Vial 126

Chapter 9

The nurse opened the door to walk into my room. I closed my eyes and pretended to go to sleep. I need to come up with it an escape plan.
I could teleport, but that doesn't change the fact that I am in shambles. If only my power could let me heal myself. I could try, but I have to wait until the nurse leaves again.
The nurse shut the door behind her, I use the noise of the slamming door as an excuse to 'wake up'. I pretending to stretch and yawn. I fake groaned and I
told her I needed water, so once again, she left the room.
I sat up in my bed. I concentrated "Have Faith, have faith, faith..." The voice in my head kept whispering. "Health, strength, faith, health, strength, faith..." I could feel the bullet wound in my shoulder healing, I could feel the scrapes, scratches and bruises disappearing. I felt my broken wrist mend itself and my back aches started to fade. I was healing, it was working.
I kept concentrating. The power drifted away as quickly as it had come. As well as the pain. I needed better clothes, the medical robe wasn't gonna cut it.
I reached for my watch, but it wasn't there. On the opposite wall than the chairs, there was a small rack, it held a baggie labeled Katherine's stuff, as well as my mission suit on a hanger. It was scratched up in some places, but it would be better than this old robe.
I heard the approaching footsteps of the nurse, when she opened the door and walked in with my glass of water she said "You look a lot better!"
"Yeah, I know, I feel better too. Can I leave? I need to get somewhere."
The nurse responded "Why you seem to be in a rush, where in the world do you need to go? You're not going to be able to get out of this hospital for a while."
"You can check, I'm better -"
"Sweetie, you can't get better that easily." The nurse interrupted.
"Just check, I won't bother you anymore if you do. If I'm healthy, you can let me go. If not, I will be as cooperative a patient as possible." I begged. "Please."
"Okay -"
"Thank you, thank you, thank you..." I praised
"I wasn't finished; okay, but if I release you early, you have to pay me a little extra."
"How's 100 bucks sound?" She didn't look convinced.
"How does 300 bucks sound?"
She smiled. "Okay, let me check."

* * *

"Wow, you're back to normal, how did you do it?" The nurse said in awe.
With a fiery display on my fingertips, I responded "Magic."
With that I picked up my mission suit and my baggy and went to the restroom to get changed, leaving the open-mouthed nurse. I never paid her.
I walked out of the dressing room in my mission the suit. I typed in to my watch:

Pick me up at the hospital, I'm better.

A second later, a response popped up on the screen:

That's not possible, who is this?

I typed:

Pineapple.

Response:

On my way.

I walked toward the front entry. Surprisingly, no one seemed to notice me.
I sat on a bench outside and waited. I looked at my watch. The time read 6:27. Good, there was still time.
To my relief Julius was the only one who came with Nigel.
Julius' surprised look was enough to bring me joy. I opened the door and plopped down on the seat next to Julius. "You still up for pizza?"
He grinned. "We still have 33 minutes."
"Perfect, just enough time to drop off Nigel, and get me some casual clothes. Do you know how to drive?"
"Yep, I got my license 1 month ago." He proudly admitted.
When we reached the apartment Nigel told us he had a surprise for us. We took the elevator to the floor we were on. The place had a decent size, 2 beds and a fold out couch, as well as a lot of sprawled out sleeping bags. It had 3 separate rooms, a kitchen/dining room, a bedroom with a bathroom off of the side and a living room. Eleanor slept on the couch, my mom and her brother, Nigel apparently slept on a bed ( it's not weird ), Reba took up the other bed, her head was healing nicely. Steven, Mika and Julius were on the floor, my friends had arranged me a generously squished spot on the floor made of a sleeping bag. ( Gee, thanks guys, give the recently in a hospital person the smallest spot on the FLOOR!)
I was welcomed with warm hugs.
"So what's the surprise?" Julius asked, wondering.
"Yeah, what's the surprise?" everyone else joined in.
"Well, the surprise is, I got improvements watches. Now instead of just talking to me you'll be talking to all of us. And we can all shoot fire out of our wrists. You know, like, just in case." He finished, passing out the new watches.
"We should have a name for us, you know, because we're crime fighters and we still need to go antidote the rest of the world." Eian offered.
"Well, that was a random suggestion." I responded.
"Okay so who's going to vote for 'well, that was a random suggestion' as our team name..." When no one raised their hand Eian continued. "That's what I thought." Eian resolved.
"How about V.R.A, vial removing association?" Steven asked.
His voice was almost drowned out by the sound of marching feet outside. Reba walked over to the door, opened it and stuck her head out, the next thing we knew she screamed and crumpled to the ground. I caught sight of a little tranquilizer dart in her neck. "Run!" I yelled.
We all ran for the fire escape. Nigel held Reba in his arms as we started down the long chain of ladders. A few seconds later Nigel crumpled to the ground with Reba in his arms.
A small group of people in black were hard on our feet. We decided to stay there with Nigel and Reba, no one else could carry them. Eleanor blacked out next. Eian started to sway and crumple. A shorting pain erupted in my neck, I grabbed the dart out of a small part of skin just above my shoulder, I read the letters. My I grew wide, the letters read were V.R.A, vial releasing association. Was this just a coincidence? Did Steven know them?
One of the men picked up Steven and set him gently inside. "You'll be safe in here, son." He said.
I started to stumble, I saw Mika fall to the ground. Julius hobbled and fell into me, I stumbled off the small platform and landed hard on my side on the platform below me. The outside got dark and foggy. I had no energy to keep me from slipping into sleep.