Processing...

Chapter 9

I quickly catch him, and am about to pick him up until he mumbles some gibberish. I can't tell if he's awake or not. If he's still awake, trying to pick him up might throw him into another fit. Which we really need to avoid right now.

"Hey Ivor, can you get on the other side and loop your arm under his shoulders like me?" He grunts, but complies. Jesse's feet are dragging behind him, but it's only a little ways.

"Gosh, I'm so sorry about your friend. Being apart of P.A.M.A. is rough, taxing on your very soul, but 'Pets' generally exhaust their usefulness in only a couple of days."

Petra clears her throat. "So is there anyone who could possible bandage my arm, or could help at all?"

Harry leads us in front of a tri house complex. "Yes, I'll ask someone to come over and help with that right away. To be honest, we don't have a lot of food or water. We'll spare what we can, but it probably won't be much."

I nod, smiling a bit. "Hey, it's okay. We don't exactly except royalty treatment from a newly liberated town."

He wearily smiles back before dashing off. The stairs are unfortunately for one person, so Ivor and I have to do this uncomfortable side step thing. We carry Jesse into the closest house and plop him on one of the beds.

Jesse's still muttering some nonsense, somehow looking even worse. Now that he isn't awake to hide his pain, it's painstakingly obvious. Constantly writhing, as if trying to do something but something holding him back. His face scrunched up in torment as his head flings itself back and forth onto the pillow.

I sigh and turn to Ivor. "Can you grab the other beds in the other houses? And check to see if there's anything we might need in any of the chests."

Ivor nods and Petra turns to me, sitting on the other bed. "Stealing? Really Lukas?"

"It's a small price for them to pay for their freedom." I look back down at the now sweating Jesse. "And we really need everything we can get our hands on, for Jesse's sake."

"Agreed, but how do we even help Jesse? It's not like I don't want to, but we don't even know the roots of the problem."

I give her a quizzical look. "Isn't it obvious? Clearly over stressed, absolutely drained, sleep deprived, starved, probably dehydrated, Jesse could even be sick, or P.A.M.A. could have-"

"No, I don't mean any of that. But what caused him to become like this. This must be a long term problem and I don't want to solve it now only for it rise again. We need a solution, pull out the roots of this problem."

"Don't say it like that." I sideways glare at her. "You're talking as if we're fixing an object or some weed issue. This is Jesse, our friend. Since this a long term problem it might be a long time until he permanently gets better, but that's fine. We need to be there for him though."

She sighs. "I didn't mean it like-"

"I got the beds!"

I smile tiredly at Ivor, gesturing for him to put the beds in the other corners. He also pulls out a crafting table a puts by the stairs leading out. I draw in a breath to say something. but he must have expected it.

"Always good to have a crafting table, never know when you might need one Lukie."

I groan and don't even bother to correct him, he's probably doing it just to get on my nerves or something. I just go over and sit down on one of the beds. Just now noticing how much pressure my feet have been under, oh man it feels good to sit again.

Yawning, I stretch my muscles out. I yawn again, but this time I rub my eyes to keep myself awake. Can't fall asleep yet, when the nurse helper person comes in I have to be awake for that. Hopefully they come soon.