Felixentric

Scene 34

"I knew right when you didn't show up to the-!" Quinn had found him in the ocean.

Felix hadn't moved from the tree root platform above the water. It was too cold to move. He probably could have dragged himself to the sand and lied there. He could have probably walked himself to the emergency room or waited for Quin at the laboratory. There was absolutely no pain in his hand. Just a knife he hadn't yet detached and eyes glued down. He could have done something to help himself, but he didn't.

"What the fuck!" Quinn screamed when he noticed the blade, through the glove and in Felix's hand. Sloshing through the water, he ran forward and kneeled down. "Who did this?!" His face was turning that familiar red. Felix expected that he might have the capacity to rip out the knife and go stab someone else with it if he had the chance.

"I can't tell you."

But this only made Quinn turn his rage over on Felix. He waved his arms around in the air and cussed him out about how Felix was technically his responsibility and that whoever did it deserved to get their ass kicked.

Felix thought about saying that he stabbed himself, but it would only lead to more questions he couldn't answer. So, he just pursed his lips. "Just take me home and bandage me up."

"Are you joking? Think about the nerve damage in that wound! You'll have severed tendons and ripped apart bones. You can't just patch that shit up with some glue and tape! Infections!"

Felix muttered. He didn't agree or disagree, but he stood up and started walking toward the city.

Quinn followed with a hot tongue and more spurs of how everyone in the world was an idiot, Felix included.

Felix ignored him.

It was still midday, so Felix wasn't surprised to see other people on the streets. The problem was that midway into a back alley he saw some people he wasn't in the mood to talk to. "Damn!" James was the first to speak up. "Who domed you?" And then he noticed the hand, dripping blood and shaking by his side. His mouth shut immediately. Ray was the one to yelp.

Quinn was just catching up. "He won't whisper a word of what happened."

"You weren't with him?" Ray looked bewildered. "You know this place is going mad. You know no one should be left alone. You should be glad he's not dead. Everyone's been dying..."

Quinn still looked angry again, clenching his fists by his sides.

But James was smarter than most of who Felix knew - not that Hale, Quinn, and Janette weren't geniuses -, but in a way different than the common intelligence. He was good at reading people and knew how to trap a bad situation before it got to its worst. It was what Hale used to be good at, before his personal apocalypse. "Don't correct him," James told Ray in a low tone. He must not have known Ray would get pummeled if he didn't shut up. "I'm sure there's a reason for leaving Felix alone."

James's tactic worked, of course. Quinn settled down, still a little pink, but he didn't look like he was a king being betrayed by his entire army. He told them about splitting up to look for Janette.

James and Ray locked gazes and had some sort of telepathic conversation. Then, James nodded and Ray began to pace. "We're doing the same for Ryan." James looked sullen. "We called your apartment to tell you, but you weren't there. You might have heard about the two buildings last night, cleared out by Banefade. She wasn't home this morning. We're-. We're sure she's fine. We just wanted to see where she was off too."

Ray looked like he was about to start bawling.

Quinn looked pale at once and then the red came shooting back. "Why didn't you come find me!"

Jame stumbled back and held up his hands. "We were looking for both of you! Like I said, she's probably off somewhere having a beer or shopping or-."

"What's the point of finding her if she's dead anyway?" Ray interjected with tears in his eyes.

Quinn charged at James, but whatever sport James played - obvious by his muscular shoulders - and whether he went lifting with the team or got often tackled or tripped in the game, he didn't seem ready for Quinn's forwardness. He was raising a fist and James was cowering down.

"Neither of them are dead," Felix forced. "I saw both of them at this palm readers shop last night. They were nowhere near those apartments. They aren't Faded. I know it."

They all looked at him at once, all of them with a billion questions and comments resting on their lips.

Quinn. "Why didn't you mention that earlier? The shop would have been our first stop."

James. "What were they doing there together?"

Not together.

"We should get there now." Felix didn't know which of them said it, but it was an agreement between all three. They turned to the alley opening toward the Main Street and found their way to the shop. The outside was dim and a small, neon sign in the window read "open." Inside, there were a bunch of glittery things Felix hadn't noticed before. Just knickknacks and rugs and designs hanging all over the walls and the front desk. To Felix's fortune, Janette wasn't sitting on the big, maroon sofa off to the left and he didn't hear her voice immediately from behind that awfully, ugly curtain to the next room. No one was at the front desk.

Quinn started for the curtain, but James stopped him yet again. "They're probably with a client. This kind of stuff is supposed to be personal, like a therapy session. You don't just barge in."

"Our friends are missing, James." And he ripped the curtain back.

There was a big, stereotypical Seer table with a glass ball in the middle. The lights were dim. One was even flickering. But no one sat on either side of the table and the room was silent.

"Hello?" James called. "We'd like to ask a few questions." Quinn was still holding the curtain open, but he was standing on the lobby side. James ducked through the doorway to the other side.

That's when it happened.

An awful, bone chilling growl came from the right and closest corner of the room. Only James, already inside the doorway, saw what was tat.

All Felix could see were his pupils go tiny and then him flinch. Then, a hand came down around his shoulder. It was the size of his entire head, with dark - midnight blue skin - and those bright white talons. Ray screamed and started for the door as James was ripped out of the doorway, into the invisible corner.

James Holloway was yelling the most heartbreaking yell Felix had ever heard. Not even Fading had been so hurtful.

Quinn grabbed at Felix's sweater, trying to push him away from the room. The curtain fell and they were blind from James.

And then James's yelling stopped cold.

And then the curtain exploded open with the rushing force of a giant shadow. It somehow got Ray first, all the way by the door. But it was all too fast. Felix only saw it's form, a huge blob of blue and thick skin and a hunched back.

But, what happened to either James or Ray, Felix had no clue. Before he knew it, Ray was lying with his face to the ceiling. And the rough palm was over Felix's own face, the talons wrapping around the back of his skull. Is this what being Faded feels like? Pain erupted in the bottom of his stomach as the hand ripped itself away and he was falling backwards. Only then did Quinn's hands let go of his arm.

It seemed as though no one could scream anymore. A thud came to the side Quinn had been on, but there was nothing to see. Felix's vision was too blurred. The Earth was spinning much too fast to stand or stay awake. It was just like it had been in the apartment earlier that morning.