Wednesday Brief #10 of Diventando: Becoming

Copyright 2013 JC Wallace

This is installment #10 of Diventando: Becoming. If you have not read the previous chapters, click on Wednesday Briefs in the left hand column. This week I used the prompt: Failure is not an option. After reading this chapter, check out the list of authors flashing. Enjoy!

 

Owen was unsure what to say. Not leaving the hospital? He didn’t...What...

Warning bells rang in time with his thudding heart. Dr. Noel’s face was neutral. The men in black wore steely expressions and Tattoo Nurse was sneering at Owen as if he were a bug he wanted to squash.

Owen swallowed hard. “Um...I don’t understand. What do you mean I won’t be leaving the hospital?” Shit. Was he going to die today? He felt achy, feverish, and every gland in his body was swollen and tender, but that was nothing compared to yesterday with Turk. If he had to guess his current life span, he’d say at least a month or longer but not hours.

Oh, shit. He had to call his parents. Tell Wayne. What about Turk? No. Best not to drag him into his drama of dying. Wayne could tell him later.

But wait...He didn’t want to die in a hospital.

“I have to see Wayne,” he said before the doctor could say anything.

The doctor narrowed his eyes. “Maybe later. Right now, these gentlemen will escort you to another unit of the hospital. This is not my area of expertise.”

Owen snorted. “What isn’t your area of expertise?” Owen didn’t bother to disguise the anger in his voice. “Tell me what the heck is wrong with me, because I’m freaking out here. I came here with leukemia, or so I thought, and you tell me I don’t have it—never had it—and now you’re shipping me off somewhere else without an answer?”

The doctor’s expression turned hard and his eyes cold. Didn’t take him long to lose his patience with Owen.

“You will go with these men and not question what I’ve told you.” He folded his arms over his chest.

Did he think Owen was five? Hell no. “I’m just going to leave now.” Owen slid tentatively off the exam table and stepped to the left, hoping the men would make way, but no one budged. The Tattoo Nurse chuckled and, wow, that had sounded evil.

The men in black watched Owen’s every movement as if he were prey they were stalking. Fear flooded Owen’s system and pushed his heart rate to an impossibly high rate. A pain in his heart, spread across his chest, up into his jaw and arm and, shit...Was he having a heart attack? A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face, over his cheek and fell from his jaw. With the pain came heat, rising to an unbearable level. Several more beads of sweat journeyed down his face. He swiped at them with the back of his hand.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Owen said. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

Owen shuffled backward until he had the exam table between himself and the others in the room. He had to get out of there. At this point, failure was not an option.

“You have no choice, Owen,” Dr. Noel said, turning his head to Tattoo Nurse and nodding.

Owen pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Quickly, he unlocked it and hit the phone icon. As soon as he did, Tattoo Nurse came toward him on one side of the exam table and the two men in black came around the other side. Adrenaline shook Owen’s hands as he hit the Recent Calls list and Wayne’s nunber. He pushed his phone under the exam table and charged Tattoo Nurse, pushing him as hard as he could. The man flew backwards onto the floor. Owen rushed the doctor who merely stepped aside. Shocked, Owen lunged for the door, but a hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back. Another hand grabbed his arm and together those hands dragged him backward as his feet struggled to catch ground.

In one motion, Owen was slammed onto his back on the exam table. The wind rushed from his lungs. Gasping for breath, he heard a muffled yell from beneath the table.

Wayne.

“Wayne! Help me! Wayne!”

A hand clamped hard over Owen’s mouth. One of the men in black glared down at him with those dark, soulless eyes. In the background, Wayne still screamed his name, begging Owen to answer.

Why were they doing this to him? What was so wrong with him that they had to force him to stay?

A pinch in Owen’s arm forced a whimper from his throat. In his peripheral vision, Tattoo Nurse stood with a syringe in his hand. Fuck, the man had dosed him with something. A rush of warmth fogged Owen’s brain and dulled the panicky fear. His muscles lost their strength, relaxing against his will. He blinked several times as his vision blurred.

Wayne’s voice got louder and Owen saw that Tattoo Nurse was holding his phone. With a malicious smile, Tattoo Nurse dropped the phone onto the floor, raised his foot and brought it down hard. Owen heard the crunch of the glass and plastic and Wayne’s voice stopped. The hand over Owen’s mouth moved and Owen gasped in a deep breath ready to scream, but nothing came out. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Above him, Doctor Noel scowled with disgust.

Owen prayed Wayne had heard him scream and was searching for him. Any minute he envisioned the door would fly open and his hero would bust in and save the day. But as the men loaded Owen’s limp body onto a stretcher and strapped him down, that hope faded.

Whatever had been in that syringe had rendered everything but Owen’s mind useless. The men in black rolled his gurney down several long hallways and through several doors. Every second took Owen further away from Wayne and freedom. One final door and Owen’s gurney was placed in the center of a small hospital room with no windows.

Tattoo Nurse leaned over the gurney and smacked his palm hard against Owen’s cheek. “Sleep tight,” he growled then disappeared.

The light went off and the door slammed shut, leaving Owen alone in the dark.

 

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