Though the grenades were hard on my ears since I was unable to shield them, the silence was all the more deafening. I lifted my head, a burn present on the back of my ankle. A tiny piece of metal protruded through my suit. I reached down and plucked it out, dropping it to the ground.
"Are you all right?" Izzy whispered, though her mouth was open awfully wide to be whispering.
I nodded and got up, letting her loose in the same movement. She ran out to the opening of the alleyway and what awaited us I... wasn't ready for.
When you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck. That's how the story goes. The world looked like Edwin had smashed a whole warehouse of mirrors, though I knew the shards were metal. The Kipas looked like porcupines, the ground thick with shiny metal bits and gallons of Kipa blood.
Nate flinched as a piece of metal bit into his paw. He shifted back to his human form and pulled it from his boot. "Little bit of overkill, Edwin. But I think you got them all."
"Damn right I did. When we fix Yarborough, I am absolutely getting me some of this."
It came across to every single one of us and I shook my head. Picking my way carefully across the bodies of the Kipas, I went to check on Cassie's side of the alleyway.
They hadn't been lucky enough to have a dumpster to hide behind, though Nishelle had melted the vast majority of what had come at them. Still, Cassie had a few bits of metal embedded in her a little too deep to just pull them out. I sighed and tapped my communication unit. "We need medics."
Chapter 13
The ambulance came and went three separate times before I was loaded into the back of one. My injuries hurt but I could bear pain well enough after so many years of getting smacked around. Besides, there was a civilian kid who'd gotten a shard of metal through his leg and the EMTs said it was incredibly close to an artery or a vein; I couldn't remember which.
And I had Nate with me.
I think they only waited so long because he told them that he, too, was an EMT. He kept pressure on the parts that needed to be... pressurized? and the parts that didn't were left alone. He did good. I don't know much else because it all hurt too much to keep track of it. But I knew Nate would take care of me.
He did.
I blinked around myself as we entered a back entrance at the Alliance building. Not the hospital? Well, okay then. They hauled me off to a full medical suite, which was far more than I'd hoped for. James came in a few minutes later, accompanied by three nurses and Nate, out of his supersuit.
"Well, you got all banged up," my dear sweet cousin smiled.
I flopped back on the bed and sighed. "Edwin exploded all over me."
"Is that supposed to be weird and sexual? Because I don't care if you're banging him," James said, getting to work on me. "You are an adult. Technically. Just because I used to babysit you doesn't mean anything."
Smiling, I let my eyes slide closed and tried not to twitch when he squirted my ouches with numbing spray. I don't know what's in that stuff, but it makes everything so much better when they have to dig something out of your skin. Sure, I could feel the push and pry, the scrape and tug that was happening, but it was like getting jostled around on an amusement park ride. It didn't really hurt and you were only kind of aware of it, but you knew that if something wasn't shutting it out you'd probably be screaming.
"I'm dating him, thank you very much. I'm dating all kinds of people these days." I opened one eye to look down at him. "How are the rest of us from Yarborough?"
James freed a fragment just about then and I got to watch a squirt of my blood stain his fancy shirt. He put the bit of metal on a tray and shrugged, completely unbothered by the splattering. "Nishelle has a bruise the size of her head on her back. A few of you would set off a metal detector, but nobody so much as you. You were first. There -are- other doctors here other than me."
"Which baffles me. How much do they pay you for medical? I mean, we have that wing at Mercy Hospital, but a whole staff of doctors is like something from a dream."
He shook his head. "It's not extra. I just do it to take care of the people around me. Two more. Hold on tight and we'll be done in no time."
I flinched as he pried out the second and third bit. The fourth one was in a place they couldn't really numb without an injection, and no one was going to inject me -there-. So he was a little more careful when dealing with the shard that was a little too close for comfort to my guts.
In the end, he had me all fixed up in about twenty minutes. No stitches, only a few bandages and some glue in a couple of spots that were a touch too big for a bandage. I'd come off worse fighting bad guys at Harcourt Mall.
That didn't say much for the typical villains we had wandering around Yarborough, but super tough and super smart aliens were pretty good at wrecking you.
