A New Beginning on Pandora | ☑️

.8.

"Grace is hit!" I tell everyone. "What?!" Trudy exclaimed as she picked up the speed on the helicopter.

"Where's the trauma kit?" Jake asked as he looked around. "It's forward on the bulkhead." Trudy answered as I cursed. "Hold on Grace. I didn't become a healer just so I could watch people die." I muttered to her as we got closer to the bunker.

She hissed in pain as she looked at me. "It's fine." She tried to reassure, but I don't know if it was for me or herself. Once arriving at the linking bunker, Grace, Jake, and I moved inside.

"While I'm up there directing Trudy, you need to do as I tell you, alright?" I order sternly as he nods. I hand him the first aid kit and put my oxygen mask back on, heading outside to tie the shack to the helicopter.

"You're clear." I say to Trudy over the walkie talkie. The aircraft flew upwards, lifting the bunker up as she took us deeper into the mountains. "Now, Jake, you see a syringe in there?" I ask as I hear shuffling.

"Yeah." He answered. "It's a numbing medicine. Give it to her through her arm." I direct as I hear an emotionless 'ouch' from Grace. It made me smile a little, her humor still being there. "Now, unwrap the bandages and carefully cut open her shirt." I tell him next.

I listen to the scissors ripping through the fabric. "Clean the blood away with some gauze. Now you're going to take the tweezers and reach inside and take out the bullet. Do not rush, otherwise you might hit something important like an artery and that is something we do not need right now." I tell him sternly as he takes a deep breath.

I can tell when he reaches in by Grace's sharp yell of pain. It even made me wince. This went on for a good minute before Jake released a sigh. "Got it." He told me. "Yeah, and it hurt like a bitch." Grace muttered as I chuckled. "It would'be been worse without the numbing medicine." I warn her.

Even if she's complaining like that, I know she's feeling incredibly weak. She's lost a lot of blood. I just need her strong enough to be able to do what I'm planning on doing. After telling Jake to rewrap the wound, I noticed I could see the Tree of Souls up ahead. I knew that's where my Clan would have gone after the tree was destroyed. It's the only place they could go.

Trudy landed the bunker in a little clearing near the tree, so Quaritch couldn't track us since the vortex messes up all electrical equipment. I jumped down and headed back inside, seeing Grace sleeping on an open linking unit. I sighed and stroked her hair. "You just need to hold on a little longer. Just be strong, please." I pleaded quietly before walking over to Jake would was getting into his unit.

I pressed the sequence of buttons to start it up as I looked over at him. "You know, you're a fucking skxanwng." I tell him blankly. He let out a snort of barely amused laughter. "I know. Trust me, I know." He agreed.

"And I just want to say, before everything gets even more crazy later on, that I'm sorry, Zen. I'm the sorriest I've ever been and I don't know how to make it up to you. I love you, little brother, more than anything. Nothing will change that. I just got too wrapped up in the idea of getting my legs back..." He apologized as I bit my lip, looking down at my feet.

"Look, you hurt me. Especially after calling me a freak. You of all people should know how much our parents were against me being gay. They were hard ass army parents, and being gay was being weak to them. After all the years of abuse, physically and mentally, when you said I was a freak, it broke me even more, Jake." I told him as he looked up at me, tears in his eyes as mine probably looked the same.

"I didn't mean to, I was just... angry because they were not trusting me when I warned them that this would happen, not that I blame them now. You're not a freak, Zen. You're an amazing person. I mean look at you, you're the new spiritual leader of the Clan. I'll stick by you no matter what." He promised as a small smile appeared on my face.