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“‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)”
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Some days you wake up and there’s no cereal.
Some days you wake up and there’s no milk.
Mull had woken up this morning and found she was out of both.
And that’s how she knew she was going to die.
It was amazing the number of things which could be predicted with breakfast foods. Not that Mull had really heeded her sundries’ warning. No, she would have gone to work anyway.
Mull liked her job.
And she wasn’t even overly fond of cereal. That was Natalie’s deal. Because it was perky and colorful and utterly meaningless. Natalie’s entire idiot life was spent in Happy Cartoon Cereal Land.
Still, Mull was actually rather surprised to wake up. The last thing she remembered was fighting her ex, Rondel Stanna, AKA “Mercygiver,” on a rooftop, then… Well, she hadn’t so much “lost,” as it was that the fight was called on account of sudden de-elevation and catastrophic organ damage.
It actually hurt to open her eyes, which was probably a bad sign.
She reached up to pull the oxygen mask from her face, but found that just moving her arm caused her to almost scream in pain and pass out from exhaustion.
Beside her, a shadow moved…
On instinct, Mull blindly grabbed for a knife from the tray of food next to her and stabbed it into the shape .
Sadly, she’d only managed to grab a bendy straw, which immediately bent in half and fell to the floor. Plus, the action had forced her to move her shoulder, which made her gasp in agony. She was bleeding there. And something serious was broken, because it didn’t feel right.
But they hadn’t fixed it in surgery.
Which Mull knew was also a bad sign. That meant she had bigger problems than a busted shoulder, which she wasn’t expected to survive.
She was basically strapped to this bed and she couldn’t move! Fear surged through Natalie like a wave, eyes darting around. She was on the verge of a full-fledged panic attack, which would be a really bad idea in her present condition.
When Nat got afraid, bad things happened.
Mull recognized that fact, but was unable to stop it. Her breathing tried to quicken, but the pain and busted ribs made that all but impossible. It felt like someone was sitting on her chest, which only made the panic worse.
“Miss Quentin?” Someone asked, his voice breaking. “It is very good to see you. Although I could have done without being stabbed.”
Mull blinked her swollen eyes, trying to see through the gauze and tubes which covered most of her vision. “…Oz?” She croaked in uncertainty. Her throat felt like it was almost bleeding it was so sore.
“I’m here.” The man assured her with quiet confidence.
Natalie relaxed, the panic falling away. Oz was one of the few people in this world who she trusted completely. If Oz was here then she was fine.
Well… she was still in some kind of hospital, but she wasn’t in any immediate danger from anything other than dying from her injuries.
“You’re in the hospital.” Oz told her softly, apparently thinking she couldn’t recognize the space. “How… how are you feeling?”
She blinked at the stupid question, but found it almost charming. “Hospital.” She croaked. “How… do you think… I’m doing?”
Oz relaxed slightly and leaned forward. “I supposed that’s fair.” He cleared his throat. “Can you tell me what happened?”
She absolutely could, yes. But Oz needed to be protected from the darker elements of Mull’s world. She would deal with it, once she was out of this place and Oz was safe somewhere. Protected behind locks and bars and expensive security systems. Somewhere far away from Mull’s former partner.
She simply stared at him, through swollen eyes.
Oz seemed to view her obstinance as amnesia, and nodded. “Well, don’t push things. It might be best not to remember some of it.”
Jesus. Nothing was sadder than Oz giving her the victim speech. “I got beat up, not gang raped, Oz. It’s not traumatic, it’s just painful.”
Oz laughed, but there was something off about the sound. She wasn’t really used to hearing him laugh at all, but this time he sounded… nervous. No. He sounded scared. And grieved.
Shit …
She looked down at the bandages covering her chest, then met his worried eyes. “Let me see the chart.” She said softly, moving her oxygen mask aside.
“…You’re going to be fine.” He assured her, his voice noticeably strained.
“Let me see the chart , Oz.” She repeated, more forcefully. “Please.”
He picked up the chart and held it for a moment, obviously thinking about his best course of action, then reluctantly handed it to her. Her eyes skimmed the page, cataloging the catastrophic damage to her body.
Damn.
She tried to make a whistling sound, but was unable due to her split lip and general lack of breath. “Jeez.” She weakly tossed the chart onto the table. “Guess… guess I won’t have to worry about how I’m going to pay my MasterCard bill anymore.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“No. I won’t.” She told him flatly. “We both know it.” She tried to smile, but it had no real emotion behind it. “I appreciate your lies though. Thanks. That’s sweet.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but obviously struggled for something to say. Finally, he simply nodded.
By his nature, Oz was hopeful. He was one of the only people in the Consortium who had hope for the future.
He wasn’t dark or gritty or any of that nonsense.
Oz was idealistic and he believed in people.
He knew that he wasn’t the most powerful person in the world, but he was willing to put himself in harm’s way, all the same.
Because he was a genuinely good person and there wasn’t a thing you could do to him which would ever change that .
There was something so comforting about that.
Mull always treasured that about him.
Seeing even him be unable to argue with her about her looming death made it extra tragic somehow, and that drove the point home.
“I’ve imagined how I’d die my entire life.
” She looked around the hospital room. “I didn’t picture it this way.
” She let out a long wheezing breath. “Fucking Ronnie . I really should have killed him before now.” She pointed at Oz.
“This is a learning opportunity for you: if someone might kill you one day, kill their ass first .”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
They both fell silent.
Rationally, she recognized that there were a hundred thousand different things she should tell this man, while she still had the opportunity. But Natalie was in charge at the moment. And Natalie was a coward.
No one liked Natalie.
Luckily, it was looking like the world wouldn’t have to put up with her for too much longer.
Her eyes cut over to the pile of paperwork sitting on the table beside Oz. “And what have you and Shaggy been investigating while I’ve been out, Scoob?”
He frowned in confusion. “Who?”
She made an annoyed sound. “Jesus, buy a TV.”
“I had a TV once, but its magnetic fields were giving me brain cancer and microbes in the ground water were messing up my reception anyway.”
“Uh-huh.” She absently started pressing random buttons on her IV, just because . “You’re kinda high-maintenance, anyone ever tell you that, Oz?”
“I can’t say as they have, no.”
“Well, in any case, you are. You’re like one of those exotic butterflies that need their own hothouse to keep alive.
Too precious for this world.” The IV started to make a frantic beeping sound, which she ignored.
Hopefully beeping meant “Okay, okay, I’ll start dispensing more morphine, lady.
” She met his eyes again. “Ready to tell me what you were investigating now?”
“Mercygiver.” He spat out.
Mull’s blood froze. “Yeah, that’s not really a good idea. Just... Just let me deal with him, okay? He’s not someone you should really be around.”
“So I’m told. ”
“Yo!” She called as loudly as she could, ending in a weak pained cough. Her mouth started to taste metallic, which she could only assume was from blood. Which was very, very bad. “Asshole! Get in here!”
She knew he was out there. It was the most annoying place in the world he could possibly be, which meant he was obviously there.
Sure enough, Poacher’s head popped into the room a second later. “Yeah? What?”
“You’re letting Oz go off to fight Rondel?” Her eyes narrowed in rage. “You are a fucking idiot, anyone ever tell you that?”
“Absolutely.” Poacher nodded seriously. “My parents’ last words to me.”
“What the fuck is your problem!?!” She demanded. “You can’t let him go off on his own!”
“He won’t be ‘alone,’ I’ll make sure I’m right there to back him up.” Poacher promised.
“Then you’re both fucking idiots.”
“And there’s my last words to my parents as they drove away, yeah.” Poacher chuckled to himself at the memory. “’Course, I doubt they heard me over the sirens.”
Oz frowned, obviously unaccustomed to being involved in this kind of conversation. “I should point out that the doctor has given you orders to remain calm.”
“Believe me, I’ll be perfectly calm as I slap the shit out of you both and then die.”
“Whatever.” Poacher rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna go get a sandwich. You want anything?”
She moved, wincing in pain and the unexpected sensation of being unable to feel her legs. “Some new internal organs would be nice. I think mine are shot.”
“I doubt they have that at the lunch cart, but I’ll ask.” Syd pointed down the hall. “They probably have hot dogs, which are mostly organ meat and stuff, that might count.”
Natalie held up a finger to Oz, indicating that she needed a moment. “Can I talk to this moron alone for just a sec?”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
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- Page 12
- Page 13 (Reading here)
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
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- Page 24
- Page 25
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