à la folie (To Insanity)

Chapter 14- Raven

Jackson is worrying about me again, and I guess I'm worried about him too. In the past few weeks, he has been through a lot. Of course I'm not helping this much, every time I meet his family I almost get myself killed. We're still following his sister, I'm trying to find a way out if this. I'm not even close to being healed enough to do anything crazy yet. My wounds throb with every step, further serving as a reminder of this.  

    “Raven, are you okay?”

    I look over at Jackson, his soft voice shaking me out of my daze. He is staring at me, probably noticing one of my many troubles right now. My head is swimming, the ground spinning beneath me. Jackson grabs my arm, trying to steady me. He yells at Elizabeth, calling for a stop. I see it, the canister, just before I fall to my knees. Jackson drops to my side, his eyes following my shaking hand to see what I cannot say.

    A gunshot rings out, slicing through the ringing in my ears. Everyone drops, someone is pulling on my arm. Jackson pulls me behind a tree, away from the main group. I feel something trickling down from my nose. I touch my hand to my face, pulling it away red. Again.

 “Jackson?”

   He looks down at me, his look of concern melting into pure terror. I struggle to pull my bag from my back, trying to find my mask. Elizabeth's warning flashes through my mind, how little time I have. My hands start shaking, I'm on the verge of having another breakdown. I can't afford to break down here, not this close to death.

   “Jax?”

   He realizes what's going on and tears my bag off of me, quickly rifling through it's contents. My first minute is up, leaving us with little time to fix this. I flinch as he slips his hand behind my head, supporting me. Jackson slides the mask over my face, helping me clip it in place.  I inhale sharply, lungs and throat burning. My first few breaths are shaky, unsure, then the air is being properly filtered.

   “Are you okay?”

   That is the last thing I hear before a flash of blinding light erupts through the forest. My ears are ringing again, blocking out all other noise. My anxiety starts to rise again, treating to choke me. I feel the firm pressure of someone's hand around my arm, my dominant side. There's no way I'll get a clean cut with my knife, blinded and panicking. I lash out anyways, the weight of my blade alien in my non-dominant hand. The grip around my arm slackens slightly, I must have struck something well enough to warrant a response.

    My vision is coming back, along with my hearing, just in time for another explosion. This one knocks me back a few feet, smashing my head against a tree. Now I hear only silence, not even a ringing passes through my ears. A scorching heat registers in my mind, too late for me to do anything about it. I can see it now, a fiery glow. My eyes close slowly, possibly for the last time. I don't see a way out of this, it's not like all the other times. No easy escape. My body slackens, I give up.

    “Raven! Hey. Please. Raven please, you need to come back!”

    I wake up in pain, a sensation I've grown accustomed to by now. That does nothing to ease it. My head is pounding, but someone is cutting through everything. His words helping me come back.

   “Jax?”

   My voice is barely a whisper, poison and smoke making my throat raw. He jumps, startled, and I force my eyes open. I try to push myself up, but he forces me back down. My mind can't process where I am, the lighting too dim. Obviously we didn't make it to the safehouse. Jackson looks like he took a beating, he is covered in scratches and bruises. A minor burn runs across his hand, and a bandaged arm tells me he caught a knife at some point. His eyes catch mine and I see how tired he is.

    “How long did you stay up for?”

    “The whole time you were out. I couldn't sleep, too dangerous. Especially in your condition. I needed to look out for you.”

    I realize there are other people here, we weren't the only one's to make it out. There's more he's not telling me, which only makes me worry more.

    “Jackson, come lie down. There are others who can take watch, plus it's light out. Please.”

    “I'm fine Raven.”

    His voice catches again. Something isn't right. Looking around painfully, I realize Elizabeth isn't among the people in the group's dotting the area.

    “She didn't make it out, did she? Jax, I'm sorry.”

    This is my fault after all. No one else knows what I suspect Evan did to each of us. I can't tell anyone now, it's too late anyways. Besides, I'm not even sure where he would put one. A tracker. It's the only explanation as to how he is finding us.

   I wait till Jackson is sleeping, not long after I get him to lie down, and sit up unsteadily. Instantly I feel woozy, almost forcing me to lie back down. Thankfully, no one took my jacket off. I pull a blade free, and slowly press it against my skin, waiting for the bite of metal to tell me it broke the skin. It does, and blood streams down my hand. I wince, twisting it to tear my flesh enough to find the tracker I think is embedded here. My blade hits something solid, after a few minutes of painfully searching. I dig the point of my dagger under the small metal piece, pushing it closer to the surface of my hand. The blood is streaming freely now, dripping down my arm and onto the ground. The piece finally pokes above my skin enough for me to grab it.

    I wake Jackson, chip in hand, and ask him for his hand. He freaks out on me, I forgot to clean the blood from my arms, and I talk him down quickly.

    “I found it.”

    “You found what? Raven, what's going on? What did you do to your arm? It's still bleeding Raven. Let me see it.”

    “The chip. It's how they have been tracking us.”

    I grab his hand in mine, preparing to cut him open and remove the tracker chip. Something makes me hesitate, and hand him the blade. I can't do this. Not to Jackson. He sees my reason for this, and instead presses the blade back to my hand. I look up at him and he nods, he wants me to do it. My hands are steady, for once the shaking is gone. His eyes don't leave the knife the whole time as I press it deep into his flesh. I manage to fish out his tracker, it being embedded deeper than mine.

    “Where are the twins Jax? We need to pull their trackers out.”

    He gets up to go find them, taking my blood dripping knife with him. I try to stand, but find that my legs aren't working. This sends me into another state of panic, I can't walk right now. Jackson returns soon, after about ten minutes, holding two more trackers in his hand. He throws them into one of the campfires before returning to sit next to me.

    “Jax? I…I can't feel my legs right now.”

    The joy melts from his eyes, replaced with something much more than terror. He gets up, searching through his bag for something. I keep trying to move my legs, to feel anything. He runs back over with a med kit.

    “I know you don't like them, but I'm going to need to inject you with something.”

    He pulls a needle from the kit, gently moving my sleeve aside to push it below my skin. I flinch slightly, but am relieved when the serum takes effect. It takes the pain away almost instantly, and I realize the numb feeling was spreading before the injection. It has stopped now, I can't feel anything below my waist though. He injected me soon enough to stop my body from going completely numb. My mind goes blank again, and I fall into him. He gently lies me down, saying something about me needing more sleep.

    “I'm going to fix it, just go to sleep. I promise. When you wake up, everything will be okay.”

    I slip away, barely catching his last words to me before my mind goes blank.