Red Spider Lilies [TPN]

Chapter 7

"Ow! Ray, for being a brainiac you seem to ignore the well known fact that people with broken bones are in pain!" I shout.

Ray let's me down. "You're lucky I carried you up here? You weigh a lot more than I thought."

"Oh yeah? Well, maybe you're just weak. You should work out more, maybe you could be stronger than Anna, you know the 14 year old child."

Ray and I glare at each other.

"Whatever. At least I wasn't the one who jumped off the roof." Ray crosses my arm.

"Ray, you know I've done it before and executed my landing perfectly every time... it's just the tile was loose this time. You saw it come down with me."

Ray rolls his eyes and mimics my voice in the most annoying way possible. "'Oh, Ray, it's a perfectly safe thing to do I'm not gonna brake my leg' said Emma who is now in a cast."

I grumble and blow the hair off my face. "Well I've done it before and not broken my leg. It's just the tile was loose this one time." I lean back and whisper. "You don't have to overreact..."

"That's exactly what makes it unsafe, idiot." Ray breathes in through his teeth and pauses for a minute, his eyes closed. "Emma, you have to stop stuff like this. You're not 12 and adventurous anymore you are 17 and dumb, maybe it wouldn't hurt you to stop doing immature things like this."

I clench my shirt, it's all covered in dirt from the landing. "I'm not dumb, you're just a jerk who hates fun."

I don't even look at him when I say this because I know now I'm just being mean and insensitive. Why did I say that?

"A jerk? God, Emma, what on earth about me scolding you for being an idiot is mean? What part of it is wrong? You say I hate fun but it's more like I've grown up... maybe you should too and stop doing such reckless things."

I don't look at him and he avoids eye contact too. We say nothing.

"I'm sorry." I say. "I didn't mean for this too happen. I was just trying to distract the kids, they look so sad ever since they took Norman."

"I know they have." He sits at my feet and rubs his face with his hands. Frustrated, he's looked so tired lately. "But, Emma, don't do that. Learn some magic tricks or read to them, don't launch yourself off the roof and do the swingy thing on the tree. You can't get hurt, I can't have that. You are the only person here left that I can rely on. And I can't exactly rely on you when you're in a cast."

I nod as Ray gives me a smile while getting up. Before he exits he stops, not even looking back at me, he says one thing.

"I know you not dumb, Emma."

—-

"Okay, Emma, you're going to have to stay awake. And if you doze off I will slap you." Ray sits me down, he's sweating and shaking though his face looks so concentrated. Probably cause I'm bleeding out from a bullet wound.

"Oh it's hard to sleep with this pain." I gasp. "Ray, what's the plan here? We are miles away from the barn, we have no supplies, and I'm handicapped."

It's so hard to think right now. What am I going to do? I don't think we planned for this at all.

"Emma, I'm going to tie this around your leg to try and stop the bleeding. It's the best we can do for now. Than we head to barn, mom had a first aid kit just for this kinda stuff."

"Was she expecting us to get shot at some point?"

"Kinda."

Ray pulls the scarf off of me and rips it too pieces. He ties them so tight I feel like he might cut it off.

"Okay, now hold on tight."

Quickly as he can he turns around and I wrap my arms around his neck trying hard not to choke him. God, why couldn't I have been shot anywhere other than the leg? At least than I could run.

"Hey, get over here!" Someone shouts. The Soldiers from before?

"Emma, were going to run as fast as possible. So hold on tightly 'cause we cannot afford for you to fall."

Ray begins to run. Has he gotten faster? Maybe.

I look behind me and see the soldiers losing us. Is Norman with us? Maybe we can take him with us, he's smart when we're in danger. Though less of an action type he could come up with a plan to get us out of here.

I turn back around and see we've reached a dead end; a balcony 3 stories above. Now this strikes an idea in my head.

"Jump." I say. "Jump far enough and I can swing off the tree there and we can make it out through the gate door."

Ray stiffens. "Emma, that is insane."

Footsteps approach.

"Do it. Come on, you trust me. I can do this." I cling to his shirts. "Just hold on tight and be ready to land."

Ray nods and runs back before launching us out the window. This all feels like slow motion. I raise up my arms and I do it, I am swinging off a tree.

As we hit the ground I turn around, and there he is. Norman too afraid to jump, and unwilling to turn us in.

—-

"Ray, you can drop me. I can make it on my own." I say. "I can barely feel my leg anymore it's fine."

"That isn't a good thing, Emma. Plus, we're almost there."

I sigh and rest my head on his shoulder. My leg does hurt but it's bearable, at least I think so. Ray must be tired of carrying me.

"You know it's okay. You already ran out of town with me on your back, that must have been exhausting."

Ray looks at me, faces too close for comfort. "You have a bullet in your leg there is no way in hell you can walk without dragging us down." He faces forward again.

So this was about me slowing us down? "It's a shame that I was the one to get shot, isn't it? Had to take down the most athletic one."

"I could've have left you for dead and that option still isn't out the window."

I laugh and burry my face in his hair. Just how on earth is it still soft? "You don't have the heart."

"Oh, don't I? Remember when I left you at the mall, you said the same thing right before I did."

"We were 13 and you were an edgy teenager. Even though you left you made sure Norman stayed behind with me, told him he had to make sure I didn't get in trouble."

"Yeah because I didn't want you to start a riot over something silly in the foot court. Purely out of safety for everyone in that mall."

I lay my head on his. My leg is starting to hurt a lot, I think my body is finally processing the fact that there is an unknown object inside of me.

"How close are we to the barn?" I ask. This is bad. Why did it take so long to set it?

"Well, you use your eyes you can see that it's right there. Why?"

"I'm not quite sure why the pain took so long to set it but it hurts. Like a lot."

Ray looks a bit panicked from the news and speeds up. Once we enter he sits me down on a crate and looks around for the first aid kit that mom had, though the kit might as well just say it has everything in it.

"Okay, bite on this." He places a thick metal stick in front of my mouth and I do as he says. "Great, now this will be the least painful part of something I only have a vague idea of doing."

I tilt my head but before I can even ask what he means by least painful I feel myself biting hard on the metal. It's tastes awful.

"So the plan is to disinfect it, find the bullet without an x-ray, take it out, and sew it up." Ray says as he throws the wipe away. "Now I can guarantee that this will be the worst pain of your life, especially removing the bullet so just keep biting on that."

"How long will this take?"

Ray shrugs. "Not sure but you can be a lot more comfortable if you lay on your stomach ."