From the Ash II: Broken

Chapter V: It's Just A Flesh Wound

It felt like I'd sat frozen an eternity before I heard the door open. I turned, raising my head up as much as I could to see over the back of the chair. A wide-eyed Hobbs stared back at me.

"Move it. Doc wants her ready to travel in twenty," a tall, dark-skinned, middle-aged man with a jagged red cut across his cheek ordered Hobbs, pushing him into the room with the barrel of his shotgun.

"Okay! I'm going," Hobbs said, walking towards me.

He had a briefcase in one hand and a large jug of water in the other. It dawned on me that the last time I saw Hobbs, he thought I was trying to kill him with a surgical knife. I was, but over a complete misunderstanding.

His bushy eyebrows lifted high on his forehead, almost disappearing under his salt-and-pepper colored hair, when he looked towards my impaled hand.

"Jesus Christ, Phoenix," he whispered, setting the briefcase down and kneeling beside me.

"Hobbs," I whispered back.

Shock registered on his face. "You remember my name?"

I gave a weak smile. "And you remember mine. I never got to apologize for the first time we met."

Hobbs opened the briefcase and pulled out some bandages and some medical tools and spread them on a towel. Then he waved me off like he was shooing a fly. "Save the apologies for later." He looked under the table and groaned. "All the way through, but luckily it isn't too far..." Hobbs looked over his shoulder and said, "Ray, I may need your help."

Ray scoffed. "The fuck do I look like, Hobbs? Just pull the knife out of that bitch's paw and let's go."

Hobbs narrowed his eyes. "It doesn't work like that. If you are not going to assist me, at least get me more towels."

It looked as though Ray was about to physically assault Hobbs for his request, but he just sucked his teeth and disappeared into the hall. Hobbs shook his head and went back to pulling more things from his bag. Only the clanking of the metallic tools filled the room. I turned, expecting Toro to be keeping a watch over us, but he was gone.

"I guess they're not worried about you running away?" I asked, turning back around and looking to where Ray had gone.

My tone must have been more accusing than I meant it to be, because Hobbs stopped arranging his tools and looked up at me, his tongue pressed against his cheek. "Do you think I'm working with these people?"

I wasn't thinking that at all, but it suddenly occurred to me that it wasn't that farfetched. "I don't know what to think, Hobbs," I replied, wincing as I tried to adjust myself. The pain in my hand was becoming rhythmic with my heartbeat, a steady thump of pulsating pain shooting all the way up my arm now.

Hobbs opened his mouth to respond but instead blew out a heavy sigh. He chuckled and said, "I can actually see why you would think that." He shook his head. "I had no idea who these people were until two days ago." He looked back at me, eyes brimming with tears. "Parker asked me to accompany him that day, said there was somebody we had to meet on the outskirts of Haven. He didn't explain anything else. When we got there, he just told me to stand there and stay quiet." He sighed. "I had no reason to not trust him."

"Two days ago...when we left for Fort Merrick?"

Hobbs nodded. "It was a few hours after you left. Parker was furious when he found out Aria and Nate had left too." He paused for a moment. "Are they...okay? I didn't see them with the rest of the people you came back with."

I swallowed and looked away, unable to let the truth leave my throat—that Nate was buried under the devastation left at Fort Merrick. And Aria...the look of unbearable grief as the realization that her father was lost to her—she had focused all that loss towards me, like a lightning rod, her sword leading the way.