The Strays

Leo screamed in agony as Mac slashed him twice across the chest with the knife. “Seeing as I have everybody’s attention, why doesn’t one of you tell me where to find the person I’m looking for?”

“Up here, Miss. You found me. Congratulations.” Stitch chimed in from the floor above just as Mac was about to make another cut.

“You’re a hard person to get a hold of.”

“My friends get a little overprotective when someone invades our home. I’m sure you understand.”

“Well, you’re here now, so why don’t you grab what you need and we’ll get going?”

“I’m not going anywhere with you until you let the others go.” She calmly replied.

“You can come willingly, or I can forcefully drag you out of here.”

“I’m not helping you when you’re holding my friends hostage. Let them go, and then I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

Mac looked at the guys holding Linc and Ty. “Tie the two of them up in a shop upstairs. Make it tight, but don’t kill them.”

“What about Leo and Indie?” She argued, staying put as Mac’s goons took Linc and Ty away.

“They’re coming with us. That’s not negotiable because I have an instinct that you and Indie will make a good team, but I need insurance to keep her in line. I doubt just you will be enough. Alternatively, I could kill Ty and Linc right here and send my boys to your clinic. It’s an enormous building, but I’m sure they’ll find it in no time. I’ll give you front row seats, so you can watch as they slaughter everyone inside, then burn this building to the ground. It’s your choice.” She shouted up to the girl.

Stitch didn’t move. “I suppose you need a better incentive.” Mac sighed as she stabbed Leo in the shoulder, removing the knife and wiping it clean on his shirt before putting it away, confident she wouldn’t need to use it again. “If you want to save the kid, come with me. Once you save Hatter, I’ll let you treat him.”

I broke free of my captors and charged at Mac, slamming my fist into her face repeatedly until she bled, then I wrapped my hands around her neck until Stitch pulled me off her. “Leo needs us. The grudge match will have to wait. There’s a time to fight and a time to walk away. If we choose to take a stand, lots of people could die. Is it worth that?” She reasoned as she held me back.

“If Leo dies, I will kill every one of them, and you won’t be able to stop me.”

“If he dies, I will help you.” She smiled as her restraint turned into a hug. “Now save your strength, please. I have a feeling this day’s only going to get longer.”

Mac’s goons soon pulled us apart, tying our hands behind our backs as a precaution while they escorted us out of our zone.

I looked over at Stitch, who shared my concern as Leo became paler with every passing minute. He was quickly losing blood.

I turned to one goon with a stern expression. “That kid will bleed out unless someone does something. It doesn’t have to be Stich or myself. We can tell you what to do. Please stop the bleeding before it kills him. That’s all I ask of you.”

I heard a shirt rip, and one guy beside Leo tied the fabric over the wound. “Thank you.” I smiled appreciatively, and he nodded his head.

The Hellraiser gang’s primary hideout, the old fairground, was our next stop. There, they had converted the restaurants into livable quarters and one of them had even become a hospital. I glanced around for Leo, but somebody had already taken him elsewhere.

Mac forced me and Stitch into a room where Hatter, their leader, was lying on a makeshift bed, his arm in a cast.

“It looks like your people already patched him up. Pretty nicely as well for a bunch of brutes. Why do you need us?”

Mac walked over to the bed and opened up Hatter’s shirt. There were two bullet holes and an infected stab wound that looked like it was slowly healing.

“What happened to him? How long has it been like that?” Stitch asked as Mac cut us free.

“A deal went south last night. My people cleaned him up as best they could, but none of them has the surgical skill needed to take out the bullets.” She explained.

“And the stab wound?” She persisted as I just stood there, staring.

“Ask Indie about that one. I doubt it’s a coincidence that bodies started dropping right around the same time she came home to Cadence.” She snarled as she headed for the door. “And just so we’re clear, I have guys stationed outside. If anything happens to them or my Hatter, you’ll regret it. I assure you.” The door slammed shut behind her, leaving me alone with Stitch.

“What did she mean about bodies dropping? She said bodies, plural, likely meaning more than one.” She observed.

“Let’s say there’s a reason Leo doesn’t talk about me much. I’m not exactly someone to be proud of. I’ve had to do a lot of bad things to protect good people.”

Stitch nodded her head, but the way she looked at me now wasn’t the same as before.

Stitch started sterilising whatever equipment she could find in hot water, and I grabbed the bag of dried poultice ingredients from my pocket. “What’s that?” She asked suspiciously as I poured the contents into a bowl with some honey and a drop of hot water that I vigorously mixed.

“An antiseptic poultice using plants, clay, honey, and a bit of water to bind it all together. I’m going to apply it to his cuts to treat the infection before it kills him, unless you have a course of IV or oral antibiotic he can take.”

She handed me a pair of gloves. “You never told me how you came to learn so much about medicine.”

“You didn’t tell me Ty and Linc used to be Hellraisers, so I guess we both have our secrets.”

“That wasn’t my secret to tell, but I’m glad Linc got it out in the open.”

“He didn’t. I worked it out on my own. I never told Mac about Ty, but somehow she knew he was Linc’s brother and that he wouldn’t be too far away, she also predicted their weaknesses, to do that she had to have known them, but she didn’t hate them the way she hated me, I could see the look of hurt in her eyes, though it was more familiar than that. It was betrayal.”

“You figured out all of that with a literal knife to your throat?”

“No, it just confirmed the meaning of the scar on the boys’ hands. Both have the same one, in the same place, just like Mac and Hatter. It’s from their initiation.”

I applied the poultice, and Stitch prepared an improvised surgical tray. “Are you alright to do this?” She asked as she assessed the situation.

“Can’t you?”

“I’ve fixed through and throughs, but there’s no exit wound on either of these.” She explained.

“Alright. What’s your blood type?”

“O-neg, why?”

“He’s lost a lot of blood and I need to transfuse, unfortunately for you, you’re all I’ve got to work with. We’re the same blood type, universal, but I’m still pretty weak. It could kill me, so if I’m doing the surgery, you need to be the blood bag.”

Stitch nodded her head as she found a small piece of rubber tubing that I could rinse and sterilise to the best of my ability while she climbed onto the counter that set her slightly higher than Hatter, who lay on the makeshift bed below.

It wasn’t easy getting the tube into either of them, but I managed it, keeping a close eye on the blood flowing through the tube as I cautiously removed the bullets.

I finished within a couple of hours without complications and I could see the relief in Stitch’s eyes as I removed the tube from her arm; she was slightly dizzy but otherwise alright. I sat her down while I stitched Hatter up, then applied the poultice and finally fresh bandages.

I didn’t have any anaesthesia for the procedure, but Hatter passed out from the pain half an hour in. I checked his pulse and breathing before I finished just to be on the safe side, then knocked on the door to notify the guards who went to get Mac.

I watched as she inspected my handiwork and once I’d convinced her I hadn’t killed him; she patted me down, followed by a still very dazed Stitch. “What’s wrong with your friend?” She asked.

“Stitch donated blood so Hatter wouldn’t bleed to death. She needs sugar, a can of pop or a cookie, just so she doesn’t pass out.”

“If she’s loopy from blood loss, who fixed up the boss?”

“You can thank the irony of the fates for that one, because if Hatter had killed me before, he’d have signed his death warrant. Be sure to tell him that when he wakes up. Now, can I please treat Leo?”

Mac waved her hand, and her lapdogs went running. When they returned, they had Leo with them and a cup of orange juice that she handed to Stitch. “You kept your word. I suppose I can keep mine, besides it’s not like the kid deserves to pay for your mistakes when you abandoned him. It wouldn’t be fair.”

I couldn’t help smiling.

“What?” She snapped.

“Nothing. I just thought I saw a glimpse of humanity. You might want to reign that in a bit. I can’t have you going soft when we still have a score to settle.”

Mac shoved us back into the room and locked the door again behind her.

I sat Leo down with Stitch, who looked at the gash while I found another sewing needle I could sterilise, along with some thread.

“What we looking at, Doc?”

“Mac didn’t hit any major arteries, and the blood has clotted nicely, most of it is just soft tissue damage. He’s lucky that it wasn’t muscle or bone.”

“Grab me some saltwater and the rubbing alcohol.”

Stitch handed me what I asked for and found a torch to give me some extra light. I handed Leo something to bite on, but he refused to take it.

“Really? This is going to hurt.”

“It already hurts. I got stabbed.” He argued.

“Yeah you did, you idiot, and I have a lengthy lecture lined up for you, but right now you’re going to want to bite down on that thing because I’m not kidding when I say this is going to burn like hell.”

“You should listen to her. She’s a wise woman, and you’ve never had an injury this bad before.” Stitch concurred.

Leo bit down on whatever it was I’d given him and rolled his eyes. I dabbed the alcohol and salt water solution on the stab wound, then on the cuts on his chest. He gripped Stitch’s hand tightly, tears welling in his eyes, but he stayed strong as I finished up. Once the area was clean, I sewed him up; then used what little poultice and gauze I had left to bandage him up. “All done, tough guy. I think you’ll live.”

I stood there as the two of them hugged it out, completely silent.

“Seriously? You spent weeks by her bedside worrying, and now you won’t even look at her. What the hell is with you two?” Stitch eventually stated.

“It’s complicated, and it’s private. Leave it alone.” I sighed as I knocked on the door.

Mac answered.

“Were you waiting out there for us?”

“You didn’t think I’d just leave you in there with Hatter when I don’t have any leverage. I’m surprised you didn’t kill him Indie, maybe you’re the one who’s going soft.”

“Unlike you and your boyfriend, I don’t kill unarmed, defenceless people, especially when they’re lying on a deathbed. I’m not a murderer.”

“Keep telling yourself that, whatever helps you sleep at night.” She smiled as she grabbed me by my hair and dragged me from the room.

They tossed me into another room with Stitch. There were two blankets on the floor for a bed and other than that, the room was bare. Meanwhile, they took Leo somewhere else.

“He’s going to be okay, you know that, don’t you? They need you, which means they need him. Alive.”

“I know, but he shouldn’t even be in this position. If I hadn’t left him to begin with, I’d have been able to stop this from ever happening. The only reason Mac kept him was that she wanted to get back at me.”

“What is the deal with you and her? Did you know each other before all of this, the end of the world?”

“No. A few years after the adults died, Hatter came looking for me. I didn’t know who he was, or that he was a Hellraiser, let alone their leader. He’d heard rumours about me, wanted me to do some engineering work, he’d heard about me restoring power to The Paragon and his boys had seen first-hand what my traps could do, so while I was gathering supplies, he approached me. I told him I wasn’t interested, that I wasn’t staying in Cadence long term, he didn’t like that, so he forced my hand instead. He sent Mac to bring me in. I don’t think the Hellraisers expected the fight they got from me, and after a while, they backed off when they realised they couldn’t get to me inside or outside of the place I called my home.”

I noticed Stitch’s shock immediately. “Leo really hasn’t told you guys anything, has he?”

“Nope. A strange girl showed up beaten and bloody. All he’d say was your name.”

“Guess he’s still trying to protect me without acknowledging I might be the one he needs protecting from.”

“Is that why you walked away, to protect him?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Always is with you.”

“No offence, but just because you’ve seen my scars, doesn’t mean you know the first thing about me.”

“I know you’re suspicious, worse than Ty. Why else would you let us believe you were too weak to stand without aid?”

“I woke up in my old bedroom surrounded by people I didn’t know. I let you think I was weaker than I was because it meant you underestimated me, so if I needed to fight, I would have every advantage I could take.”

“I guess this new world can make even the best of us paranoid when it comes to receiving help from strangers.”

“My lack of trust regarding people predates this nightmare, and for good reason, I guess that’s what made it easier for me to adapt. I didn’t trust anyone before. Why should that change now?”

“I’m guessing you didn’t have a lot of friends?”

“You’ve seen my social skills, the way I read a room, and don’t think twice about what I say. Do you seriously think that made me popular amongst my peers?”

Stitch laughed slightly. “No, I guess not. Is that why you know so much about medicine and engineering? Were you the type to prefer books to people?”

I nodded my head as I paced the small room, looking for anything I could use. “I’ve always enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together. My aunt was a nurse who was once studying to become a doctor, hence the medical knowledge. I used to help her study; they’d let me watch procedures at the hospital when my parents weren’t at home to take care of me. Strictly speaking, it was against policy, but the staff and I got on well. What about you?”

“I had a few friends. We were once a tight-knit group; we got separated when the world went to hell. I don’t know what happened to them. Unlike you, I didn’t have anyone on the inside at the hospital to watch live procedures, but I still wanted to become a doctor. I filled my room with medical books, research papers, models, practice models: the works. When I could, I would watch procedures on YouTube. My parents thought my obsession with human anatomy was borderline disturbing and even made me see a shrink about it. They couldn’t understand my fascination with helping people. Perhaps if they’d known this was coming, they’d have gotten it.” Stitch smiled.

“I’m going to guess you were an only child.”

“Yep. What about you?” She asked.

“Two brothers, one older, one younger. Sean, the oldest, was always popular with people; girls fawned over him. He did his best to help me socialise, though my mouth and sarcasm didn’t go well with how fake his friends were. Miles was the opposite. Like me, he loved comics and video games. We always got on better because we shared lots of interests, and he had a large social circle, though it was all online. Neither of us ever really did too well with face to face small talk.”