The Five Unnecessaries

Chapter 29

Thirty minutes later, someone rushed me to the Medical floor underneath Central on a stretcher. Though I was on anesthesia, it angered me to be rolled there. Then I looked at my arm and instantly wished I hadn't.

No wonder I was being carried around.

As my bed passed a hallway, Collin stepped out, putting on field gear.

"Where are you...?" I tried asking but lost my voice halfway through.

"You're safe. You're here," he said, running alongside the stretcher and helping the doctors lift me onto a rolling bed. "That means I can go out. Anyone who has Protectors safely back was asked to do the next shift. Patterson can't be out in Zone 2 or 3 with drones. George has been out for ten hours. But you're here. And I need to go."

"Collin, if there's drones... I don't want to be alone. I don't..." I didn't want to sound selfish, but I also didn't know if I could bear to be without him.

"Don't worry," he squeezed my hand. "You won't be alone."

"Collin?!" Eva's voice yelled down the hall.

"Take her," he yelled. "I've got to go help George."

"Go," Eva ordered him. He squeezed my hand, and his eyes shut for an instant as he mouthed "I love you," then let go.

Two seconds later, I sighed in relief and stifled a sob as Eva's skewed smile came in view.

"Hi," she said, her eyes more bloodshot than Collin's.

I should have said more. I wanted to say more. I could barely remember what I needed to keep a secret and needed to tell everyone. An alarm went off. The same alarm as the day they dropped the bombs.

There was a drone in Zone 2.

"They've been going off for an hour. Don't –"

"Collin," I interrupted. "Collin will be out there. Collin—"

"Will be fine," she reassured me, though her voice was choked. "We'll all be fine."

She lied, and I knew it. Everything around me lost color and turned grey.

Eva shouted my name, but from a mile away.

The alarm got louder as the light faded.

And there was dark.

I woke up in a room I recognized. Recovery. I had an IV, but it was on a low drip. Another next to it was empty. The orange fluid IV, used for rapid healing, was also half empty. I must have been out for at least twenty hours. It was quiet, except for the sound of someone eating next to me.

"Eva?"

"I don't know why everyone is always dissing hospital food. This food rocks compared to what we get in the cafeteria."

I laughed, but then stifled it. It had been a long time since I'd smiled or seen something as fresh and white as the hospital wing. But it was unnerving to be clean, not in pain, or laughing. It was too unnatural, considering everything that had happened. It made me want out of my bed.

"What happened?"

"You passed out. I held your hand. You woke up a few times. They finished draining your arm, put some oxygen patches on. I got to try one—they are incredible. Your BP went up, you're on remarkable pain killers, and it looks like"—she craned her neck out, then wrote a check mark on the chart—"your vitals have been back to normal for five hours. They moved you to recovery then."