Traitors

So many words can describe how I'm feeling. Panic, apprehensive, terror, uneasy, anxious. They all mean the same thing and circle around how horrified I am. I don't like admitting it, but I'm scared. She had her eyes open a few seconds ago. She was talking and then nothing. I'm trained to handle these situations, but now that I'm in it I can't do anything but let the panic rattle my bones. I call out her name multiple times, but she remains unresponsive. I grip her face between my fingers and lightly tap her cheek hoping it'll startle her awake, but once again I receive no response.

"Brestion," there is obvious panic in my voice. "she's not responding." I hear the tires skid on the asphalt as we take a sharp turn. "What do I do?" I can't remember anything to do in this situation. Gabe swerves to the middle of the road jerking the steering wheel to realign the car. I press my hand harder on Detope's thigh hoping this is actually catching the blood pouring from her wound. "Gabe!" I shout. "What do I do?"

"I'm gonna need you to shut the fuck up!" He hisses back at me. I bite my lip trying not to force my fist into his face. "We're almost at the hospital, okay? So just calm the fuck down." He says through his teeth.

I turn back to an unconscious Detope and hold her face in my free hand. I focus my attention to her chest relieved she has steady breathing. I reach up and wipe a bit of sweat from my brow due to the heat blasting on me from the front of the car. I grab a hold of Detope's hand which is as cold as ice and give it a squeeze. We take another sharp turn pulling into the hospital parking lot. Gabe pulls up to the front and shouts orders at me. I hesitate not wanting to remove my hand from her thigh, but I jump out of the car and run to her side. I pull open the door as her body collapses onto me. I hold her up and situate her in my arms forcing my hand back on her wound.

Her eyes flutter open for a brief second before they slam shut once again. I wrap her arm around my neck and lift her out of the car. I kick the door closed and rush into the building. She inadvertently rests her head on my shoulder as I scramble to the front desk drawing the receptionist's attention. She places her hand over her opened mouth before yelling for assistance.

Nurses charge down the hall with a gurney by their side. I place Detope down on the cushion as a nurse takes my place holding the pad on her thigh. Her eyes remain closed, but she winces making my heart drop into my stomach. Other nurses shove me aside forcing me to leave her in their hands. The nurses banter back and forth and place a mask over her nose and mouth. Fear settles in my entire as I'm frozen where I stand. I watch her unconsciously maneuver her hand around the nurses and extends it out to me. I offer a smile as I reach over and grab it.

They begin wheeling her away from me and her hand slips from my grip. Her eyes shoot open and she tilts her head back trying not to lose sight of me. She goes to sit up, but she is forced back down. I yell at my feet to move, but they're stuck to the floor.

"Wait!" Her voice motivates me into a full sprint.

I race up next to her, pushing a nurse out of the way. I grasp her hand again and this seems to calm her down. My feet keep up with the team of nurses pushing her to the operating room. She squeezes my hand so tightly that I can feel her rapid pulse in my palm. The nurse with her hand on the wound places another pad on top of the red stained one I placed earlier. She presses down too hard causing Detope to scream obscenities at her. The nurse rolls her eyes reaching for my hand. She places my already bloody hand back on her wound and moves out of my way.

"Highly doubt she'll swear at you." The nurse says rushing forward to get the door for the others. I laugh to myself knowing she already swore at me. We come up to swinging double doors and the nurse stands in front of me forcing me to stop moving with the others. "This is your stop, honey." Detope's hand leaves mine as the nurses take her away from me. She shouts at me again causing something in me to snap. I go to rush after her, but the nurses gently rests her hand on my chest. "I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to wait over there." She motions to the waiting room on the other side of the hall. "Everything should be fine. It might be awhile, but no worries we know what we're doing." She smiles assisting me to the waiting room.

I plop down into a seat resting my elbows on my knees. I stare down at my hands which are covered in her blood. I shake my head beating myself up for letting Gabe force her into this. She told me she wasn't ready, and I didn't do everything possible to stop Gabe from hatching up this plan. I knew he was lying to her when he said she would get out of this alive and well. Even after seeing my reaction to Gabe's obvious lie, she still went through with it. After all this, I wouldn't blame her if she burned down The Tunnel instead of the next government building. I betrayed her.

A different nurse approaches me with a clipboard and places it onto the table next to me with a pen secured on top. She sits next to me crossing her legs and leans forward. She sits quietly waiting for me to say something or look at her. My attention is still drawn to my bloody hands. She clears her throat and I turn my gaze to her.

"What happened?" She asks not seeming too eager. Her hand moves to my arm. Her fingers lightly graze over the skin, but leave a painful sensation behind. I wince away from her which startles her. "We need to take care of your arm." I glance down at my arm and notice it is the colour of Detope's hair and covered in blisters. "You've been seriously burned. Let me take you back to see the doctor." She rests her hand on my knee. I nod in acceptance as I suddenly become aware of the throbbing sting.

The nurse leads me down a different hall and into an unoccupied room on the left. She pats the elevated hospital bed as she leaves to get the doctor. The longer I stare at my arm, the more painful it becomes. I was caught up in finding Detope in that building that I disregarded getting burned. As far as I can tell, the flames only got my arm. Nothing else hurts.

I hear footsteps heading toward the room as a tired sigh echoes through the hall. A shadow appears on the door and slowly morphs into the shape of a human.

"Okay, what hap --" she freezes as she catches sight of me. "Holy shit." We hold a long stare before she places her clipboard down charging over to me. She throws her arms around me and I embrace her with my good arm. "Logan!" She cries into my shoulder. "How is my baby brother?" She leans back to get another look at me. I laugh at her.

"I've been burned." I wave my arm in front of her. "Can you patch me up, Mae?" Her mouth falls open as she latches onto my arm.

"Loge, these are serious burns!" I try to pull my arm from her grip, but she fights me on that. "What happened?"

The only place in the world, besides The Tunnel, that is safe for a rebel is the hospital. The doctors and nurses made a pledge to help out everyone despite the government telling them to turn all rebels away. Doctor Yollanda Gramb was the first to step up and say no. She said she became a doctor to help people and she was going to help anyone who came through the door. Within seconds, she had followers and the "turn rebels away" rule was thrown out the window.

The best thing about the staff at the hospital is they keep everything to themselves. If they stumble across obvious rebels, they keep their mouths shut about it. They help them regardless which is why I told my sister everything. She already knows I swing for the opposite side of our father. She personally has no say on the matter, but our older brother is following in our father's footsteps.

"I had to run into a burning building to get our arsonist out." I shrug examining my arm. "I must have gotten burned in the process."

"The red head I take it?" She gently rubs different cooling ointments onto my arm. I nod confirming her guess is correct. "She was shot?" She asks intrigued, but notices my worried expression. "No need to panic. She's in good hands. What happened to the shooter?" I swallow hard thinking back to seeing Isaac's burned carcass on the floor of the office.

"He's dead." Mae looks up at me as I wince from the sudden pressure she puts on my arm. She realizes what she's done and quickly apologizes.

"You kill him?" She asks receiving a puzzled look from me.

"I'm sorry, what?" I nearly choke on my words.

"Well I know about your past so I mean, it's a valid question." She gets up and walks to the cabinet above the sink.

"He was already dead when I got there." I stare at my arm, glistening from the ointment.

"So the red head killed him." She says so matter of fact it makes my nose twitch.

"No, she didn't." I say not even sure if it's the truth or not. Mae turns slightly with an eyebrow raised at me. "What?"

"You're close with her, aren't you?" She walks back over to me with gauze in her hand. I couldn't lie to her even if I tried. "You should be careful, Logan." She warns. "We lose people incredibly fast these days and you've finally started acting like yourself again. I wouldn't want this relationship to have a negative impact on you." She falls quiet as she wraps up my arm.

Maybe she was right. I haven't felt scared like this in a long time and it was all due to her. I didn't even realize I would react this way. Although, this is the first time in the two years I've known Detope that she had a close call. She's normally careful and precise about her movements. The whole thing seemed unethical from the beginning especially since Gabe was setting her up for failure. What I want to know is why?

Mae notices I'm lost in thought and brings me back to reality by clearing her throat and notifying me she's all done bandaging my arm. I jump off the bed and have her take me back to the waiting room. She regales me with stories of how her husband is and quickly breezes over the topic of our older brother and father. She apologizes if what she said before upset me; she's just looking out as my older sister. I smile at her and bring her into me, wrapping my arms around her tiny body. She accepts my hug, giving me a kiss on the cheek which she wipes away immediately.

Mae is right about most things, but not this. I live a risky life; what's one more risk?