A Sick Sidekick

Chapter 7

Ray's POV

It's been two hours since I brought Henry back to the man cave, and he's still unconscious. "Charlotte are you sure that there's nothing that we can do for him?" I asked. "No Ray. I already told you that when you asked me that five minutes ago." She replied with sass in her voice. I rolled my eyes at her. I couldn't help I was worried. I knew for a fact that Charlotte was freaked out too, she's just good at hiding it. Charlotte got up to check on Henry once more and saw that his temperature has at least lowered a bit. With a loud groan Henry suddenly rolled over on his side facing us, and slowly opened his eyes. "Henry!" Charlotte and I shouted. I jumped up from my seat and ran over to Henry excited to see that he was awake and not in a coma. "Don't fall asleep!" Charlotte warned. "But I'm so tired!" Henry croaked. His voice was low and raspy. It sounded as if he had been swallowing sand paper for years. Charlotte checked Henry's temperature again, and saw that it had gone down to 100.2. Henry sniffled wetly as he looked up at the both of us. He turned his gaze and looked a bit confused. "How did I get here?" Henry asked. "What's the last thing you remember?" Charlotte asked ignoring Henry's question. "I don't know. I think, I remember sleeping, and being woken up from some kind of strange beeping noise, and that's about it." Henry replied. I decided now was not the best time to fill him in on what happened. He looked way too exhausted to process anything let alone something he can't remember. Charlotte removed the IV from Henry and I took him up to the guest room so he could rest comfortably. Once I got him in bed Henry was out like a light. I went back to the main room to see Charlotte putting up the medical supplies. It only took a second before I realized something. Henry's parents. They were both home and probably expecting to see their son home with them. Before I could give it a second thought, the crime light started flashing. I ran over to it to answer only to hear a frantic voice. "Captain Man?!" "Yes?" I asked. "My name is Jake Hart, and I can't find my son anywhere! His name is Henry, and he's been home, sick for the past three days. My wife and I went out for a bit, and when we came back, he was gone and we can't find him anywhere!" Obviously I was not worried as I knew exactly where Henry was. "Listen, I will find your son. Just relax, take a deep breath, and I will need your home address so I know where to bring your son when I find him." I said as I would answer a regular emergency call like this. Surprisingly Jake was able to calm down immediately, and gave me his address as if I didn't already know where he lived. I said a few calming words before hanging up the phone. Now all I have to do is give it a couple hours to say that I was 'searching' for him, then bring Henry back home. I would have gone ahead and done it as soon as he woke up, knowing Henry prefers to be in his own bed when sick, but as tired and as disoriented as he was, I figured it was better for him to have a bit more sleep first. I sat back down on the couch with a confused looking Charlotte. "What was the emergency?" She asked curiously. "Oh, it was Henry's dad freaking out because he couldn't find Henry." "Dang, I forgot about Henry's parents!" Charlotte said. "Don't worry, I told Henry's dad I was looking for him, when in reality, I'll just bring Henry back when he's awake, and if he's doing well enough to even move." I replied. "But how is Henry supposed to explain how he was gone in the first place? It's not like he can say the real reason." Charlotte said. Dang, I forgot about that part. "When I take him back I'll just say that he... got kidnapped." I said. "Really? That's the best you got." She asked with one eyebrow raised. "Do you have anything better?" I asked. She sighed. "No, but there has to be something better than saying that Henry got kidnapped right from his own home." Charlotte said. "Well it's all I got, and it's still pretty believable to me."I said confidently. Charlotte just rolled her eyes and laid back against the couch. I heard faint words calling for me and I instantly knew that it was Henry. I jumped up from the couch and ran to the guest room to find Henry sitting on the side of the bed leaning over the bucket shaking. His knuckles turned white from gripping the bucket so hard. I immediately rushed over to comfort him despite him barely knowing that I was even there. When he finally finished I set the bucket aside and got him to lay back down. He was breathing heavily, I could tell that this round had been pretty hard on him. "Let me grab you your medication real quick. Don't fall asleep." I said whilst running to get his meds. The nurse gave me an extra bag to keep with me just in case. When I came back, Henry was still lying down on the bed, but he did not look comfortable at all. In fact he looked terrible. His face was flushed, and he had large grey bags under his eyes. His hair was a mess and sticking out in every direction. It would actually be pretty easy to confuse him as a hospital patient which didn't help my worry. I quickly walked over and handed the pills over to Henry which he quickly dry swallowed. "Ray?" His voice was so scratchy. It was like he had been swallowing nails for the past ten years. "Yeah kid?" I asked. "When do I have to go back home?" He asked. "Soon. Probably no later than tonight." I replied with a smile. "Oh." Was all he said. It kinda confused me. He sounded kinda disappointed, like he didn't want to go home. I would've thought he had been ready to go since he woke up. Nevertheless, I shrugged it off and helped Henry go back to sleep. Once I knew that he had fully go to sleep, I quietly walked off careful not to run into anything and wake Henry up. When I got back to the main room, Charlotte was at the monitors doing who knows what. I decided to just sit down on the couch and play on my phone for awhile. Charlotte cut me a look for not doing anything useful, but I don't really care. I resumed to scrolling aimlessly through Twit-Flash until I got bored and turned my phone off. It wasn't long until I heard a quiet voice calling my name again , so I immediately got up and went back to the guest room to make sure that Henry was okay. I dashed up to the guest room and found Henry on the floor, with a puddle of vomit right beside him. When he saw me he immediately started apologizing for the mess on the floor. "Hey, it's okay. Sometimes you just can't make it to the bathroom. I lost count of how many times I didn't make it to a restroom." I said trying to make him feel better. There was no reason to let him overwork himself over an accident. He sniffled while I helped him off the floor and back into bed. "I'm going to go get a mop and clean this up. You can just go back to sleep. I'll probably take you back home in a couple of hours." I said. For some reason Henry let out a moan. Does Henry seriously not want to go back home? I once again shrugged it off knowing that I had to get this mess cleaned up before the smell traveled all through the man cave. I pinched my nose and picked up the bucket to go clean it out. When I came back, Henry was already sound asleep. I smiled as I set the bucket down and went back to the main room. Charlotte was on the phone with someone, and I just lazily sat down and watched TV on the monitors. When she hung up, Charlotte gave me a look. "You do know that's there's a million other things you could be doing right now instead of watching TV." She said with sass. "Like what?" I said not turning my gaze from the monitors. It's not like there's any crimes going on right now, and Henry's asleep, so he doesn't need me. "Well, you could be trying to find that criminal that captured you. I did some research on this guy, and he's actually known to be one of the worst criminals to walk the planet!" Charlotte said. "That can't be possible. The worst criminal to walk the planet would be Jeff!" I said with laugh. Charlotte rolled her eyes at me. "You know what I meant. He's a VERY bad person Ray! He's wanted in 5 states! He's even wanted in two countries over in Europe. The reward for finding him, are over 10,000 dollars! Look at the list of stuff he's done." She said motioning me over. Charlotte turned on the other monitor, and pulled up a very long list of crimes that this guy has done, and let me just say, I don't think I've ever seen a list of crimes this long, on just ONE person. The things that he's done are absolutely devastating. When we finally finished going through the list, Charlotte turned off the monitor and looked back at me. "Ray, people have been looking for this guy, for ten years. They say he's really difficult to find. He wipes out any evidence of himself, changes his name every time he comes in contact with people, he has no I.D. or passport, and he's constantly on the move. He's been one of the most wanted people in the world for ten years." Charlotte said. "So, how can we find him?" I asked. "Well, I was trying to call Schwoz, but he wouldn't pick up. I figured he had some kind of special device that we could use to find this guy, and of course alert him about Henry's condition, but like I said, he wouldn't pick up." I sighed. I am really regretting letting Schwoz take a vacation now. "Well, I'll try to get ahold of Schwoz later. Right now, let's just keep doing as much research as we can." I said. We both got to work researching for hours, until we both fell asleep. By accident of course. It wasn't long though until I heard someone yelling my name. I realized that it was Henry, and jumped up from my seat and ran back up to the guest room to find Henry sound asleep. What? I could've sworn I heard Henry yelling for me. I searched more parts of the man cave, to see if there was someone else there. When I came to the realization, that it was just me, Henry, and Charlotte here, I started to get very confused. I know I heard Henry yelling for me. At least somebody was yelling my name. Just as I was going to head back to the man cave, I heard it again, only louder. What is going on? Who is calling for me? I walked back to the man cave, to see a very confused Charlotte. When I called her name she quickly turned around to look at me with wide eyes, but relaxed when she saw that it was just me. "Ray, do you need me or something, because instead of yelling, you could have just shaken me awake." She sassed. "I didn't yell your name. I was busy checking the man cave because I thought I heard somebody yelling my name." I replied. Charlotte frowned. "So, who's yelling for us?" She asked confused. I have no idea to be honest. I looked around and still saw nothing. Then I heard the both of our names called. Charlotte jumped up from her chair a little nervous as to not knowing what is going on. I have to admit, I'm a little bit scared too. I hear my name being called, but I don't know who's calling it. We both just kinda stood there for a second, not really knowing what to do. A couple minutes later Jasper came out from the elevator scaring us both to death. "Why didn't you guys respond?" Jasper asked with a hint of disappointment in his voice. "I'm sorry, what?" Charlotte asked obviously confused, as was I. "The new speakers came in for the man cave since the others broke. I was testing them out but you guys didn't respond." Jasper replied. I then realized what was going on. Our old speakers in the man cave, that allowed us to communicate to whoever was behind the counter at Junk n' Stuff, had broken down completely so I ordered new ones. I felt kinda stupid now for not realizing that that was what was going on sooner. I mentally slapped myself in the face as Charlotte just stood there blushing slightly. "What did you guys think was going on?" Jasper said. "You know what, it doesn't matter." I said not wanting to reveal what was just running through my head before. Charlotte and I returned to our seats at the monitors and began researching that criminal again. Jasper just awkwardly stood there not really knowing what to do. It was a Sunday so I have Junk n' Stuff closed, so Jasper was just cleaning the store today. It didn't take him that long, since he's a fast cleaner, so he just spent about three hours doing nothing. I guess that's when he got the idea to test out our new man cave speakers. I scrolled through a long boring list of this guy, which was basically pointless since every website had the same information on this guy. No one knows much about him since he's so private and is smart to wipe out anything with his evidence on it. I could tell that Charlotte was getting frustrated too. At this point, I was beginning to think that maybe Drex wasn't the worst criminal to ever come to Swellview anymore. Just then I heard Henry yelling for me again. Dang it, I was just about to find something interesting about this guy that may help us. Just as I was about to get up, Jasper moved. "I got this one Ray." He said with a smile as he walked up to the guest room. At least now I can resume to finding some actual useful information. Don't get me wrong, I really don't mind taking care of Henry, he's like a son to me. I would take care of him any day, I just really need to find this guy before he does something else, like finding Henry and capturing him. After reading that list of stuff that this guy has done to people he captures, I really wanted to make sure he gets found. I don't know what I would do if this guy ever got Henry, or anyone for that matter. This man is sick person. Just as I was about to find something useful, I heard Jasper yelling something in a distressed tone . "Uh, guys, can I get some help up here?"

Hey! I really hope you guys enjoyed and sure to comment, vote, and share! Thank you sooooo much for reading and I'll see you in my next chapter! Byeeeee!❤️❤️❤️