Rebel Young

Part 11

A/N - I'm sorry I haven't updated in ages. I've been really unmotivated and really busy with school. Life has sorta sucked all the motivation out of me, but I'm making an effort to get it back! Enjoy the new part! :D

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I hurried down the sterile white hallways towards the infirmary, heart pounding in my chest. Jack had been shot. The soldiers must have caught up to him. How did he escape? 

I turned a corner into the empty waiting room. The television on the wall was showing static and the insistent buzz of a call bell sounded in an office behind the counter. I glanced past the plexiglass window in front of the counter at the patient list on the office wall. Every space was full, but the area seemed empty. 

A nurse rushed where I was standing, clipboard in hand. 

"Excuse me," I called after her, "I need to find someone."

"I don't have time to help you darling," she replied shortly, "we've got a boy with a bullet wound and no medical staff free."

She left me with that statement and hurried off into the depths of the medical facility. Footsteps sounded behind me and I turned to see Brodie enter the waiting room. 

"You here to see Jack as well?" he asked.

I nodded as he turned down the hallway and gestured for me to follow. 

We walked side-by-side down the silent, sterile hallway. Past rooms full to the brim with sick and injured people. Young and old alike. 

"There's so many people down here," I remarked. 

"We had to transfer everybody from the City hospital down here the other week, they were worried an above ground hospital was too big of a target," Brodie grimaced.

"Did they transfer extra doctors and nurses as well?" I asked.

"What extra doctors, we all already work day shifts over at the hospital and night shifts down here. There is no one else."

A piercing scream sounded from a room further down the corridor.

"Mavis is at it again," Brodie sighed, "Jack is in room 209, I'll catch up in a minute."

Room 209 was in a dark, dusty area in the very back corridors of the Lab's medical facilities. One of the fluorescent lights had blown and the other was flickering ominously. The back corridors obviously weren't intended for long term patients use, but the overcrowding had left the staff with no choice. 

I entered the room and saw him lying there, connected to all forms of medical equipment. A heart rate monitor beeped steadily and an IV drip fed liquid into Jack's arm. I sat down in the armchair next to the bed and waited.

Jack was shirtless with a clean, white bandage wrapped around his abdomen. I reached out a tentative hand and placed it over the bandage, the material was rougher than I pictured. Jack's eyes flickered open and his hand slowly lifted up to cover mine. 

"April, you're safe," Jack whispered huskily, his voice deepened by sleep.

"I'm fine, but I want to know what happened out there," I whispered back.

"Later," Jack sighed and closed his eyes once again. 

Brodie lightly knocked on the door behind me and entered the room. 

"How is he?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. He woke up, whispered a few words and dozed off again," I answered.

"Don't worry about, it's just the painkillers. He'll hopefully be out in about a week, fast healing is one of many Talents you two possess."

"So he'll be okay?" I asked nervously. 

"He'll probably be fine, the bullet missed his internal organs and as long as he doesn't contract any infections the wound should heal up fine with possibly only minor scarring," Brodie assured.

I breathed a sigh of relief at Brodie's words. 

"Now you go, I heard Freddie talking about organising a change of clothes for you," Brodie shooed me out of the room. 

"Thanks Brodie," I called before leaving to navigate my way back through the maze of corridors in search of a much needed shower. 

The clothes Freddie had found for me were all too big, but better than the filthy jeans and t-shirt I had been wearing. I sat on the edge of my assigned bed an ran a comb through my damp tendrils of hair. 

I had been updated by Freddie about the invasion of the city. Troops had swarmed all the major buildings and left a wave of dead and injured civilians behind. Young boys, beautiful women and men had been taken prisoner and the rest left to die. 

They hadn't been able to identify who the army belonged to, but images had been captured of badges and markings and searches were currently being done by the Lab workers. 

I flopped backwards onto the bed, hair spreading out behind me. What had I gotten myself into? Sure I had Talents, but that didn't mean I knew how to use them properly. Lacey was putting so much faith in abilities I didn't even know about until now. 

I felt alone. No, scratch that. I was alone. My family was all gone now. I was surrounded by strangers in a strange organisation, risking my life. My eyes began to tear up as I thought about my Mum and little Annie.

"Crying won't bring them back," I told myself aloud. 

Nothing would bring them back, but I'd sure as hell try to make their deaths worth something.