I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to the one I know you’re going to ask.”



I swallowed hard, ignoring his proffered hand as I looked back down at Charlie’s face, not wanting to hear the verdict. Josh shook the doctor’s hand a little awkwardly, probably because he felt obliged to, but he looked shaken as well, putting a hand on my shoulder as I fought to stay calm.



“So what’s your evaluation of him?”



It was Josh who asked; I was incapable of words, the fear taking hold of my vocal cords as I looked up at the doctor for his answer. Harry Neil took a moment to reply, studying our faces before picking up a clipboard from a side table and looking at it with an unenthusiastic eye that I had never seen a doctor use.



“Well, he was shot through the lung, punctured it completely, so his breathing and blood circulation are rather messed up. That should be fixed easily enough though; it’s a good thing that one of the agents got a patch on his chest when he did. It’s the rest of him that is worrisome.” He glanced at me before continuing. “He was also shot through the thigh earlier yesterday, which means some muscular tearing and some infection due to exposure. Again, that should be easily taken care of.”



I wanted to leave the room, I didn’t want to hear the words that were coming out of his mouth, but I knew I couldn’t leave Charlie.



“He’s rather badly beaten-up all over his body, and there’s evidence of internal bleeding around his abdomen and kidneys that required immediate medical attention. We did the best we could, considering it was at least an hour after it started that he got here. I have to tell you that internal bleeding of major organs can be critical.”



In my mind’s eye I saw Finn’s fist colliding with his stomach again and again, that black fury etched across his face as he pounded Charlie’s body into the ground, that helplessness returning as I stared at his white face. The doctor was still talking – why wouldn’t he stop talking – I wanted him to stop, wanted to run out of the room and escape the words…but he just went on and on and on, as if he would never cease.



“A few of his ribs are broken or cracked, which isn’t helping his lungs, and he’s had a fair amount of trauma to his brain, due to the hemorrhaging in his lungs and abdomen, not to mention heavy impact to his skull. That also caused his body to go into shock and almost shut down other major organs, but I believe we have worked out the main problem now that we stopped the bleeding and are pumping blood into him again. Time will tell for the rest.”



Josh put an arm around me as I blinked away tears, shaking as I sank down on the corner of the bed. The room was spinning, my vision blurred as I curled my fingers around the sheet tightly and tried to escape everything, my eyes fixed on his face.



Doctor Harry Neil sighed quietly, putting the clipboard down again. “I’m sorry,” he said in a very unprofessional but more honest tone. “I’m not sure if he’s going to make it.” And as I slipped off the bed and fell to my knees on the floor, he added, “But I know he’s not going to go easily. He’s a fighter, right? When we first took him into surgery, he kept asking for someone, even though he was almost completely unconscious.”



I could feel his eyes on me but ignored them, burying my face in the coolness of the white sheet, willing it to swallow me and allow me to disappear into the blackness again. Josh’s hand was moving reassuringly across my shoulders, though I could feel it shaking too as he said something to the doctor I couldn’t hear.



As my head rose, I finally found Charlie’s hand under the sheet, clutching it tightly as I struggled to breathe normally. My heart was thumping traitorously, pumping out blood and oxygen at an almost indecent rate, mocking the drip of the IV and the unsteady beep of the heart monitor that hung beside the bed. His skin was cold to the touch, cold like the fear that was creeping through my veins, and all at once I was crying again without a sound, the tears falling slowly down my face as I willed him to talk to me.



“You’re going to make it, Charlie, you hear me?”



I was babbling suddenly, the words tumbling out of my mouth as if Josh and the doctor and the other agent weren’t there, as if it were just Charlie and I alone in that white, white room as we had been in the alley and that icy warehouse.



“I’m not going to let you die, not now, not ever, okay? You’re not allowed to, I don’t care if you’re older than me so you’re the boss and that you never listen to me ‘cause you think you’re too cool. But I know you do because you’re always there, I know you are, and now I’m here for you, I really am, I promise, and I always will be and I love you, Charlie Gallagher, damn it, I love you and I’m not going to let you die, so won’t you just talk to me – damn it, talk to me!”



And then my voice broke and I couldn’t go on, shaking with sobs as my face fell into the white sheet next to his hand.