FicWad

James didn't bother to speak to me as he entered the room. Instead, he went directly over to his suitcase and started through things out of it as he searched for an unknown object. Lars and Cliff stood by the doorway with their arms crossed and their eyes flashing. Kirk quickly unwrapped his arms from around me and looked up questioningly at the other guys. Luckily, by now I had stopped crying although I guess I probably had the telltale signs of mascara smeared down my cheeks.

"What's going on guys?" Kirk asked curiously as he straightened up and joined Cliff and Lars by the door. Still looking like he'd like to kill someone, Lars said bluntly, "You know the truck that had our band equipment in it out in the parking lot?" Kirk nodded with a blank face. He obviously didn't know where this was going. Lars continued, "Well, the band equipment is fucking gone. Someone stole it. John Marshall from Anthrax is going to lend us some band equipment."

Kirk's mouth fell open in surprise and in horror. All that band equipment was very expensive and was going to be hard to replace. Finally, James turned away from his suitcase and stomped towards the others, "I'm going to let the audience know that if any of them know the fuckers who stole our band equipment that they should kill them for us."

With that, James stalked through the door without even glancing in my direction at all. Cliff and Lars stalked after James. Kirk gave me a little, sympathetic smile before he turned and followed the guys out the door. Lars made sure to slam the door behind him much more loudly than necessary. I wondered if he was trying to make me deaf or something.

As soon as the guys were gone, I found that I was hungry. I had ended up puking up all my food in the last few days, so technically it had been a very long time since I had eaten. Shivering, I wrapped a blanket around me and wandered over towards the stash of food that was sitting on a little desk in the corner of the room. I grabbed a bag of something or the other and ripped it open. I didn't really care what I was eating so long as I was eating something. As soon as the bag was open, I stuck my hand inside it and grabbed a handful of nuts. I popped a few of the nuts into my mouth to subdue my aching stomach.

For a few minutes, I started to feel better. However, that was only momentary. Once I was done with the nuts, it felt like someone had cut my stomach up and was trying to jab the pieces of it back together. Gasping in pain, I fell to my knees and whimpered from the pain. As my stomach churned and flipped over inside me, I could feel those nuts rising back up in my throat. Damn it. What had made me decide to eat again? That had been a stupid decision. I should've known that anything I ate was going to come right back up. I knew I should try to get to a toilet so I didn't end up throwing up all over the hotel floor. Crawling on my knees because I didn't have the strength to stand, I slithered over in the bathroom's direction.

Unfortunately, I never made it to the bathroom. My food came pouring out of my mouth before I even knew what was happening. The putrid taste of vomit filled my mouth and I started choking like crazy. For a moment, I even lost my breath and lay shaking and gasping for breath on the floor. I had never felt this bad before. As much as I didn't want to admit it; Kirk was right. There was something wrong with me and I really did need to get to a hospital.

As I continued to vomit my guts out, I found that I kept growing colder and colder despite the fact that I had several warm blankets pulled around me. I clutched them closer to my chest and tried to warm up. Sadly, I just get shivering more and more violently as time went on. At one point, it even became too painful for me to sit up. When that happened, I keeled over onto my stomach. My chin hit the floor with a loud thump and I lay paralyzed on the ground. The whole world swirled around me, but I managed to keep consciousness somehow. To be honest, I kind of wished I had just passed out instead. The pain of just lying here and feeling my stomach twist and tie itself up wasn't very delightful.

Once I finally thought I had puked up every bit of food left in me, I closed my eyes and tried to force myself into sleep. I was certainly exhausted enough for it, but apparently my body had other plans. Again, I felt something rising up in my throat. That was strange. I could've sworn I'd already thrown up all my food from earlier. Nevertheless, I found myself vomiting once again. This time, I didn't get the taste of spoiled food in my mouth. Instead, I tasted the metallic taste of blood.

Forcing my eyes open, I looked down at what I had just thrown up. Big, dark red patches stained the carpet. I had just puked up...blood? Okay, this was really not good. Feeling sick and having stomach pains was one thing, but throwing up blood was much more serious. I hadn't even known that that was possible. I wanted to go get a drink of water to get the taste of blood out of my mouth, but there was no way I could get up when I was so weak and when my stomach felt like it was going to explode at any moment. I wished badly that the guys would hurry up and return from the show, but they didn't come.

Instead, I lay on the floor puking and drowning in my own agony for a few hours before I heard footsteps outside the door. By this point, everything was blurring before my eyes and I was literally begging for someone to come kill me to end all this torture. The door popped open at last and the four guys stood in the doorway. Wait...three guys. James wasn't there. I wondered where the hell he might be, but that didn't really matter right now. All that mattered was getting rid of this pain and getting that bloody taste out of my mouth as soon as possible. I had dealt with it for hours and was now at my breaking point.

Unfortunately, it took a moment before the guys saw me. Lars and Cliff, with beer bottles in hand, collapsed in one of the beds and laughed together about some joke I hadn't heard. Kirk was the first one to see me. He had been smiling politely at first at the other guys' jokes, but when his gaze fell on me, the smile immediately dissolved from his face. I knew I probably looked pretty terrible. After all, I was a trembling, pale figure under a blanket that was lying on the ground surrounded by puke and blood. Yuck. That definitely wasn't a pretty sight. I wished Kirk wouldn't have to see it, but I was desperate at this point.

Kirk wasted no time in hurrying over to me. He immediately scooped my frail body up into his arms, grabbed my blanket, and yelled to the other guys, "I've gotta get Olivia to the hospital right this minute. Look at her! I swear she could die any minute." I attempted to roll my eyes at Kirk's exaggeration, but found I didn't have the strength to do that. To my embarrassment, Cliff and Lars sat up on the bed so they could see me. I half expected Lars to make a sarcastic remark at my appearance, but for once, he looked at me with an expression I had never seen him wear before. It was an expression of shock mixed with fear. Cliff was looking at me like I was already dead. He seriously looked like he was going to start planning my funeral while Kirk brought me to the hospital.

"Hurry up, Kirk!" Cliff said urgently as he jumped up from the bed to follow us out the door. "It doesn't look like she has long." Not wanting to be left behind, Lars got off the bed and followed our little party out the doorway and into the hallway. Thinking that the guys were really exaggerating the whole situation and that I wasn't anywhere near dying, I managed to choke out, "Guys, I'm not that bad! I'm just having a little stomach problem, that's all."

At my sentence, I felt something wet and sticky fly out of my mouth. It hit Kirk on the arm. Looking down, I could see it was another droplet of blood. Shit. Now I was spraying blood at my friends. So much for my excuse of telling them that my sickness was "no big deal." Kirk from me to the blood splatter and started racing down the hallway and down the stairs to the hotel lobby. As the three of us tore out of the building and out into the parking lot, Kirk managed to wrap my shivering figure up into the blanket. It helped to shield me a little bit from the cold, but it definitely didn't keep me warm like I had hoped it would.

Not having a car of our own, we were forced to take the truck that we had used on our way to the club. Luckily, Kirk had the keys to it still. He tossed the keys to Cliff and hoisted us into the passenger seat. Cliff entered the driver's seat and started the car up as fast as he could, looking at me nervously all the while. Lars climbed into the back seat and stayed speechless as we pulled out of the parking lot and out into the road. Cliff drove as fast as he could, but he could only drive so fast. It certainly didn't help that we were in such a big, slow-moving vehicle. However, it was our only option and was better than nothing.

As we spun through traffic lights and towards the direction of the hospital, I looked up at Kirk. Being here cradled in his arms had calmed my soul slightly. My body was still raging war on itself, but mentally, I felt slightly more peaceful. Wanting comfort, I leaned my head against Kirk's chest. Kirk peered down at me with those dark, chocolate-colored eyes of his. I tried to look back into them, but they just looked like blurry brown blobs to me. I could literally feel myself getting weaker as time went on.

Kirk gave me what looked to be a small smile as Cliff flew around a corner and started the truck up a hill, "We're almost there, Olivia. Help is on its way. You'll be okay soon." As the truck went cruising down the hill and took a right into a parking lot, Lars gave Kirk a warning look and said, "Don't sound so positive. You don't want to give her any false hope."

Cliff jammed the truck to a stop in a parking place and motioned for us to get out of the truck. As Kirk jumped down from the passenger seat, he turned to Lars rather angrily and said, "Oh really? What do you want me to say to her then? You want me to tell her that she's gonna die? That would make you happy, wouldn't it? We've all known you've hated Olivia for no good reason from the moment you met her!" I hadn't ever seen Kirk this angry before. I was glad he was standing up to Lars, but deep inside, I knew that my argument with Lars was rather pathetic and childish. If I really was dying, I didn't want to waste my deathbed moments listening to Lars and Kirk bicker over a girl who was soon going to be dead. That would just be pointless.

"Guys...don't argue," I managed to say weakly. I was surprise at just how faint and fragile my own voice sounded. Something bad was definitely happening to me. To my surprise, Lars and Kirk did just what I had said to do and shut up. Wow, that was certainly a first. Since when could I control the audacious boys?

The three of us burst into the lobby of the hospital. It was definitely warmer in here, but there was still a constant chill traveling over my body. I wished there was some nice, warm electric blanket around that I could wrap myself up in. Cliff headed over to the receptionist and started talking animatedly to her while gesturing at me wildly.

In the meantime, Kirk looked down at me and asked gently, "Olivia, is there anything you want or that we can do for you to make you more comfortable?" I considered Kirk's question for a moment. After a second of thinking, I nodded and said in a barely audible voice, "Yeah, I want James. Where is he? If I really am dying, I wanna say goodbye to him."

"See what you've done?" Kirk turned angrily to Lars with his eyes sparkling dangerously. "Now you've got her thinking that she's gonna die!" Lars threw up his hands in a surrendering gesture and said, "God, don't blame me! You were the one who said she didn't look like she had much longer to live anyways. That's not all that different from what I said!"

Kirk started to say something, but I reached up with the last of my strength and stroked the side of his cheek. My distraction worked and Kirk forgot whatever retort he was going to say to Lars. Instead, he gulped and answered my earlier question about James' whereabouts, "Uh...James is still in the club getting drunk."