Fear Itself

Even days later, I was still buzzing with happiness from New Year’s eve and everything it encompassed. Granted, I hadn’t said a word about it to anyone; I felt the things that were shared were best left between Dean and I. We didn’t get to see each other after New Year’s. Kennedy had the Board abuzz with trying to reconstruct the tower and trying to reinstate the All-Seeing Eye. He was updating me through Sam, since I didn’t have a phone, and that was fine. I understood. I found other ways to occupy my time. I had Avery showing me around West London some more because I didn’t feel very familiar with the area. We were trying to make it so that maybe one day I would be comfortable wandering on my own without getting lost, but everything was so twisted and contorted like a maze.

Today, I was supposed to meet him on High Street, the same place near the Liberty Market, and the same place he had shown me how to get to yesterday, but I had run just a few moments late because I lost track of time while I was talking to Sam. It was dark already, later than we usually met because Avery had prior engagements, things he needed to take care of (more things he couldn’t tell me the details of). But tonight, when I got to the corner, he wasn’t there. For a moment, I stood beneath the street sign, looking around, trying to find a sign of him in the dim lights. “Mumbles,” I called out. “Mumbles, I know I’m late. I’m sorry!” There was no answer.

I kept standing there, looking around. The sound of feet shuffling nearby caused my head to turn, and I saw a man walking out of a nearby alley. I almost called out, thinking it was Avery, but I noticed the man was just slightly taller, thinner, walking with his shoulders rolled back, chin in the air. I saw three more emerge, snickering, cackling, and I shot behind the nearest wall so they wouldn’t see me, only poking my head out a few moments later to watch as they disappeared into the night.

Cautiously, I stepped back out from behind the wall to watch them curiously, when a loud crash sounded from the same alley. I knew I shouldn’t have looked; I shouldn’t have even wanted to. Avery always said it was better to mind my own business, that I would be safer that way, but that didn’t sound like a good crash. Clutching the switchblade in the pocket of my fleece jacket, I practically ran toward the alley in fear that the men in suits may return.

When I rounded the corner, I felt my breath catch in my throat. “M-mumbles?” I stammered, gasping for air I couldn’t find, I dropped the switchblade back in my pocket. It was hard to look at him. There was blood. So much blood. It was everywhere. He was laying on the ground, gurgling, trying to hold the skin of his neck closed. “Oh my goodness,” I murmured, suddenly feeling faint, but I had to shake it off, and I had to do it fast because I couldn’t sit there and just watch him die. I couldn’t do it.

I got over as fast as I could, trying to remember what I had read about anatomy, and I racked the shelves of my enormous memory as I straddled him. “Sorry,” I murmured. “This might get a little weird.” The wound was gaping, gushing. I wanted to throw up, but my surging need to save him prevailed and squashed the nausea. I could throw up later. He didn’t have that kind of time. First thing was first: stop the bleeding. “Let go,” I told him, and he, surprisingly, listened and dropped his hands as I tugged the thick winter scarf off of my own neck. I looped it under his head and wrapped it tight around his throat, as tight as I could make it and tied it off. “It might hurt. I’m sorry,” I told him. He was making noises, and as I got off of him, I put my hand on his mouth. “No, stop that,” I commanded. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait.”

All in one motion, I managed to grab the gun from his pants and lift him over my shoulders. I also reached in his other pocket and grabbed his phone. I turned it on and immediately spoke into it. “Siri!” I commanded hurriedly. “Directions to a hospital please, quickly.”

“Calculating,” the phone told me. “The nearest hospital is 0.4 miles away. Go up and turn right.”

“Bloody hell, that’s convenient,” I murmured. “Alright, Mumbles,” I said, shoving the phone in my pocket and looping his arms over my shoulders. I held his wrists in one hand and a gun in the other. “Time to go,” I announced as I started dragging him as fast as I could up to the the corner, where we rounded the corner, and I nearly bumped right into a seedy looking man who gave me a wolfish grin, but before he could say a word, I rammed the barrel of the gun into his chest and threatened, “You better back off, fuck stick, or I might blow your dick and your brains out, you hear?”

Avery’s blood was soaking through the scarf and onto my body. I shoved the man out of the way and practically ran to the glowing hospital doors not that far off in the distance. I charged across the parking lot and through the sliding doors, Avery still managing to breathe over my shoulder. I ran right into an emergency room full of people with a gun in my hand, and I started shouting, just full-on shouting. “What are you all staring at!?” I screamed. “Somebody bloody help him! Can’t you see he’s bleeding out!?”

Nurses immediately came over and grabbed him, finally. “Thank you!” I shouted groaning. “Fucking took you long enough! You were about to face a bloody fucking firestorm of rage raining down upon you all! I would have fucking shot someone in the leg and—“

“Sweetie,” a nurse interjected, softly grabbing me by the shoulders. “Sweetie, put the gun down,” she cooed. With the safety clicked on, I dropped it and collapsed into sobs on her shoulder. I clung to her uniform, staining it with red from the blood still soaking into my clothes. “It’s going to be okay,” she told me. “He’s in good hands now.” I nodded and sobbed into her until I caught my breath. She pulled back to look at me. “Are you a relative of his?”

My eyes glanced down the hallway they had rushed him down. “Yes,” I told her, nodding quickly, but my eyes never left the path. “Yes, I am. I’m his daughter.” I knew they would never let me stay otherwise. Not that the words felt wrong. He had been more of a Dad to me than my dad ever was. I just needed to know he was going to be okay.

“Okay, love, well, you’ll have to wait out here until he’s out of surgery, okay?” she explained gently. My eyes came back to her, and I nodded slowly. “I’m going to take this gun with me,” she said slowly as she picked it up off the ground. “You just sit down, and I’ll bring you some water.” So I sat. I sat there in the waiting room of a hospital full of people staring at me because I just had a panic attack and almost shot them. I sat in the waiting room and texted Dean from Avery’s phone because I didn’t know what else to do, and my heart was going crazy in my chest, and I couldn’t do anything but wait. It was driving me insane.

Dean kept talking to me for hours and hours. The waiting room emptied out, and eventually, a doctor came into the hallway. “Miss Fortier?” he called out. “Miss Fortier?” he repeated. It was only then that I realized that must have been Avery’s last name, and he must have been addressing me because I was the only one left in there.

“Yes?” I asked as I rose from my seat and approached him. I was nervous. My knees shook and wobbled with every step.

“The good news is that he’s going to be just fine,” he told me. “But the bad news is that in surgery, there was slight damage done to his trachea. His breathing will be fine. He’ll be great, but his voice is going to be affected, and he may find it painful to speak for a while. In fact, he shouldn’t speak at all for now. I’m going to let you go in his room, but don’t let him talk.”

I nodded quickly, suddenly feeling relieved that Avery was going to be fine. I raced into the room and sat down in a nearby chair, and I just watched him for a little bit. He was sleeping, had a bunch of stitches and staples in his throat. But he was going to be okay, so I texted Dean a quick good night, told him everything was fine, I somehow managed to doze off in that uncomfortable chair.