FicWad

15. Don’t Stop, Bury Me, And Fade To Black

I wasn’t dead- yet. I had only a few days to save myself and possibly only a few hours to save Gerard. I ditched my shoes and pushed through the masses of teenagers, glaring at me as I interrupted their dancing. I searched frantically for someone, anyone familiar, preferably angel. Every face looked the same. I saw a blonde head bob through the crowd and made a grab for her shoulder. It was Summer, thank god.
“I knew you were looking for me and I-” I rolled my eyes.
“Okay now is not the time to play fortune teller with me.” I could feel her embarrassment burning in her cheeks, even in the dark. I forgot she really couldn’t help her power because she was still so young.
“Sorry, Autumn,” She was barely audible as they turned the music up.
“Its okay, I just need you to tell me where Gerard is?” Her finger moved just over my shoulder, pointing to where Olivia had Gerard, his head in her lap and her fingers moving through his hair. She smiled as her eyes met mine and she waggled her fingers at me with her free hand. I shuddered slightly.
“What about Spring and Ray?” Her bright scarlet eyes went blank for a second and she turned red again.
“I wouldn’t mess with them right now if I were you…” I raised an eyebrow but she was still deep in thought.
“And…Winter is outside…Mikey went home for some reason…and…you need to go get Gerard…like now…” Whatever she was seeing with Gerard obviously wasn’t good unless I acted immediately. I pushed past her and marched to where Gerard was now by himself, face down on the bleachers. I pulled him up as far as I could, he was barely conscious. ‘2 hours’ was scratched into his face, hinting how long he had until…I didn’t want to think about it. I only could think about saving him and my inability to exist without him. Any other time, I would have thought I was pathetic.
I wrapped his arm around my shoulders and my arm around his waist, trying to support him as much as possible until we found Winter. I listened as hard as I could, her thoughts were scattered and she was obviously disoriented. I moved towards her voice, it got louder the closer we were to her. Gerard was slowly losing consciousness as I was slowly losing grip on him. I couldn’t change, it would kill me. Likewise, I couldn’t stop; he would die. The front doors of the school were right in front of me. I laid Gerard, finally asleep, on the floor as I ran out to get Winter. I didn’t have to speak for her to realize it was Gerard. We carried him to her van and let him stretch out in the back seat. Summer was already waiting in the front; she saw it happening probably the second I moved out of the gym. Winter slammed the gas as I yelled directions to his house from the back; I refused to leave Gerard’s side. Not when he only had 2 hours to live. No, he had more than two hours, I wouldn’t let him die.
Mikey’s expression was priceless.
Summer entered first, ushering him into another room to fake an illness that only Winter and I could cure. Then Winter, who cleared all of the crap off of their table to make room for Gerard. Then me, Gerard in my arms, I carefully let him down on the freshly “cleaned” table. Mikey escaped Summer and went upstairs to make sure his parents stayed asleep. What a nightmare that would be.
“So what’s wrong with him, Autumn?” Winter started rummaging through his kitchen, grabbing things like rubber gloves, towels and (I paled) a knife.
“W-what’s that for?” She shook her head, obviously not going to tell me. And, to make matters worse, she was reciting the Chinese alphabet backwards in her head.
“Is it a Deamon?” I nodded. She wore a bemused expression, now contemplating why he looked different than a normal possession.
“She’s attached to his soul, Win.” Nodding, she tossed me a pair of gloves.
“What are you doing…?”
“Deamons can’t just attach themselves to your soul, Autumn. If it’s going to kill him, then he has to physically have something inside of him.” She lifted him up briefly to slide a few towels under his torso.
“And…and…the knife…is to…” She giggled at my horrified expression and cradled the knife like an infant.
“Cut it out of him, of course.” I gripped the table, I was supposed to be the strong one but my stomach had just turned over at the thought of gutting my lover. She pushed the handle of the knife into my hand and tore the shirt off of him, buttons flying everywhere. She uncapped a marker and drew what looked like a large ‘I’, spanning from his shoulders to the bottom of his rib cage. She looked at me.
“Well?” she said, impatient.
“Well what?”
“You’re his angel.” I swallowed a lump forming in my throat.
“So I have to…?” She scoffed.
“Yes, you have to.” I looked back at him, his chest rising and falling. “Or he’ll die.” I leaned over him, positioning the knife at the end of the first line. I pushed the tip in gently, blood oozed out of the cut. I felt stomach acid crawling up my throat; the knife was coated in his blood already. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t a doctor. I was a teenager, a sixteen year old who didn’t have a choice in anything that happened to her it seemed, and here I was operating on one of my peers.
“Don’t impale him, Autumn!” I snapped out of my thoughts long enough to see him twitch in pain, I had started touching nerves. I pulled the blade across his shoulders, stopping at the end of the line. I repeated this motion at the bottom of the ‘I’ shape, the line became crooked from my trembling hands. I couldn’t mess up. I would kill him if I did. I angled the knife so I could make the final incision. Once it was taken care of, Winter pushed me aside so that she could pull back the skin. I watched, horrified, as his insides were exposed to the air. I was abhorrently reminded of dissecting a frog in biology, except for that the frog was dead. There weren’t lives on the line; there wasn’t a beating heart you were working with.
I turned away as Winter reached for him, I couldn’t watch. I almost screamed as the sickening sound of bones cracking filled my ears.
“What are you doing?!” I shrieked at her, too frightened to let my voice relax.
“Look,” Her voice, on the other hand, was level and calm. Shaking violently, I turned back very slowly.
I could have fainted. The few ribs protecting his fragile heart had been cracked apart, exposing the vital organ and what was disturbing it: Two bony, charcoal hands were wrapped around his heart, pulsing slightly.
“When I remove that…thing…you have to keep his heart beating.” I nodded. My telekinetic abilities were rather underdeveloped, but I was the only one around who could keep him alive. Her pale hands reached towards his heart and I closed my eyes. I tried to concentrate on his heart, but it was hard to keep a steady beat when there wasn’t one even in my own chest. I took deep breaths, his heart illustrated on my eyelids perfectly. I ignored the wretched scream the Deamon monster made when it was removed from its life source, the sudden cut-off of this shriek, and the quiet sound of his skin being sewed back together. All I could hear were his heartbeats, my fear drowned by my will to keep him breathing, to keep him alive.
“Autumn…” Winter’s voice was soft, tired. “You can open your eyes now, but don’t stop his heart. He’s still weak.” I cracked my lids and felt a wave of relief wash over me. I had underestimated Winter’s medical abilities, Gerard’s stitches were much neater than I had anticipated. But the best part was that his face was his face again. His brows, that had been heavier since Olivia, had lightened; his face looked relaxed and innocent again. His eyelids fluttered in his exhaustion, his cheeks flushed from pain, he was human again.
I closed my eyes and pushed gently into his thoughts:
“I love you,” he whispered through her hair. She flushed and kissed him lightly on the lips, her eyelids fluttered closed. His fingers moved across her cheek, brushing her hair out of her face. Their lips cracked into a smile mid-kiss, she giggled slightly. He leaned back in the grass, the dark sky seeming only inches from his face. Her face came into his view and he smiled again.
“Autumn…” Her pink lips stretched even farther as he took her hand.
“Will you marry me?”I inhaled sharply as I pulled myself out of his dreams. He wanted to marry…me? Curious, I pushed again, breaking down a slight barrier that had been formed.
“I just don’t know Gerard…” His hazel eyes were watering, rejection stinging in them.
“But…I love you…”
“And I love you, Gerard. But I just don’t feel responsible enough to decide my future right now.” A tear raced down the curve of his cheek.
“You don’t think we have…a…a…future?” She sat up and looked as sympathetic as she could when she spoke the familiar words:
“We aren’t the same.”