False Gods | The Prime Archives #3 ✓

twenty-four

The team wasn't in any shape to chase after Oscar and Xiomara. Orion was unresponsive, Zach could barely walk, and Samantha had been left behind near the motel ages ago. Stella and her team had no other choice but to retreat and regroup.

Their pursuit of the fugitive Primes could wait. At the moment, Orion needed serious medical attention. They had to get him back to the Zeo Labs technicians stationed at The Acropolis.

Though, she feared he wouldn't survive the whole flight.

She didn't know how a being like him operated, but his injuries would've been fatal for practically anyone else. She had been under the impression his skin was indestructible like Chase's, but that was clearly not the case. Though, Chase wasn't entirely impervious to cuts and punctures either. It just took the right material.

After getting Orion onto the jet, she did her best to dress his wound and slow the bleeding. She didn't dare touch the piece of the metal sticking out of his sternum. Not only would it make the bleeding worsen, but it could've also ruptured something inside of him.

He was better off with it stuck inside. At least until they got him some help.

But help was hours and hundreds of miles away. He needed doctors, engineers, and whoever else could assess him if he wanted any chance at survival. Stella's jaw clenched as an intrusive thought invaded her brain.

She couldn't let him die protecting her. That wasn't happening. It couldn't happen.

Her eyes lit up.

The Acropolis might've been too far away, but there was someplace nearby she could bring him to. Though, it was going to be touch-and-go the entire way there.

After picking up Samantha back at the motel, which had been slightly damaged during the fight, Stella set course for the research center location in the mountains of northern California. It would take them about thirty minutes to get there at top speed. She had already contacted Dr. Johansson, who was on site working on a new project for General North and the Jaegers.

The Norwegian doctor was the only one who could save him.

Stella just hoped Orion survived the plane ride there.

He still had a pulse, albeit a faint one. He was barely breathing, and his blood was beginning to pool around his stomach. It already soaked through what was left of his tattered mission suit. That explosion did a number on him. Had he not rescued her, she surely would've died.

The weight of that realization slammed into her like the semi-truck she failed to prevent from exploding. She sat in her seat, stiffer than a board and her hands clenching her armrests. Shivering as if she had just been dunked into a freezing pool, she stole a glance at Orion.

He had been laid out on the floor, secured by straps intended to hold down cargo crates. His eyes were still closed, but she could see his chest moving. He was alive.

For now.

"Should we cover him up?" Zach inquired as he massaged his legs.

"He's not dead," Samantha told him. She looked at Stella. "Right?"

She nodded. "He's not dead. Not yet. But if we don't get him to Dr. Johansson soon, then he might be."

Zach buried his face into his hands and groaned loudly. "I can't believe we let them get away!"

Samantha wrung her hands. "I'm sorry, guys. I wasn't really much help in the fight..."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Stella told her. "For your first mission, you were great. And you'll only get better. We couldn't have predicted what Inferno was going to do." Using Oscar's alternate codename felt weird in her mouth, but it didn't feel right calling him by his real name either.