wanderess ; barry allen

chapter twenty-three

chapter twenty-three;
consciousness; status: awol

        Adley was fragile. She would never admit it, but going several long days without talking to any of her friends, or her boyfriend, it tore her up. That, of course, tore her up hypothetically, but she did not expect to be torn up, literally.

She had just woken up from her late afternoon slump that she'd been having, feeling especially lonely when unable to function at the realization that she had nobody by her side.

She groaned, whimpering like a pup as she rolled onto her side, feeling every individual wound on her body. Her breaths were now shallow pants as she threw her hand to her coffee table and scratching for her phone. Vision blurring, she typed in Barry's number weakly.

He answered on the second ring, well, Cisco did.

"Adley? Where are you?" He demanded immediately. "Are you driving? Please tell me you were not driving."

"I'm at home," she breathed in between pained gasps. "Cisco what is happening?"

"Hey, hey," his voice was panicked, "Are you crying? Oh God is it that bad that the stone is broken?

"Cisco," she cried, "Help me. I feel like I just was stabbed three hundred times." She looked at her shirt, destroyed and dotted with small blotches of blood.

"Well, Barry was," Cisco retorted bluntly. "Where are you? I'll come pick you up."

Adley let out a deep breath, mewling, "Help." Cisco could hear her voice break before she went completely silent.

"Adley?" He barked, "Are you there?" He turned to Caitlin and Barry, "She sounded like she was in serious hurt on that end."

"A lot of hurt on this end too." Barry groaned as Caitlin plucked another shard from his shoulders.

"Well one of us needs to pick her up, bring her here," Cisco insisted.

"I'll do it," Ronnie offered, speaking finally.

"No," Wells dismissed.

"I'm the only one not needed right now, it'll be like ten minutes,"

"You're also the only one being hunted," Cisco pointed out. "Plus you've never even met Adley. She'd make sure you could never have children before you even picked her up."

Their heated bickering posed as a distraction from the grunting red light that burst from the room, and back within mere moments. Barry stood in the front of the room, carrying a now unconscious Adley in his arms. Every other inhale was a pained grunt.

"Idiot!" Caitlin shouted as Ronnie rushed to take the girl from him, Caitlin ushering Barry back to the bed.

"Can we just hurry up?" Barry groaned, "I gotta get to Stein's house."

"You just went to Adley's.." Caitlin trailed off, before plucking another spine from Barry's shoulder. He winced, and Caitlin wasn't sure if it was from the pain or Adley's whimper from the bed opposite. She rolled onto her side, curling into a ball.

"Stein's fine," Ronnie stated curtly, his gaze flitting to the entrance of the Cortex.

"How do you know?" Cisco asked from Adley's side.

"He's right there." Professor Stein sighed from the front of the room.

"Perhaps," he began, "Ronald and I aren't as distinct as we thought."

Caitlin immediately set the two up for a series of tests, while Barry remained beside Adley, waiting for her to wake up. He was tired of watching her get hurt because of him. What good was her ability anyway? All it did was cause her pain and he didn't want that any longer.