𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐊𝐈𝐃𝐒 - jj maybank

- 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐰𝐨

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗞𝗮𝗰𝗶 and Jordan Flores were growing up, they didn't have parents — not really. They didn't have two authority figures who cared for them, who fed them, who loved them. They didn't have a mom and dad who spent time with them, who read them stories and played games with them. Luis was a little older and always busy getting tutored, learning all things maths at just five years old. Which left Kaci and Jordan. Alone.

They only ever had each other.

From being babies to being teens, Jordan and Kaci only ever had each other. They argued and fought a lot, they told each other to die and embarrassed each other in front of their friends, but at the end of the day they were always siblings. Siblings without real parents. Siblings who thought they had lost another sibling. Siblings who went through hell together. They were all each other had.

Kaci couldn't lose Jordan; he was her other half.

They were supposed to grow old together. To tease each other and bicker until they were in their late eighties. They were supposed to give embarrassing speeches at each otherʼs weddings and get way too drunk to be acceptable. They were supposed to live on together.

They were going to do all of that. They had to do all of that.

𖧷

𝗞𝗮𝗰𝗶 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 couldn't process a single thing after Jordan revealed he had been shot. There was nothing but a distant ring in her ear and the blurr that sat across the screan of her eye sight. She didn't remember moving; she didn't remember getting the the doctorʼs. She didn't remember leaving Kaz with Sarah and Luis, and she didn't remember gaining strength in her limbs again.

"Is he gonna be alright, doc?" John B spoke up. He didn't want Kaci to go alone, so he carried Jordan over there himself and let her mindlessly trail behind. Luis and Sarah stayed behind with Cleo and the others, watching over Kaz.

The doctor didn't answer his question directly. "Put some pressure on that wound, here," he said instead, pointing to the deep puncture in Jordanʼs stomach.

"Yes, sir," he said, glancing back to Kaci for a moment before obeying his order. The girl wasn't doing good at all. She wasn't crying, nor was she shouting — she wasn't being Kaci. She was just kind of frozen. Too shocked to process it all. "What kind of doctor are you?"

After the first five minutes in the car, Jordanʼs breath started to slow. He didn't look like he was in pain exactly, but he didn't look at peace, either. And although John B didn't want to say it aloud, he was pretty sure that was what a dead person looked like.

Jordan was put on a high dose of general anesthesia the second his body hit the doctorʼs table. His wound continued to bleed, the cut from the knife and the bullet from the gun doing double damage to his body. The dirt from the ground and the clothes putting infection into both wounds.

"I'm not a doctor."

The statement made Kaciʼs head snap up. She took her finger out of her mouth and glared at the man. "Then what the fuck are you doing to my brother?" she demanded furiously.

At the sound of her voice, John B turned around to face her with a warm smile, glad to have her back. He was worried there for a second. She was a bit mean at times, but Kaci wasn't Kaci without cussing people out and shouting at them. He missed it. He missed her. From all the time they had lived together, John B started to see her as a sister himself. He didn't want to see her hurt.

"Not in the eyes of the law, anyway," the man went on, casually ignoring her. "I'm more like a service provider."

"What does...what does that mean?" questioned John B.