No Time To Bleed

“So, the party will be outside. I got the approval of the guards surprisingly. They said they’ll give us complete supervision. We need to find some tables to move around and chairs of course, although those are everywhere. I already have an idea for decorations and the clothing won’t be a problem. Someone gave me the hint that there’s some hidden clothing area with tons of formal dresses.”

Ashley was droning on and on about the dance. All sorts of kids were around our table, listening to her and more than intent to help with planning. Cece was busy on her own, drawing up all sorts of plans for the night of the dance which would only be a few days away.

It was around lunch time and the day was dragging on slowly. Last night’s dream had sent my mind into a strange and empty spiral. I had no idea where Ashton and Jesse were, probably scoping out things somewhere.

I pulled myself up from the massive table that everyone was sitting at.

I needed time to think. About what, I didn’t know.

I walked around for a while, just thinking and trying to process everything that was happening. Clarissa and Max and Aliah and Ryant, we all seemed to be nearing some kind of finish line.

We were all nose diving towards a flaming wreckage, one withering with a plane’s chunks and pieces burning on the ground beneath us. I just couldn’t process how all of us would survive it with such little time left. My insides told me we had to do this, but something else was digging away at me as well.

“Thinking about something?”

I’d been standing before one of the airport’s glass walls that overlooked outside. The guards walking their way back and forth with their guns at the ready. Golf and airport carts had been crafted to carry things around. Layers of iron fence protecting us while holding those things outside.

“There are a lot of them out there.” I muttered, seeing my own reflection in the glass. “They know we’re here.”

The infected mashed and threw themselves against the outermost fences.

Alex looked to me for the longest time, blue eyes burning with all the emotion anyone could possibly muster. “They’re never going to get in and if they do we’ll protect each other.”

“What are we even doing, Alex?” I whispered. “We can’t do this if we don’t believe, especially you.”

I guess I couldn’t admit it aloud, but I’d never want to finish any of this if he wasn’t there right by my side as we fought together. I couldn’t do this if anyone was out. And most of all, I couldn’t face anyone else dying. After seeing so much death, you think you’d learn to accept it, but it was just scaring me more than ever. All those people lost.

Amanda shot on the school’s roof.

William’s blood being splattered along the roadside.

Shatoya being shot point blank and dragged away.

Eli’s veins being torn from his neck and his flesh burning in the air.

Tears started to spiral down my cheeks like hot coals giving third degree burns. I didn’t want to be weak anymore.

“Everything’s gonna be okay, Jasmine. Just don’t cry.” He pleaded.

“How can you even say that though?” I asked in mock disbelief. “You don’t even want to do this and without you I feel like we’re gonna end up dead just like everyone else.”

His jaw clenched and the guilt riddled his face. It was amazing to think how things had changed since we’d met each other just about two weeks ago.

“Do you really wanna know why I'm against it?”

“Please tell me because I’d love to know.” I wiped the tears from my cheeks and waited for him to talk.

“My real dad worked for Lexicon.”

It was as if a running record in my mind had just scratched in its place. I didn’t dare interrupt anymore of the words he might say.

“But, Lexicon never tested on me. Clarissa’s brother and sister were my adoptive parents.”

My mouth fell open a little bit then as I started to him.

Alex had been in foster care? He’d been an orphan?

“I never knew my real parents. I know I have an uncle somewhere in North Carolina, but he’s long off the map. I don’t even know his name and it wouldn’t even matter.” He turned to his side so he faced me as his shoulder leaned against the glass wall. “Lexicon ruined everything for my new life. Everything.”

“Alex…” I started, but for the one of the first times since I’d met him, I was at a total loss for words.

“Now I’m an orphan again. No one wants me…”

“But, that’s not true. When I talked to Clarissa she told me to tell you that she loved you. She practically sees you as her son, Alex.”

His face only softened the slightest bit, but the gloom still locked its way over us. He ran his hands through his hair and exhaled.

“This company is a curse on anyone who’s close to it. That’s why I don’t want you to get involved.” His eyes bored into me.

“So, what are you saying?” And in the weirdest of ways, betrayal was twisting its way through me.

Alex had been the one to give us the pep talk when things had been down. He’d been the one I’d look to when I needed someone to stand at my side and knowing this made it feel like he’d been lying to us the whole time, wearing a mask to satisfy the mission.

“I’m saying I can’t stop you, but I think it’s extremely dangerous.”

“Extremely dangerous?” I retorted. “What do you call every single thing that’s happened up to this point? You’re telling me that’s all been safe?”

Something inside me was getting mad or in disbelief or in shock.

He blinked a few times, flustered. “Look I’m not saying that. I’m just saying it could be easier if we waited or figured out a different plan. Whoever this person is that’s offering up the file, it seems like one hell of a trap. Like something Brett Wiggins himself would set up.”

He made a good point, a very solid and valid point that could save us if it was true.

“I’m not saying we should completely abandon the idea, but we should look at our options.”

“But, this person got Clarissa’s trust. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

He shrugged. “There’s lots of ways to lie to people and if there was anything in the world that I could do, I’d go back and fix things for me before they all went bad.”

I glared at him. “Things go bad regardless. It’s how you deal with it.”

His forehead creased into a million lines. “And how did you do that? Run away?”

I choked down the betrayal and the tears running in my eyes. I began to shake my head, unsure about all of this more than ever before. “But, we need you with us. We need you.”

“Do you need me or do they need me? Because there’s a big difference between those two.” His voice stayed even and calm.

What the hell was happening to us?

* * * * *

“If we move her legs first she won’t wake up.” Jesse said.

It was later that night and we were in my room. I threw my hands into the air and exhaled. “I don’t know how in the world she fell asleep on the floor and the one time I tried to wake her up, she starting screaming and hitting me…”

To say the least, I was stressed out and this was stressing me out even more. Her mp3 player’s earphones still played a few feet away and I went over to turn it off. I tossed the thing onto the hotel room’s dresser and sighed.

I turned to see Jesse holding Jessica in his arms with a smile on her face. He frowned once he saw the expression on my face, completely pained and just tired. He set Jessica down to the bed and looked back to me.

“What’s wrong now?”

I sighed, sinking back down to my own bed. “Everything’s falling apart, Jesse. Everything.”

My head sank to my hands and his arm arched its way around my shoulder.

“I just wanted things to be okay, but they’re not.”

His fingers soothed circles along my right arm. “It’s gonna be okay, Jasmine. I know it will. Me, you, Cece, Ashley, and Ashton can do all of this. We can do it all by ourselves.”

Thick slime was making its way into my stomach and causing nausea there. I went speeding from his grasp. My knees skidded against the bathroom floor as I flipped open the toilet cover.

Everything erupted at once, bubbling stomach acids and undigested food coming to the surface. It burned so bad in my throat that it brought tears to my eyes. They plopped down into the sewage of water that I had made and I choked on my own breath.

God, that was gross.

I fumbled my way to the sink, turning on the faucet, but unable to squeeze my head into the small space that was the sink’s bowl.

“Water?” Jesse offered from the doorway.

I gasped as I took the plastic bottle, unscrewing the top messily as my hair stuck to my forehead in a mold of sweat. I chugged down the lukewarm liquid and felt my stomach take the healthy substance in.

After it was done, I stood there and breathed for a while, just breathing.

The light twitched above the bathroom’s mirror. My reflection in the mirror looked sick.

“Alex did this to you, didn't he.” Jesse muttered softly, standing before the sink so he blocked the mirror’s likeness. “Why do you like him anyway?”

I let the bottle loose from my hands and it clanked to the tiled floor.

“It’s not that simple.” I uttered. “He’s been there for me.”

“He’s been a jerk to you. Especially today.” His hazel eyes melted softly towards and the room’s light cast an unnatural radiance to his brown head of hair.

“He’s been there for me through a lot.” My stomach still ached and throbbed.

“And who was there for you before it all happened? Before you even moved to this town? Before life sucked for you?”

Too many questions at once and I was only able to utter the answer. “No one.”

Long silence came next.

“And now just means I can’t trust anyone.” I walked my way out the bathroom and just stood outside it’s doorway.

“You can trust me. I would have been there for you if I had the chance. You’ve gotta believe that.” His words murmured behind my ear.

“Just go. Please.”

“Sorry.”

I waited until he left, then my fingers onto Jessica’s beloved iPod and I let the music fill my ears. It was only then was I able to sleep and thankfully I had no dreams that night.