What Are You Hiding? | Henry Creel / Peter Ballard / 001

Part 9 - Desperate Measures

Henry returns my smile.  "Perfect, my love."

I almost question his nickname, but I am distracted as he leans forward, gently pressing his lips to mine.  He kisses me shortly, breaking away after only a few seconds.  "Let me untie you."

He releases my face as he walks around to the back of the chair.  Shivers run down my neck as I feel him kneel behind me, his face passing by the back of my head before he looks down at my arms.  His hair brushes along my shoulders as he works at the ropes, his delicate fingers occasionally brushing my skin.

"Dammit," he mutters under his breath, his breath hot against my shoulder blades.  "These are too tight.  I'll have to cut them."

His hand rests on my left shoulder as I hear him slip a knife out from a pocket.  "Please hold still."

He swiftly cuts through the ropes, and I sigh in relief as I feel my arms be freed.  "Thanks."

"Don't thank me yet," he replies, keeping his hand on my left shoulder as he begins to walk around the right side of the chair.  His hand slides across my collarbone then around my neck, practically pivoting off of my neck as he keeps his hand wrapped around it and kneels in front of me.  "Stay still."

He swiftly cuts the ropes around each of my legs, and I immediately shake them out.

He releases my neck and runs his hand down along my arm until he reaches my right hand, and he quickly takes the back of my hand, forcing me to open the palm of my hand.  He presses the handle of the knife into my open hand, using his hand holding the knife to clasp my hand firmly.  "You've taken anatomy, right?"

I nod cautiously, unsure of whether I like where this is going.  "Yeah..."

"The chip is very particularly implanted in between some nerves in my neck.  Without magic, it would be near impossible to remove without leaving me with permanent damage."

"Jesus, Henry, maybe we shouldn't do this-"

"No," he cuts me off.  "We need to do this.  Not just for you to get out of here, but for me too.  I can't live like this any longer, with no control over my actions.  You, Jules, have made me feel free for the first time since I arrived here.  In the storage closet earlier today, you managed to make me forget everything - the lab, Dr. Brenner, even my powers.  So, I want you to be the person to make me free for good."

I send him a smile as I squeeze his hand.  "Very well, then.  Let's do this, Henry."

He returns my smile as he stands up, bringing me up as well with the hand that he is holding.  "Perfect.  Do you have a gag?"

I let out a surprised laugh.  "Yeah, just let me pull one of my extras out of my pocket here."

"Very funny," he chuckles endearingly.

"Here, let me rip off part of my shirt," I offer as I release his hand and pocket his knife to lift up the bottom of my ruined shirt. "I don't think I'll be getting these bloodstains out anyways."

"You don't have to do-"  He stops talking as I tear off a long section of my shirt.  "-that," he finishes defeatedly.

I chuckle as I hold up the fabric.  "Sit down and open up."

A smile pulls at his lips as he readily complies, swiftly sitting down in the chair.  I begin to lift up the gag, but another idea comes to mind as I look down at him.  "Just in case things go wrong," I murmur, taking his face into one of my hands as I lower my lips to his.

A gasp escapes from my lips as he wraps an arm around my midsection to pull me down to sit on him, but I recover immediately as I rest my weight on him and adjust my angle over him.  He cautiously glides his tongue over my lip, asking for an invitation, and I respond by sliding my own tongue past his lips.

I'll be real; never did I think that I would be making out with Henry.  In fact, if you had told me yesterday that I would kiss him three times today, I would call you batshit.  Yet here we are, making out before I may or may not accidentally kill him.

I break from the kiss first, immediately replacing my lips with the torn fabric of my shirt against Henry's lips.  He lets out a light groan in disappointment, earning a chuckle from me.  I carefully lean over him as I take an end of the gag in each of my hands, making sure to tie it tightly behind his head.

"All good?" I ask, pulling back so I can see his face.

He nods.

"Okay," I mutter, now tilting his head to the side and pushing his hair out of the way. "Whatever you do, try not to grab my arms or move me at all."

With that, I pull the knife out of my pocket, line it up with his skin, and carefully make an incision.

He inhales sharply as he grasps onto the arms of the chair. I try my best to carefully pry open his skin, looking in to see a white capsule embedded in the flesh just beneath the surface. "Okay, I see the chip and the nerves around it," I narrate. I mentally pray that my hands are clean enough to not give him an infection as I reach in and pinch the capsule between two fingers. "I'm going to very carefully attempt to move the chip out from underneath the nerve. This is probably going to hurt a shit ton, but I'm not entirely sure; they don't exactly cover this in high school anatomy."

As I begin to move the chip, he lets out a muffled shout and grasps at the arms of the chair until his knuckles turn white.

"Okay, looks like I was right about it hurting a shit ton," I mutter, continuing to carefully slide the chip out from under the nerve. "Just hold on a little longer, Henry, I'm almost there."

After 20 agonizing seconds, I finally have the entire capsule out from under the nerve. However, when the nerve falls back into place, Henry suddenly shouts in pain and shoves me backwards (undoubtedly reflexively).

I tumble backwards off the chair, dropping the knife and landing harshly on the floor. "Shit," I mutter as I pull myself off the ground.

I look up at Henry to see him pulling the gag off of himself as he stands from the chair. Both his hair and shirt fall into place over the incision and chip, making it unnoticeable besides a couple of spots of blood around it. "Oh my god, Jules, I'm so sorry - I didn't mean to do that. Are you okay?"

"Fine-"

Just as he begins to reach to help me up, the door slams open. I jump in shock as I turn to the door to see five new (more threatening) men storming in. "Oh shit," I mutter.

With no warning, two of the men grab me as the other three grab Henry. "Let me go, assholes!" I yell as they pull me to my feet, dragging me across the floor until they reach the wall behind the chair. They swiftly slam me into the wall, each of them pinning one of my shoulders to it. "Motherfuckers," I mutter as I begin to pry them off. Each of them grab one of my arms, pinning those out to the side as well.

I look over to see the three men getting Henry under control as Dr. Brenner saunters into the room, a smug air about him, his hands in his pockets. "You know, I just had a feeling that there was something going on with you two. You constantly hung out around each other, made excuses to spend more time together, and would disappear at the same time as each other. I just had a feeling that Peter here would feel the need to step in and save Juliette, and look what happened."

"Go to hell," I spit.

The man to my left's fist collides with my lip, and I taste even more blood. "I swear to god, if one of you dipshits punches me one more time-"

Pain explodes in my nose as a crack sounds throughout the room. A couple curses escape my lips as I slump against the wall in pain, leaving the men on either side of me to be the only thing holding me up.

The man to my right lowers his now-bloody fist as Dr. Brenner walks toward me. "My my, Miss Wheeler, where did that backtalk go?"

I send him a glare, knowing damn well that I should stay silent yet still deciding against it. "Don't worry, it's similar to you; it knows it should not rear its ugly head, yet it still does."

I watch somewhat-proudly as the amusement in Dr. Brenner's expression turns to anger. The slap that he promptly delivers across my face only increases my satisfaction, knowing that my words got to him.

He distastefully looks at his hand to realize that my blood got on it, and he nonchalantly pulls a napkin from his pocket to wipe it off. "You, Miss Wheeler, have just earned yourself a very painful day."