Vagabonds

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Not So Bulletproof

"Daisy!"

"O-oh no, oh n-n-no."

"Isn't he supposed to be invincible?!"

"Shut up and help me, Moose!"

Eliza's mouth hung open as the three conscious brothers descended on the bleeding, slumping body. Aquila was there in a flash, his strong arm wrapping around Daisy's back, lowering him gently, slowly. Moose darted around them, wringing his hands.

Tero looked ready to cry.

Eliza took a step back, only distantly aware of the blinded man now careening from wall to wall, clutching his face and howling. The cluster of soldiers fleeing through the stairwell had thinned and the basement of Fitzgerald Base was now eerily empty and echoing with the lingering shadow of violence.

"Eliza....?"

She swung around to see Joe waking up, supported by a sheet-white Tori.

"Joe...?" Eliza's lips were numb, her mind reeling. Joe opened his mouth to answer, but before he could say anything, Daisy's body began to jerk.

"What's going on?" Moose whined as Daisy's eyes rolled up in his head.

"I think he's going into shock." Aquila looked up and met Eliza's gaze, his expression pleading and lost and horribly frightened.

For a single heartbeat, Eliza faltered. She could feel that familiar drowning sensation threatening to crash over her head again, the weight of the bodies around them ready to drag her into panic. Otto was still unconscious. Joe was only just awake, and who knew how much of his old self had come back from the brink of whatever the virus had done to him. She didn't want to be responsible anymore.

But Daisy needed her.

He needed all of them.

With a deep, furious breath, Eliza pulled herself together.

"Pick him up," Eliza snapped. "We'll take him to the hospital."

"What?" Moose's question was a whip-crack, breaking through the groans of waking soldiers and the howls of one blinded man. "You're joking, right? We can't take Daisy to a hospital —"

"He's bleeding out," Eliza said, ripping off her polo shirt and pressing it to Daisy's chest as Aquila hefted him up. The cold air of the basement made goosebumps rise on her bare back, prickling against the straps of her bra. She ignored all of it, focusing on the limp body in front of her. "If he doesn't get professional help, he'll die. Tori, you help Joe. Moose, Tero, get Otto. We all go together."

No one moved. No one breathed. Everyone stared at her as if she'd lost her mind.

"Come on," Eliza said, glaring at them in frustration.

Aquila ducked his head.

"If we go to the hospital... then we're..."

Eliza straightened.

"Out in the open," she said, finishing his sentence. "It's our only option."

Finally, Aquila nodded.

"Let's go, guys."

Almost half their party was unconscious or wounded in some way, and all of them were so tired that their knees could barely hold their weight. But somehow, they managed to carry Joe, Otto, and Daisy up the stairs. Tori paused briefly to grab the last remaining vial of booster, wedged safely beneath a door. She tucked it into her skirt pocket. Eliza squinted, trying to remember how to reach the garage.