No Escape

Part 17

Leo looked at Mikey, who smiled at him. They had just finished their training session, and Leo could still feel the sweat running down his body. He brushed the sweat from his brow, feeling uncomfortably warm.

"Mikey?" He questioned, as his brother began walking away.

"Are you okay, Leo?" Don asked uncertainly, as his brother placed a hesitant hand on Leo's shoulder.

"Yeah, Donny." He said, just as shooting pain tore through his gut. He fell to one knee with a small grunt of pain. Donnie quickly kneeled beside him in apprehension.

"Leo!" Don cried out in concern, his eyes wide with worry, as he helped him to his feet.

Mikey looked at him uneasily as pain continued to debilitate him. He tried to take a breath, but found that his lungs did not seem to work.

....

Leo blurrily opened his eyes, his vision foggy, and indistinct. A figure moved above him, but he was unable to make out any details. The constant beep of a machine continued its steady noise in the background. Each beep pounded through his skull like a sledgehammer. Air was gently, but firmly pushed into his lungs, causing them to inflate. He tried to swallow, but something was obstructing his windpipe, making the movement uncomfortable.

He closed his eyes against the pain and nausea that assaulted his decrepit body. Once the worst of it had subsided, Leo slowly opened his eyes again.

He weakly tried to struggle against what felt like leather straps across his wrists, ankles, chest, and forehead, holding him down to a soft, flat surface, but his feeble attempts were not because he couldn't even twitch his fingers.

He was completely helpless.

From his prone position, his blurry vision tried to take in as much as he could, which wasn't much. One fuzzy figure was joined by another, they moved in and out of his visual field dizzyingly. He felt his eyes droop closed, as he strained to hear what was being said around him, and find out what they were doing to him. Though they weren't saying much.

One feminine voice finally broke the silence of the room. "How many cc's, Doctor?"

"Start with six cc's of Physostigmine," a deeper male voice answered her.

"Doctor, I think he may be conscious." The female voice spoke again.

His eyelid was peeled back, and a bright light was shined into his eyes, before it was quickly snapped off again. His eyelid was released and it fell partially closed this time.

"He's still in a coma." The male voice answered the female one. "Sometimes a coma patient can open their eyes, but the lights are still out, so to speak."

A moment later, another presence bent down close to him. A light, feminine scent indicated to Leo that it was another woman.

"This won't hurt... much," she assured him in an icy voice.

He felt a cuff deftly tied around his bicep and inflated it, making his arm throb. Then he felt her gloved hand touch his skin just below the cuff.

Leo felt so helpless, and hopeless. His sluggish mind tried to find a way out, but he couldn't even move, let alone think of a way to escape.

Leo struggled to open his eyes further. His vision was no better than it had been before. A cool liquid was dabbed onto his skin; the bitter smell of alcohol drifted to his nose.

"I'm ready to insert the IV, Doctor," she said in a flat, clinical voice.

"Proceed," the male voice replied bluntly.