by Natalie Reid
As they were rushing down the street to get to this place, Tom noticed a man with a scar running down his eye, just like Jessie. He wanted to stop and ask this man if he was the one that had the procedure done, if it hurt as badly as it sounded. Before he could even try, Kurt shoved him forward, reminding him that time was not on their side.
The address the man had given them was several blocks away. The building itself looked to be an old Laundromat, long since vacant. From the front windows they couldn’t see any life inside, but there was a door that led to a back room. Kurt kicked the door in and rushed to the back. Tom hadn’t reached halfway across the front room before he came storming back out.
“She’s not here,” he growled, shoving past him. “We were lied to.”
* * *
The doctor named Aim smiled when he saw Jessie. He reminded her of Tag, always eager and self-important. The pride they held in their smiles scared her. They saw only tissue, bones, and advancement, not the human with fears, the girl that could feel pain and longed for the comfort of a familiar face.
He led her to a room in the back of his house. It looked little more than a glorified bathroom. The sink remained, but the toilet had been removed. In the center, underneath a swinging light bulb, was a hard, metal table. Leather straps hung limply at both ends, and a standing tray stood next to it. A thin, black device laid on top, next to a syringe with yellow liquid.
Aim grabbed the black device and took out a wad of paper from his pocket. He flicked a switch on the device, and a red beam shot out of it, hitting the paper and causing it to smoke. He nodded and smiled at her, as if she should be happy about the condition of his laser.
The room smelled of sulfur. She wondered how many smokers had undergone this procedure in this very room. Already she could see the shadows bobbing beneath the ceiling like the room was a trash dump for the Bandit, collecting scum that bloated and stuck to the walls.
Lying down on the cold, metal table, she could see the black creatures staring down at her, promising to be with her every step of the way, vowing to make the experience as unpleasant as possible. They danced around Aim’s head, and several shadows with branching spider legs rested on his shoulders, their eyes shining with life.
“This will only hurt a bit,” Aim assured her, going for the syringe and flicking a few squirts of liquid out.
Jessie grabbed ahold of his wrist. “No. I can’t go under.”
Aim stared at her quizzically, the spiders crawling down his arms. “Then I’ll have to strap you in.” She gave him an apprehensive look, but he insisted, saying, “If I don’t, you’ll thrash and end up burning half your face off.”
He went to the far end of the table and brought the leather straps together, looping it through like a giant belt. Then he went for her front. Jessie gulped and tried to remain still as she felt the thick leather pressing down on her chest, binding her arms tightly to her sides.
“Alright, now just one last thing.” Aim turned and went for a cabinet in the corner. When he returned, he held a circular rod of metal that looked about as large as an eye.
Jessie gripped her fists tightly as he came nearer with it. It was clear he would need to place it on her eye. Suddenly she had second thoughts about the whole thing. If she could be cured, then there would be no harm in seeking out Tom and asking him to perform the operation. Yet, asking him to burn out her eye…she couldn’t put him through that. It had to be done eventually; she might as well get it over with.
Aim held the metal device just over her eye. “Are you ready?”
A shadow spider crawled on the back of his palm, its legs looping through the metal that would soon press upon her eye. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. In her mind, a song played—the one in English, the one her mother had left for her. All she could remember was the melody, but it was strong in her ears.
“Do it,” she told him.
His thick fingers pressed down like a crescent around her eye, prying her eyelids further apart. The metal rim grew larger and larger in her vision. Her body jolted when it pressed against the soft of her corneas. It was a struggle to fight against the knee-jerk reaction that told her to reach up to her eye and claw out whatever was inside.
“Slowly. Breathe slowly,” Aim said.
Jessie gasped for air. She had not realized that she had been panting so quickly. Just the mere pressure against her eye had caused her to panic. The shadows were so thick in her vision she could no longer see the doctor. In fact, she wasn’t sure if Aim was still human, or just the contorted form of a hundred thousand worms writhing into shape.
Slowly the red hue of the laser lifted in the air. The time had almost come. The song… Remember the song, she urged herself.
Something knocked against the metal on her eye. She pounded her fists against the table to keep from crying out. She didn’t want to move her head for fear of burning a long scar from her forehead to her chin. The red light turned on, the laser descended…
Blinding pain exploded in her eye. Shadow turned to white hot agony. Everything was color and pain and the horrible smell of burning flesh…until there was nothing more…light or shadow…everything receded like the ebb of a tide, disappearing back into the waters…
Hollow.
That’s the first sensation that came to her mind upon the first instant of waking. She was hollow inside. Her eye had been scooped away and filled with mush whose only purpose was to attack the rest of her head with splitting pain. She blinked her eyes. Half a vision appeared like the blurry picture on the other side of a foggy piece of glass. Through the pain, she blinked fiercer again. She needed to know if the shadows were gone, but she couldn’t see straight to check. She tried to take a whiff of air. She didn’t smell sulfur, but she wasn’t entirely sure that her body was working correctly at the moment.
Much like when she woke up in BLES after her crash, her arms and legs were shaking on automatic. It was as if her body was treating the pain like a poison, trying to cleanse it out with a fever.
Aim spoke somewhere above her. At first she thought he was trying to tell her to calm down, but then she made out a word…Jessie. She had not given him her name. If he knew who she was, then that could mean only one thing.
“Yes, hurry!” he urged.
She struggled to sit up, but the leather straps held her tight to the table. She forced her eyes open wider. The white image of the room grew a little sharper. There was the metal table near her head, the sink in the corner, and up above was…white. Clean white ceiling like a fresh piece of paper.
Jessie nearly cried as she realized that the shadows were gone! She had been cured of the Bandit! She was not going to die!
Metal clinked as Aim moved to her side. She twisted her neck to see him going for the syringe on the table. Again she tugged at her bonds. This doctor might have just saved her life, but he was dooming her to Ward. If he got ahold of her, it would have been better had she let herself die.
Aim placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “Now Jessie,” he warned. “Hold still.”
She struggled more violently with her bonds. She didn’t suffer through all that pain and anxiety just to be snatched up by her enemies. She couldn’t let that happen.
Tensing her body, she jumped up, trying to move the table further away from him. She could not remember if the table was on wheels or not. Maybe she could steer it towards the door. However, all she managed to do was make it wobble a little. She thought she heard a noise coming from the other room, almost like pounding. Was Task Force here already?
Aim heard this noise as well and lowered the syringe in his hand as he glanced to the doorway. Jessie could not turn her chin far enough to catch a glimpse of the entrance. All she could see was the top of the far wall. The footsteps grew louder, faster. Someone was upon them. Suddenly a figure ran towards them. Aim’s arm flew up, gripping the syringe like a weapon, but the figure dodged it and swung his fist into the side of his head. Aim went spiraling to the floor
, and the man followed him, grabbing the syringe on the way down.
There was a moment of struggling, followed by silence. Jessie wished desperately that she could see more than just fuzzy shapes. Something touched her arm. She stared down on it as a pair of slender fingers started to undue the bindings.
“Jessie, are you alright?”
That voice…she knew that voice…
“Tom?” Her eyes burned as they filled with tears. Somehow the moisture acted as a magnifier, clearing her vision so she could make out the handsome lines of the young man’s face. The second her arms were free, she reached out for him, hugging him so tightly it made her bones ache.
“I’m sorry I left,” she whispered.
Tom drew away to stare down at her. It was almost too much for her to take. She didn’t know whether she should look away or just buck up the courage to lean in and kiss him.
Before she could decide, he started speaking. “Jessie, listen to me. Your mother is alive. She’s not dead.”
Waves of heat and ice rolled over her shoulders and created a lump in her throat. Her mom was alive? But why would…
In a burst of anger, she swung her legs off the table and tried to stand on her feet. Her body was so weak with pain that Tom had to grab her to keep her from falling down. Near her feet she could see Aim’s body slumped over, an empty syringe sticking out of his neck. She felt a mixture of surprise and pride at seeing what Tom had done to save her. He had probably never punched a man before in his life. She would have said something, but all her energy was spent up over her anger at Ritter.
“They’re on their way,” a voice announced from the door.
She struggled to make out the man’s face, but from the voice she could have sworn it was…
“Kurt? What are you doing here?”
He hurried towards them, yanking on her arm. “We’re not here. We’re leaving before Task Force skins us alive.”
Both men helped her to hobble out of the small operating room. Wailing sirens approached in the distance. She couldn’t tell how far away they were. Though the shadows were gone from her vision, her sight had not yet returned. She could hardly walk in her condition, and it didn’t take her long to do the math.
“Stop,” she ordered the boys. “This isn’t going to work.”
“I agree,” Kurt remarked at her side. “You’re just too slow.”
She was about to suggest that they leave her behind, when he roughly shoved her towards Tom, giving him all her weight.
“I’ll have to hold them off. Get as far away as you can.”
“What about the deal?” Tom asked.
Jessie creased her forehead. What kind of deal had he made?
“We don’t need another doctor, we need to rescue those thirty people. Ritter knows where they are.” He grabbed Jessie by her jacket and made her stare up at him. “You promise me you’ll do whatever needs to be done to get him to talk. You find the Thirty and save them, because I’m not saving your life for less.”
Jessie overcame her shock to nod her head. “You have my word,” she stated solemnly.
“Now go!” Kurt shoved them forward. The sirens were blaring now. A helicopter churned the skies nearby.
Tom hurriedly rushed them down the street, turning down the nearest alleyway to remain out of sight. She tried her best to move her legs as fast as she could, but several times Tom had to stop her from running herself right into the ground. After a few minutes, the sirens didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Kurt must have gotten all their attention. She didn’t want to think about what was happening to him right now. Kurt could certainly put up his own in a fight, but when a whole squadron was present…the only path to survival would be to run and hide, and Kurt didn’t seem like the type to do that.
Once they had made it to the quiet of safety, Tom stopped them behind a building so they could catch their breath, but Jessie pushed them to go further. It wasn’t that she wanted to make sure they were far enough away. She wanted Ritter. She couldn’t stand still knowing he was out there, the knowledge of her mother’s fate fresh in his head. He couldn’t be allowed to get away with it. He had taken everything from her. It was about time that he give some back.
On the way to the military training compound, Tom tried to urge her out of a confrontation with him. He reminded her of her weakened condition and of Ritter’s willingness to fight dirty. As her doctor and as her friend he cautioned her against it in every means. She wanted to please Tom. She wanted to forget about Ritter and revel in the news that she would be able to live and to live with Tom. Yet, try as she might, she could not burn away the anger like Aim had burned away the Bandit. She wanted so desperately to see her mom. She wouldn’t stop until she held her safe in her arms.
It was past twelve in the morning by the time they burst into the cabin. Denneck had been sitting by a fire in the corner of the main living-room, and he ran over the second he saw them.
“Jessie, is that really you?” he asked, gently gripping her shoulder.
She reached out for his arm and gave it a squeeze.
“Quick, get her to the fire,” he ordered Tom.
“No.” She shook her head and broke away from both of them, hobbling into the hallway that led to the barracks. It was hard to see much of anything. The bedroom was dark, and she could only make out the outline of ten cots and four figures sleeping on top. Relying on instinct, she went to the figure sleeping next to the smallest one, figuring that Ritter would insist on sleeping next to Nel. Grabbing his shoulders, she grabbed him and shoved his head into the wall.
“You lied to me,” she spoke in a low voice.
Ritter’s eyes flew open and stared her down. The others woke up where they slept, whispering her name in surprise.
“My mother is alive.”
She felt so angry in that moment, clutching onto Ritter’s shirt, she wasn’t sure she would have the willpower not to ram her fist straight into his forehead and not let up until the satisfying slick of blood coated her knuckles. She stared at the spot that she would hit him, that sensitive part of the brain lying just underneath. Suddenly everything around her was so dark. All she could see was Ritter and the path to his destruction.
Grabbing onto her wrist, Ritter squeezed it fiercely. “And what would that mean to a Bandit?”
Jessie shook her head and blinked her eyes, trying to keep his face clear in her mind. “It’s not in me anymore. I’ve burned it out.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. “Are you sure about that?”
She gritted her teeth and drew her wrist out of his hold. The room was going dark. She struggled to hold onto what sight she had left, struggled to put Ritter in his place and tell him that she was going to live because the Bandit was no longer with her, yet the strength wouldn’t come. The shadow had found her again. It had found her, and it wouldn’t let go.
Before Jessie could raise her arms to defend herself, Ritter’s fist flew into the side of her head, knocking her out to the cold, wooden floor.
* * *
Kenji turned over in bed, the old frame creaking under his weight. This was the second night in a row that he could not get to sleep. Ever since Ash had come into his restaurant and claimed to see the Black Bandit, he had been restless with indecision. The ordeal should have left him with the sinking cold feeling of fear. He should have been glad that the man doomed for the Bandit had left. Yet he was neither afraid nor glad. Instead he was dissatisfied. He couldn’t stop thinking that Ash hadn’t been completely wrong when he said that his eye had been a gift from Task Force. This sight was a gift, and it had the potential to save.
His thoughts turned to Aaron, and he remembered the day they first met. Though he wouldn’t have given up their life together for anything in the world, he couldn’t help but wish Aaron had been spared the fate of watching his mother turn Bandit and try to kill him. If only someone had known before-hand, had known that she had been giving in and had done something to try and stop it.
> Peeling off his covers, Kenji got out of bed and rushed to his closet to get dressed. Indecision and dissatisfaction were for the buzzards. As long as he still had the strength to move around, then he planned to act on his thoughts.
When he left the Ancient Ramen for the three a.m. streets, he did not know how he would find the man named Ash, he just knew that he wouldn’t do it tossing and turning in bed. Setting a course for the east-end, he began to walk the streets, stopping at each huddled figure asleep on the ground in search for the scar that ran down Ash’s right eye. Having no luck, he returned home in the early hours of the morning, only to go back out again when the sun was up.
With more people up and about in the east-end, he started to ask around to see if anyone knew where the man named Ash might live. He learned pretty quickly that someone like him was known as a smoker, and that the east-enders were careful to keep tabs on each one of them. With a little guidance, Kenji found Ash lurching outside an apartment complex, muttering to himself.
Kenji tried to speak with him, but the moment that he walked up to the man, several people passing by on the streets stopped and stared. Ash paid him little attention as his eyes darted between the bystanders. He was quaking like a leaf, as if he thought that one of them might start running towards him at any moment and try to put an end to his life. Kenji wouldn’t get a word out of him as long as he was on the streets. The only thing he could do was to invite him in to the Ancient Ramen.
When they arrived at his restaurant, it was still too early in the morning to open up. Kenji locked the door and set Ash down in a chair inside the kitchen as he made him breakfast. It wasn’t until the man scarfed up the food and then accidentally broke the plate in his search for more, that Kenji tried to speak with him again.
