Power Play

Chapter 22: Ryan

Chapter 22: Ryan

    Ryan awoke with a headache, disoriented and unsure of where he was. It took a second for him to realize he was laying in a bed, one he didn't recognize, but as everything came back to him, he was surprised that he was alive to be laying anywhere at all. That blow to his head had to have caused brain damage, and the freak who'd caused it had been ready to finish him off when he'd lost consciousness. So why wasn't he dead now?

    Then he spotted the man sitting in a chair across from the bed, Simon, his hands holding a book he was reading. Hands. Sure enough, Simon had a right hand again. The skin was red, as if it had been irritated, or sunburned, or even afflicted by a rash. But no one without an intimate knowledge of freaks would've guessed that just a short while before, that hand had been missing. Ryan remembered being told that freaks could regenerate limbs, but seeing it for himself was a little bit of a shock. Even though the wound had been tainted, it hadn't stopped the regeneration, it must've only slowed it down. Soon, Ryan was certain, even the redness would be gone. Sitting up in the bed and reaching up to his own head, he found it whole and intact. The spot where the bat had hit him was a little sensitive, but that was all he could tell from touching it. The wounds to his arm and side were gone as completely as if they'd never been there.

    At the movement, Simon looked up, peering at him over the top of the book, and then quickly setting the book down. "You're awake. Good, you've been out for over thirty hours."

    If tainted wounds as serious as the two of them had possessed had almost completely healed in only thirty hours, Ryan wondered just how fast they would've healed had they been caused by a normal source. "Where am I?" Ryan finally asked.

    "Safe house. Everyone got brought here after the fight. A number of those who weren't injured or who already healed up have left, but some of us stuck around a bit longer," Simon answered.

    Ryan just nodded a little, before a question occurred to him. "You were waiting in here for me to regain consciousness. Why?"

    There was a pause as Simon watched him for several seconds before answering. "You saved me. And not in an easy way. You didn't just come up behind some target I was fighting and kill them with no real risk to yourself. That I could understand. When that freak threw those darkblades at us the first time and you tackled me, I could understand that too, because there was no real risk to you. But the second time she threw them, when you pushed me out of the way even though you couldn't have been sure you'd be able to get out of the way of them yourself... You actually risked your own life to save mine. Even if another member of the team had been watching, they'd never have blamed you for letting me die, I'd already lost a hand, you were still at full fighting strength, you could've easily claimed that letting me die to protect yourself was the best tactical decision. I don't know many freaks who'd risk their life for another, and none who'd do it for a stranger. And that's what I am to you, you don't know me, and yet you risked your life to save me anyways. I probably would've died if you hadn't. I just... I don't know how to say thank you."

    "You were doing a hell of a lot better in the fight than I was. I don't know, I didn't really have time to think, and my instinct was to save you. I can't explain it any better than that," Ryan told him honestly.

    "Well, then I suppose I have to be grateful you're as new to this as you are. That instincts like that haven't been beaten out of you yet. But regardless of the reason, you still saved my life. So... Thank you. And you shouldn't sell yourself short, you did very well, extremely so given how little time you've been a freak. In fact," Simon paused there, before smiling. "Had I been the one to go after the freak with the revolver larikin at the start of the fight, before I saw what it could do, I probably would've wound up dead. I was tempted to, after all there was no way to be sure the bullets would be tainted too, and even if they were... I've seen a few larikin guns before, they all fired bullets at the speed of a normal gun, which is to say easily dodged. I've never even heard of a larikin gun that fired bullets at any other speed. Which is why larikin guns aren't usually worth much as weapons, unless they offer the holder a useful power. But this revolver, the speed it fires tainted bullets at... Even as fast as I am, I wouldn't have stood a chance. I'd have been cut down before I could get to him. But I got... A bit of advice earlier, to resist being impulsive and... Luckily, I went after the freak on the right. Still, if he'd had a chance to keep firing at the rest of us, there probably wouldn't have been any survivors left when the rest of the team arrived. You did a great job, by taking him and the larikin out of the fight."