ALICE

Chapter 81 - STAR

 Alice stood on the sand, watching the smoke erupt from every opening on the Black Smith. She knew that it was beyond repair, and she wasn’t sure where she could go.

 Christina Snow solemnly walked next to Alice.

 “I’ve got a doctor ready to perform the surgery on Cole, but…” She looked out to the skyline, “She says it’s unlikely he’ll make it.”

 Alice nodded, and spoke, trying to avoid telling her whether to go through with it or not.

 “I’m glad you made it through.”

 “Not many of us did.”

 “I know.” She scanned the horizon. “What are you going to do?”

 “What do you mean?”

 “The LSF has won. ZERO is still alive. We’re disbanding.”

 “Shit.” Christina kicked the sand. “Goddammit!”

 Alice winced as the boot tufted up a cloud of sand.

 There was a silence.

 Christina spoke again. “I guess I’ll take who I can and go back to the Forest. It’s not an easy life, but I did it with the nomads before.”

 She walked away, talking to everyone she could and convincing them to come with her. In about an hour, Christina was flying away with the last pilot, on the final working helicopter, with everyone Alice had led, besides Angel, Romeo, Redd, and the doctor that was set to perform surgery on the penultimate.

 Alice spoke to the remainder.

 “You didn’t want to go with her?”

 They all shook their heads, dead looks in their eyes.

 “We stay with you, General.” Angel said, allowing a mumble of agreement to rise up behind him.

 Alice bit her lip and did a quick nod. “Thanks. Thank you.”

 The doctor, whose name was Jodie, asked Alice if she wanted her to do the surgery.

 “Yeah. Do your best.” Alice followed her into the helicopter, which was still smoking.

 As she readied her tools, she spoke to Alice, not looking at her, but seeing her out of her own peripheral vision.

 “The smoke from the chopper will do hell on the wound, but at least the chopper will block out most of the sand.” She spoke with no emotion, acting like her captain and one of her best friends wasn’t hanging on to life by a thread.

 She looked at the man’s pale face. His eyes were closed, but his eyelashes flickered. His breaths were fragile and inconsistent. A man whose life was once a raging tidal wave was now a gentle lapping against the dock. Alice couldn’t bear to look at him.

 “This isn’t likely going to work, and it really is a gruesome operation. If you have any fond memories of him, you might want to step outside.”

 Alice walked out of the destroyed helicopter. After a few minutes of quiet clinking and general silence, she heard a sawing. Soon, she could hear Redd’s voice, screaming his lungs out. His cries were cut short though, and soon Alice found herself in Angel’s arms, feeling his tears hit her bare arm.

 After three hours of nerve-racking silence, the doctor came out. Her shirt was spattered with blood, and she was pulling red-stained gloves off her hands with a gloomy disposition.

 Alice looked up at her with hopeful eyes, but she knew the answer already. The doctor shook her head, two slow, determined turns.

 “I’ve given him about ten minutes. He’ll be lucid but after that he’ll just… Slip away.”

  Alice felt her eyes water again, but she blinked back the tears before they could escape her eyelids. Quickly, she stood up from her position in the sand, and walked towards the helicopter.

 Alice could see the man, pale, and near-death. He knew it too. Alice let Angel speak to him first, as they had been squad mates for a long time. They shared six minutes and twelve seconds of quiet talk, by Alice’s count. When they were done, Alice hurried up.

 “Hi.” Redd grunted. He was obviously in pain, but wasn’t letting Alice see how very, very afraid he was.

 “Redd, I-.”

 “You don’t need to say anything. It’s you that needs to hear this, I’ll be dead soon, no use telling me anything.

 “Alice, I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen more since you’ve found yourself in this Hell. A lot of things have started happening, all at once, and I don’t understand most of it. I try to keep calm, because I have,” he paused, and looked sadly past Alice, “I had a team that relied on me.

 “There’s a lot that needs to be explained to you, but I haven’t got much time left.”

 Alice felt nothing but despair. Her eyes were watering, and soon, she was crying but she just kept looking into the man’s beautiful grey eyes. As he faded away from her, she realized that Cole Redd was the father she never had.

 There was a void in her, a place where a daughter keeps a father’s love. So, even when they fight, even when he won’t let her borrow the car, or yells at her for coming home late, when she runs to her room, or walks out for the day, she knows, somewhere in her, that it’ll be okay. Alice never had that. Forgotten birthdays, coming home after a night of lost bets and taking it out on her, and the nights where her mother just wasn’t enough, all added up to her hating the man that was legally bound as her father.

 Without ever telling Redd about this, he became that person. Redd had saved her all too many times, but he was still distant. It was like he knew what he was doing, like he was a father.

 Alice looked to him, focusing on the face, but he was already slipping away. Alice rushed, but no words came to her. She tried to just make a sound, something to acknowledge his passing, but it got stuck in her throat. The tears flowed freely, and she just barely heard a sound escape his lips.

 She mouthed a word, unable to get it out.

 “What?”

 He said it again, but it was so slight that Alice just heard a breath out. She bent over him, her ear at his mouth. As he spoke, his lips touched her ear. A normally intimate experience was just comforting.

 “Alice…” He swallowed, the sound so immense that it made the next words seem almost silent by comparison.

 “I,” He paused, drawing a short, shallow breath. “I l… I l-.”

 The final words of Cole Redd.

 Alice began to scream, as the long sound that she had heard before rang out above her head. Her head hit his chest as she fell to her knees. As the flat-line sound became muffled, Alice looked up through blurry, watered eyes. She saw the white digits of the face of her watch, a timer set for ten minutes when the doctor told her how much time she had left. The numbers told her eight minutes and fifty four seconds were left.

 Death had cheated her out of one minute with the man that was as close to a father that she would ever get.