found the room, she slammed the doors open, only to find it completely unoccupied. What she did see terrified her. A white orb still shined from the ceiling onto the operating table, a stain of crimson where James would have been and several bloody metallic instruments on a small table next to the bed. “No…no!”
Thel exited the room as quickly as she had entered it.
Immediately, two soldiers were upon her. “Halt!” one of them had time to shout before they were both rendered unconscious with the speed of a thought from Thel. Increasingly desperate, Thel didn’t bother to cushion their falls as they crashed to the hard linoleum floor and she ran back down the corridor, desperately peering through the windows of each room before she moved on. The two doctors that had begun this pursuit reached Thel’s floor, only to see two crumpled soldiers and a terrifying outsider preternaturally gliding over the floor towards them at a terrifying rate.
“No!” one of the doctor’s squealed before Thel caught him by the throat and thrust the electronic device she had procured from the nurse into his face.
“James Keats. Where is he?”
“Okay, okay! You just have to refresh…” The doctor hit a button with his wildly shaking finger, and a new location appeared on the screen. “He’s in a recovery room on this floor, Room 489!”
Thel released the man and flew through the hallway and around a corner on her way to 489. Again, she burst through the doors; this time the room was not empty. Four hospital staff members were wheeling James’s unmoving body on a bed into a place in the corner of the dimly lit room. “Oh my God!” Thel gasped. James was ashen in appearance, and his torso was completely bound in white bandages. A plastic tube was in his mouth, and several wires were attached to his arms and chest.
“What have you done to him?” she asked, still levitating above the ground.
The hospital workers gaped, both terrified and dumbfounded.
“What have you done to him?!” she screamed at them when they didn’t answer.
“Thel!” Old-timer called as he exploded into the room. Several soldiers burst in behind him, including the young guard Thel had rendered unconscious outside of their room.
“Halt!” the young guard shouted as he trained his weapon on her and crouched down on one knee, the other soldiers doing the same. Thel grabbed one of the hospital staff and placed him in a headlock with her right arm, her left hand jammed, open-palmed against his face.
“Stay back, or I’ll fry this monkey’s brain and feed it to you! I’m staying with James! I want to know what you’ve done to him!”
“Release your hostage, ma’am, or we will open fire!” the guard shouted.
“You will not!” commanded James’s doctor as he strode into the room with all the authority he could muster. “Put your weapons away! This is a hospital! Haven’t we had enough death for one day?”
“I can’t do that, Doc!” the guard replied. “She’s a hostile threat!”
“So what are you going to do?” Old-timer demanded of the guard. “She can stop those bullets and tear this whole hospital apart before you’d have a chance to duck. She wants to stay with him, so she’s going to stay with him.”
“Put those guns away!” James’s doctor commanded a second time. This time the guard relented, and the other soldiers followed suit, lowering their weapons.
“What did you do to him?” Thel asked the doctor, her voice giving out as tears began to stream down her face.
“He’s going to be okay. We fixed his lung, and we’ve taken care of his broken bones. He only needs time to heal. Now please, release that man,” the doctor replied gently.
Thel let the staff member go before rushing to James’s side. She felt ready to collapse, but she managed to drape herself over James’s still body and sob. “Thank you,” she said, not sure who she was speaking to. Who was she grateful to? Was it God? Was it fate? Was it James himself? She didn’t know.
“You’re welcome,” said the doctor.
9
Rich and Djanet leapt to their feet as soon as Old-timer reentered their room; they had been waiting nervously ever since they first heard the commotion outside and Old-timer had gone with the troops to the hospital in pursuit of Thel.
Rich wiped the sweat from his palms and tried to fill his dry mouth with spit again so he could speak. “What happened?” asked Rich.
“She’s fine,” replied Old-timer as he placed a reassuring hand on Rich’s shoulder.
“Where is she?” Djanet asked, still reluctant to trust the Purists.
“With James. He’s going to be okay.”
“Oh thank God,” Djanet replied as she and Rich heaved sighs of relief. “Thank God.”
Lieutenant Patrick entered the room, short of breath, with Alejandra close behind and equally winded after their double-time trip across the complex. “What the hell happened?”
The young guard who’d been incapacitated by Thel stepped forward immediately and eagerly like a younger sibling, happy that an authoritarian parent had returned to dole out justice. “I’m sorry, sir. One of them attacked me and escaped.”
“
“Stay out of this, calculator-head!” the young guard shot back, his voice filled with vitriol.
The lieutenant was silent for a moment, his jaw tight as he glared at each man, frustrated that he could not even sleep without the situation seemingly going to hell. “Private,” the lieutenant, began, addressing the young guard, “you’re dismissed.”
“But Lieutenant, I—”
“Dismissed!” the lieutenant repeated through clenched teeth.
The young guard caught his tongue before replying, held his breath, glared at Old-timer, and left the room.
When the door clicked shut, the lieutenant swore and grunted in frustration, balling his hands into tight fists and resisting the urge to punch the wall. “When the general hears about this…”
Old-timer and the others remained quiet as the lieutenant paced back and forth over the concrete floor, breathing heavily like an angry bull in a pen. He turned the situation over in his mind, putting his hand on the back of his neck and pulling at it with a purpose. He quickly turned to Old-timer. “You promised me I could trust you.”
“You
“What? How can you possibly say that? You attacked one of my men!” the lieutenant replied indignantly.
“I didn’t attack anyone,” Old-timer answered back.
“Let’s not play with semantics!”
“That was a one-time thing, Lieutenant. Thel and James have a special connection. She should have been allowed to stay with him. It was unnecessary to keep us all trapped here together so one of us would have to
“That’s easy for you to say! You’re not the chickens in the henhouse with five foxes wandering around!”
The lieutenant’s metaphor fell to the floor like a mid-April snowfall, perplexing and ugly.
“He means your powers make us all vulnerable,” Alejandra intervened. “The people who know you are here are terrified. Thel’s march through the complex guarantees that everyone will know you are here now, spreading the terror farther,” she explained.
“I understand,” Old-timer replied, “and this won’t happen again. I promise you, our abilities are nothing to fear. We would never use them against you. We will only protect you.”
Old-timer’s words seemed to catch in the lieutenant’s mind like a splinter, and he paused a moment, mulling something over as he began to pace again, this time much more plaintively. “Protect us, eh?” he said to the three
