Matthew Silver and the Monster Hunters, Book One: The Darkest Waters

Chapter Thirteen

SilverCHAPTER THIRTEEN

I have to say that a trip to the hospital was just ridiculous. I had planned on ditching the whole crowd and medics, contacting the others from a payphone, and regrouping wit them in Edinburgh. I was secretly frustrated with them. If they would’ve remembered the importance of the mission, they would’ve just let me figure things out on my own and continued with the mission. I was fine on my own. They didn’t need to wait around. Because of this, we’d wasted three whole days playing patient. That doesn’t seem like much, but when the fate of the CCU is resting on your shoulders, it might as well have been three years.

I would’ve just used my special iPhone to contact them, but it was toast. I didn’t know what Jade’s definition of waterproof was, but I guess it didn’t cover very extended periods of time in water. It had sustained some serious salt-water damage. Jay only had to take one look at it to know that she wouldn’t be able to fix it until later.

I had told the medics that I was feeling okay, but I suppose that it wouldn’t have been okay to tell the medics that I practiced spear fishing in waters that cold. Hypothermia was unavoidable, but my body was much more resilient than they realized. I healed faster than the average teenager, even by Hunter standards.

To an extent, I could ignore things cold and heat, but I couldn’t control things like shivering. While the mind can ignore pain and discomfort, the body sometimes goes against your willpower. The heat blankets had managed to chase the shivering off, so I was ready to move on, but nooo. I had to get cleared first to make sure there wouldn’t be any permanent damage. It may have looked bad with me shivering uncontrollably, but it wasn’t the worst I’ve ever felt. Hunter training could be brutal sometimes.

I was all for knocking out the medics in the ambulance, tying them and the driver up, leaving them on the side of the road, and stealing the ambulance for until we could find another ride. I had whispered this plan to Jay, but Jay, being Jay, had said no, and if I tried, I’d find myself in the hospital with more than just hypothermia.

I decided to drop the subject at that point. She had probably been joking, but when your friend is a martial arts expert who knows how to snap every single bone in your body, you can never be too sure.

Being strapped down to a stretcher would’ve made things slightly difficult, but I had spied a few scalpels. I probably could’ve freed myself, but Jay would’ve knocked me out and hogtied me up. I decided that a quick trip to the hospital wouldn’t hurt.

After I had wasted a whole couple hours getting checked out, I was released. I controlled my pulse to make it seem like I was functioning properly and used all my focus to shut down the shivers to get me released quicker. I was happy to say that I didn’t have any other real injuries. Since I was famished and thirsty, they fed me some disgusting hospital food that made starvation seem like indulgence, but it served its purpose in revitalizing me. I was ready to move.

The press was waiting outside, but the police were trying to dissipate the crowd. I didn’t want to talk to the press. Talking to the press would lead to making my face pretty famous, which was the last thing a Hunter wanted. I would never be allowed to go into the field ever again. It would also waste some valuable time.

When we tried to leave the building, reporters and photographers began crowding around, trying to get questions in and take pictures or videos. The police had a few officers blocking the doors, but the crowd kept trying to push through them to get to us. We sprinted back into the hospital.

“Can you believe this?”said Scott. “We’re like celebrities. They’re all here for us.”

“You mean, they’re here for me,”I corrected.

“We can’t just have our pictures floating all over the Net.”Sandy sounded frustrated. I guessed they all wanted to get a start on the mission already. It was the fifth day of the mission, and we hadn’t even reached our destination yet. I felt a little guilty about that.

“Leave that to me,”I said, more confidently than I felt, since I was still a little woozy, though I never would’ve admitted it.

I went through the hospital, pretending like I knew what I was doing. I had often found that the key to getting around in areas where you’re not supposed to be in was to walk confidently, not to look anyone in the eye, stare straight ahead, and don’t talk to anyone. As long as you appeared to know what you were doing, no one would stop you. And no one ever did stop me, though I passed plenty of people.

I got to the top floor, found the locked stairway (which I picked open), and snuck onto the roof of the hospital. I looked over the parking lot below. By that time, the whole parking lot was filled with cars from the giant crowd of people waiting around.

I had used this trick once before, except then, it had been to distract a squad of guerrilla fighters in South America (long story). Why wouldn’t it work now? This was a much better situation, because nicer cars tended to have loud alarms, and they usually aren’t filled with AK/machete-toting trigger-happy revolutionaries.

I took a whole pile of rocks from the gravel on the rooftop and went to work. My aim, honed by years of sharpshooting and knife throwing, was perfect. Within the minute, about twenty to thirty car alarms were blaring throughout the entire facility, with brand new cracks in their windows. The cars I hit that didn’t have alarms still made loud noises from the cracking of glass or the banging on the metal.

The crowd had scattered all over the parking lot. Some people were checking out their cars, others were looking over to see what the noise was about, and others, who were bored, were just talking.

I dove off the side of the building, which wasn’t that high, grabbed a branch to stop my fall, and absorbed the force of the blow by swinging around it a few times. I dropped to the ground into a roll and ran through the main doors, making sure no one saw me. I grabbed my friends, who were all surprised to see me coming through the entrance and were confused about what was going on. I managed to pull them out the door, and we snuck into the crowd, keeping our heads low. If anyone noticed us, their voices were lost in the ringing car alarms and rampant chaos and confusion. Many of the alarms were still going off, and I almost regretted setting them off in the first place. They were reallystarting to make an impression on my eardrums and not in a good way.

I was pretty relieved when the noise started to fade as we ran away. I began looking around and didn’t see a whole lot of cars I liked. I spotted an older, white Ford Focus outside of a grocery store. Jay looked away, while I broke in and hotwired it. I didn’t see any other way of getting around, seeing as no one had bothered to secure another ride, while I was MIA.

It was about a nine-hour drive from Falmouth to Edinburgh. Scott drove the entire way, for which I was pretty grateful. I had thought I had it all together, but half an hour into the drive, I just passed out in the backseat. In Edinburgh, our weapons and supplies were waiting for us in a storage unit. I trusted Scott to get us there without any more mishaps.

On the way, they filled me in about the pilot, whose name was apparently Eckhart. I couldn’t believe I’d never gotten his name. He’d gotten full compensation for his crashed plane, and he’d sent his best to us. He would’ve stuck around, but he had a wife, who was probably worried to death. The CCU was covering for all his losses, so he’d be getting a new plane and everything. Gotta love those worker compensations, I guess.

At about 2 in the morning, we checked into a hotel in Edinburgh. We decided that it would probably be okay to sleep in a little bit too. When Scott had gotten Sandy and me mixed up, we figured that eight hours of sleep just wasn’t going to cut it. We needed a serious break.

I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t the only one who went to sleep with worries of my own that night.