Beneath the Courage

Late

(Rest in peace, Chester-Linkin Park. Thanks for the years of amazing songs)

Fri-

Waking up to see Hice sitting beside me on the bed was a relief. I was so used to him disappearing that I thought he might have already returned to the ocean. I watched him for a few moments, mesmerized by his rigid stature and steeled stare. He was looking at nothing but the wall, but I knew that there was more to his gaze than just real things.  

There is always a storm in his eyes. 

A faint brush against the side of my face brought my attention back to the present. Didn't realize I'd lost my focus. I thought as Hice lowered his hand from my cheek and tilted his head slightly. "I've got something you need to eat." He said, drawing a frown from me as I looked around, only to see a small plastic bag sitting between us. 

I don't smell any fish...

He reached for it and pulled out a small bottle, then opened it and let two small pills fall onto his palm. Medicine? "I don't want to eat that, Hice." I said, eyeing the little red pills with distaste. I didn't like human medicine, especially after what had happened to me in their care, so I was definitely not going to take it again. 

"This is different than what they forced on you. Take it." Hice stated, his voice demanding as he took my hand and placed the two small pills on my palm. 

I grimaced at them, for once in my life, extremely against doing what Hice was asking of me. My eyes rose back to his dark ones and I licked my lips, shaking my head as his eyes narrowed. 

"You will eat them, Fri." Hice growled as he grabbed the pills from me and began lifting them to my lips. I fell back against the pillows and turned away, trying to hide my face. My body wasn't nearly strong enough to fight him, though. "Oliver!" I shouted, not knowing what else to do to keep Hice from feeding me the pills. 

The door slammed open a moment later, then Hice's weight was gone from where he'd grabbed my waist through the blanket, using the position to lean over me. The sound of his body hitting the floor echoed through the room right before two different snarls followed. I ducked beneath the blanket, not wanting to see who was fighting him. 

They kept at it for a few minutes before I heard more people come in and apparently separate them, considering the sounds of fighting stopped right afterward. I peeked out of from under the blanket and saw Parker shut the door, then turn to follow Oliver over to me. Parker climbed into the bed but stopped getting closer when I hissed. 

"What happened, Fri?" He asked as he sat back on his heels, nervous curiosity on his face. 

Oliver moved to the edge of the bed and reached down, retrieving the two red pills Hice must have dropped. "He really tried to get you to take these? They must have been what was in the bag that man gave to him." He said, staring down at the small pills as he flipped them over with a finger. 

"These... they're for humans. I took them once in the hospital. They're to reduce severe swelling. They're incredibly strong and can cause severe liver damage if used incorrectly." He said quietly, lifting his eyes to me as he finished speaking. 

"Mica must know something we don't." Parker said as he looked to me, then back to Oliver. "I think he's from Cal-Waves. He said that Hice had forgotten the bottle and brought it to him. If anyone has been paying attention to the case, they'd know that Callem and Mellac are here, so it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that Hice would return here, too." 

That idea didn't sit well with me. I didn't have any swelling, so why would he want me to take those pills? "Fri, I really think that you need to go to the hospital, now." 

My eyes narrowed on him and I growled quietly as I hunched beneath the blanket slightly. "I feel okay." Not great, but not terrible or anything. It was one of my good days so far. 

"You don't understand. The man that had brought the medicine to Hice said that he had forgotten it. He could have been sneaking it into your food. You could have some serious problems going on inside of you right now. You really need to get to a hospital and get some scans done." 

I fidgeted and shook my head. "No." 

Oliver heaved a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through his hair as he turned in a circle, limping a little. "This isn't something that I can help with anymore, Fri." He stopped, facing Parker and I again. "If he did in fact give you these, they could kill you! You don't have to be feeling too badly right now for the damage to be occurring, but if we wait too long and previous doses have already begun destroying you from the inside, it's going to be too late soon." 

I still didn't really understand what he was saying. I got that the medicine could hurt me, but I'd never taken any, and I couldn't think that Hice would try to hide it in the food he brought me. I'd never seen him carrying a bottle back to the island, either. 

"He wouldn't hurt me on purpose." I mumbled, suddenly feeling unsure of my own words. My head was also beginning to hurt, but I pushed the feeling aside to focus on what was going on. 

Oliver pursed his lips and glared down at me. He was angry, but I told them that I wouldn't go unless I absolutely had to, and I had already gone to their facility. "Why can you not use what you already took from me? Are those results meaningless?" I asked. 

He took a moment to answer, as it seemed like he was trying to get himself to calm down. "They aren't enough. You need scans. Serious testing. You clearly don't have visible swelling anywhere, and if those pills had in fact come from Cal-Waves, where I assume they did plenty of invasive tests on you, then you absolutely need to get to a hospital. Those pills are for severe swelling usually caused by trauma to the body or cancerous growths." 

I had heard the word cancer a few times while at the Cal-Waves place, but it was never said to me. I had just heard it as people came and went, and sometimes after they had messed with my body for a test. My stomach twisted nervously as I thought through what he was saying. It was beginning to get hard to think through my headache, though. 

"Can I not rest first at least, to think about it?" I asked, wincing a little as the pain pulsed just behind my left eye and the vision there blurred for a moment. 

Oliver's blurry face turned to Parker, then he hurried and limped out of the room. There was silence for a moment before Callem and Mellac came into the room and straight over to me. Neither of them touched me, but I kept a steady hiss up to warm them that I wouldn't accept them getting any closer. 

"I'm sorry for this, Fri, but I refuse to not do something while we still can." Oliver said. I turned my attention to him, but I couldn't tell what he was doing besides digging through something that had to be his medical bag on the floor beside the bed. 

When he straightened, he lifted something black and pointed it right at me. I blinked several times to try and clear my vision enough to see what it was when I heard the pop of a dart gun, the sound familiar to me from my time at Cal-Waves. The feel of the dart sliding into my shoulder hurt a lot more than just physically. 

My head began to hurt terribly as my vision turned black. My heart sped up painfully in my chest as I felt my head hit the pillow. I will remember this, human! I thought furiously right before my mind went blank.