F.E.A.R.

Out of the Ashes?

"She's breathing again," Joe said, uneasy. Jax nodded, with the small amount of sodium chloride he had found in the van she was lucky to be alive at all. He had been hesitant to give it to her, thinking the Spider could have lied to him, but once she had stopped breathing he hadn't had much of a choice. Now with the rest of the crew arriving he was anxious to get her back to the University.

"Artemis?" Jax said, leaning down over her. "We have to move you to the van, okay?" He watched her mismatched green and amber eyes for a moment , searching for some sign of awareness in them. After a minute Joe and Jax lifted her together as Nix ran up to them, Marshall on her heels. "What happened?!" She cried as she came up beside Artemis taking her hand and holding it tightly. "Jax, what happened?" she repeated, staring into him with her golden eyes. He felt the weight behind those eyes, sharp and commanding, and he was reminded of his mother to the point of wanting nothing more than to fall on his face and beg for forgiveness. But Nix wasn't he mother so instead he met her gaze and said, "She was attacked and poisoned. We have to get to the University or she probably won't make it."

Phoenix nodded, suddenly very calm, "Okay, well those other Changelings we found need medical attention... Can I do anything?" Jax shook his head and she stepped aside, giving him room to get Artemis into the van. Marshall and Jason loaded Talon in the van right after them. They lay on the floor of the van, side by side and Phoenix scrambled to get on the left bench, up next to Artemis's head.

Jax sat next to her. "She'll be fine."

"Yeah," Nix said as she slid down into the floor next to her friend as everyone else found their seats on the benches of the van. It was a little hard for everyone to set their feet down since Talon and Artemis took up most of the floor space but they made due and soon Joe was tearing down the highway at seventy miles an hour.

Marshall watched as Nix and Artemis maintain eye contact throughout the whole trip. Jax told him she had been poisoned with a paralyzer, and it was clenching the muscles in her chest, making it hard to breathe. And slowing her heart rate little by little.

"We'll get back soon though," Jax assured everyone. "When we do I want everyone out as quickly as possible. Jason and Sterling, you'll take the two Loners to the infirmary. Nix, you and me will take Artemis straight to Foxx in the lab, okay? It's only about 1:00 AM, he'll be there." Everyone agreed to the plan as Marshall asked if he could follow to the lab.

"Of course you can," Nix answered for Jax, and Jax didn't protest. Marshall wasn't surprised. Marshall knew that Jax was only Alpha in name, at heart he was Soldier, he probably would had asked Nix if it was okay even if she hadn't answered for him.

When they finally stopped Marshall and Jax carried Artemis into the lab, which was attached to the garage the van had pulled into by a long hallway. Nix ran ahead to tell Foxx what happened and when they got into the room Celeste and Foxx had already turned one of the tables into a makeshift bed and Foxx was prepping a syringe full of what Marshall guessed to be the sodium chloride.

"I don't know what the poison was-" Jax began but Foxx cut him off.

"It's not poison at all, actually. If it takes sodium to reverse it, it's just a highly concentrated amount of potassium."

"Like the shit in bananas?" Marshall asked, confused.

"Exactly," Foxx told him as they laid Artemis down on the table. "You see, the body needs the right balance of sodium and potassium for the nerves to properly communicate with the rest of the body. It's like nerve food, and if the body doesn't get enough of it communication stops. So those muscles that were use to taking commands from the nerves just go crazy and start constricting." He inserted the needle into her jugular vein carefully, putting pressure on the plunger slowly. "It's very dangerous, because the heart is solid muscle and the lungs are able to pull in and release breath through the contraction and relaxation of muscles."