Alliance

Chapter Twenty

Alec hadn't lived on the water like I did. Yes, he may have gone fishing and knew how to swim but he didn't understand undertow, currents, and rapids like I did.

Our outstretched hands found each other. "What the hell are you doing?" he yelled at me. I pulled myself closer to him.

The rapids were getting closer. The water almost all white.

"Do what I say," I snapped. "Put your feet out in front of you and get on your back!" Alec and I both did what I said. "Deflect away from any big rocks with your feet. Go with the current." We both clung to each other as the first of the rapids hit.

Whitewater sprayed over faces. Our bodies slide over the slick rocks below us. We deflected any large rocks with our feet but my right knee screamed in pain with each hit, but I bit down all sounds.

We were pulled underwater. Slammed into rocks. Shoved over rocks. But Alec and I never released each other. We both grabbed each other like we were each other's lifelines.

It felt like decades. Decades of thrashing in the water. But they had to end. At some point, they had to end.

In a brief moment of calmness between rapids, my attention turned to the shore where Gloria and Wong were running in front of us. Wong's body language had my heart almost crashed to a halt. He was facing us as he ran, he was pointing down the river. A hand cupped his mouth while he yelled but I couldn't hear, the water was too loud. Instead of pointing, he started to make a curving motion with his hand. He repeated it again and again. His hand curving down. Down again. And again.

A waterfall.

He was warning us there was a waterfall. "Waterfall!" I yelled at Alec. "Protect your head, land feet first, when you hit the water kick up or you'll get sucked deeper into the water."

Alec nodded.

I couldn't see the edge of the waterfall but the water thrashed around us more violently than before.

At the riverside, Gloria and Wong stopped running. They had reached the cliff and stood to watch us.

The rapids grew faster and stronger. The waterfall edge came into view. Alec and I kept our feet high so we would not be pulled in the undertow and be stuck between the rock and the pulsing, unforgiving water.

We slid over the rocks and plummeted to the pool below.

That falling sensation I felt back at the scoreboard flipped in my stomach as I screamed while free falling through the air. I couldn't help but scream.

My body smacked in the water. My knee screamed in pain with the impact. The hand that held Alec's was empty. I had let go at some point to protect my head in case of rocks in the pool. The water grabbed me and dragged me under. Down to the pool floor that my feet never touched.

I kicked once, my knee spiked pain up my body. Kicked again and more pain. It didn't hurt or throbbed, it the pain was scrutinizing. With my other leg, I kicked up. My lungs ached from lack of oxygen. It was taking too long for my head to break the surface. 

When my head did break free of the water, my head swung back. A ragged breath tore through my body as I sucked in a life saving breath and my lungs begun to cough the water out of them.

My lungs ached. So did my nose from the water coming up it and my throat from the screaming.

Everything hurt but the most painful was my knee.

A yard away Alec shot out the water. He too took a breath and coughed. "You okay?" he said between coughs.

No, I wasn't okay. Now I could barely propel my body toward the riverside. With my good leg, I swam to the edge. Sand met my fingers and I clung to it as I dragged myself to the shore. I laid there for moment before I tried to stand, using a nearby rock to help myself up.

The moment I put weight on my bad knee, pain fired up my leg. It was like a pain I never felt before. It was as if my knee had simply snapped in half. I crashed into the water with a yelp.

"Mel!" cried Wong from the cliffside where he was climbing down.

Behind me, in the water, Alec rushed over. "You're not okay," he kneeled as I flipped myself over to sit on my bottom.

"Knee." Was all I could say. My jaw was tight. It looked totally normal. My knee looked totally fine with the pants covering them but there was so much pain it felt like something had cut through it. Like a rod going straight through my knee, but there was no rod.

"Let's get you out of the water." One arm lifted me from my back and the other lifted below my knees. Alec was careful with the knee as he carried me to the grassy side of the waterfall.

"What happened?" Wong ran to my side as Alec sat me down carefully.

Through gritted teeth, I said, "I slammed my knee against a rock when I first fell in."

"Here," Gloria handed Wong a knife. Without asking permission, Wong grabbed my leg gently to rip off my pant leg. Each pull of the fabric, each tug sent flames of pain radiating up and down my leg. There was a collective intake of breath when Wong, at last, pulled away the fabric to reveal my knee.

Red. Red, hot, and swollen around my entire near. 

Wong, recovered from the shock first, held out his hand. "Wristband."

I lifted my wrist to him. On it, it read Urgent Care on the screen. "You most likely have a torn ligament or tendon. Let's keep it in this position until help gets here."

I nodded. That was all I could do.

"Is... Is she going to be okay?" Behind Wong, Gloria took a step closer. Her voice was low and concerned.

Pain turned to hate. Hate for Gloria. If she had not forced us to go across the river. If she had listened to me. If she had not been stupid.

I glared at her.

"I am so, so sorry."

It was her fault. It was her fault for my pain. She was the reason why I almost drowned.

I went to stand. Wong and Alec both yelled at me but I didn't hear them. On my good leg, I stood. Before I realized what I was doing, my fist made contact with her nose. The break vibrated in my hand. I went for another punch but I stumbled forward, my bad knee out in front of me to catch myself but Alec grabbed me quickly. His strong arms stopped me from putting my full weight on that leg.

"Who do you think you are!" I yelled as Alec held my waist. He was holding me back as I tried to push away from him. I wanted to punch her again. It was unfair that I was in so much pain from her decision and she was in no pain at all.

"Alec and I could have died. We almost died because of your ignorance," I shout as I fought Alec to get to Gloria.

"Cadet Sparrow," a voice yelled over my screaming, it cut through my haze of hate. "Cadet!"

Commander Cedar stepped between Gloria and I. But seeing him didn't register. The medics were there and that didn't register in my head as I still tried to push myself out of Alec's arms.

Words were spoken, words I couldn't fully make out as I felt a needle pricked my arm. I crashed back into Alec as I looked over at who put a needle in me. Doctor Hunt, the Alliance doctor from the previous simulation stood there with a syringe. 

Sedation.

My last thought before the drug took control, was that they had the nerve to sedate me.