HAUNTED

11

Jacob opened the door. Lex wiped some blood off her reopened lip wound from last night. “What happened,” he asked seeing Lindsay on the floor face first and butt in the air.

“Cat fight,” she walked out, “Chuck?” she asked.

“I punched him.” He answered simply.

“Is there anyone else,” she asked the doctors, still kind of terrified.

“You just...” one of them said looking at Jacob.

“He what?” Lex asked.

“Vanished and reappeared there,” the doctor stood up more confident.

“Yeah sure,” she sounded like she didn’t believe him, though she did.

“Could I study you?”

“Do you want to die,” Lex asked the doctor, he shrugged and staggered back, “he just saved your life get over it.” She remembered the pin on her jacket recording everything but it was gone.

She ran back into the office, “Lex!” Jacob called concerned.

“The pin,” she murmured back.

“Do you have a megaphone or something I can use to tell the cops we have done their jobs for them?” Jacob asked as one of the doctors walked into their office and walked back with a megaphone.

It was on the floor nearly crushed, “I found it.” Lex came out of the office.

Jacob walked to the window, turned the megaphone on, “Oy, police people, come and get the criminals.”

“Bomb,” Lex said suddenly remembering, “They blow stuff up. They don’t just shoot people up.” Jacob turned to her.

“They blow stuff up,” he turned to the window, “we haven’t found a bomb yet so let the bomb squads in first.” Hoping they would have heard.

“Did you see a trigger?” she asked Jacob.

“We don’t even know what kind of bomb they have been using. What trigger to look for?”

“Lawson, tie these guys up so we can look for the bomb,” Lex ordered.

“We have to get them out in case…” Jacob said. The lady who had given her the note with the info about the drugs stood up to help Lawson as the other doctors took Sam, Lindsay and Chuck to the elevator while Jacob and Lex looked around for anything bomb like.

Jacob took the pin from Lex and walked to over to Lawson, “just in case we don’t make it out in time, give this to the chief its evidence that we are innocent.”

The cops didn’t come, “why won’t the cops come?” Lex asked, “Why would they send us in? Something is off.”

“I know,” Jacob squeezed her hand for no more than a second and walked toward the elevator, leaving an odd wonderfully heavy lingering in her core. “Is everyone here?”

“They put one of the doctors in an office down the hall,” they both instantly thought bomb. “Office number 17,” they both rushed there as the elevator when down.

Burst the door open.

And there he sat, sweating bullets. His seat was rigged with a load of wires and bomb stuff. The whole office was rigged with the stuff, especially round a central pillar they figured could bring the building down probably rigged all the way through.

“What do we do now?” Lex said tired.

The doctors trickled out of the earlier evacuated hospital and saw no one. Not a cop in sight. They had evacuated the whole area, as a precaution. Those bastards so afraid of conflict that they rather flee than take action. Few for the many mentality instead of an all for one mentality. This is what peace did to people. It made some heartless and most weak. Not that fighting is strength but the ability to stand for what’s right even if it hurts is strength not cowering away to the comfort of a cage of fear and oppression. That’s why freedom is so overrated.

It was a good thing thought. Every patient in the initial hostage instance had been evacuated to the closest hospital expect for the doctors’ floor that was strictly left unbothered. They were relieved but still had to get out of there before the place blew. There was an ambulance in the hospital car park near the entrance that the doctors stuffed themselves into with the bastards that had held them at gun point and Lawson, the wimp who had found his strength, drove them to the central police station.

Jacob sighed, “Do you know how to disarm a bomb?”

“They said if I moved…” the guy on the seat swallowed heavy. Middle aged guy just beginning to grey with a little pot belly, veins bulging from his forehead, deep red face. He looked like what stress looks like… “That the whole place will blow!”

“Last time we were in a war, we only used swords and mutated winged people,” Jacob said lightly, “no bombs.”

“There is a timer,” Lex said terrified. They needed to get out of there now.

“Are you okay,” Jacob asked.

“We need to save his life. Stop all the destruction,” her heart beating faster, panic, beginning to feel sick. She reached for him almost instinctively.

“You said it yourself, we won’t die,” he said.

“It’s not my death that’s getting to me. It is everyone else’s,” he smiled when she spoke, “stop that,” his smile vanished almost instantly.

“Sorry… I’ve just been thinking you were evil for a really long time now. I’m happy you weren’t and aren’t,” he smiled again.

“Don’t be so sure,” she let go of him. Remembering the memories that had flashed before her eyes. “So, we are both clueless about this bomb issue.”

“What should we do?” he was open to any suggestion, “anything at all…”