Chap.11

As the tail whistled through the air towards him, Ryan snapped out his wings, ignoring the pain from his side. The tail stopped its movement towards Ryan chest. Ryan dived forward, and grabbed the tail. He pushed the pinnacle of the pointed tail deep into the cylinder of liquid nitrogen.

The slits that were Scorpio’s eyes grew wide as the freezing material spread up the tail, instantly freezing as it moved up, “You think you’ve won?” Scorpio shouted, as the freezing wave reached the final joint of his tail. Scorpio grabbed something off of the counter, and brought it down with blinding speed onto his brittle, frozen tail, which broke off in one hit. He hissed as his tail broke, but he didn’t stop. Scorpio kept moving forward, already adjusted to the loss of his tail.

“I didn’t think that would stop you, but it took away your only weapon!” Ryan jumped into the air, his hair touching the low ceiling, and delivered a hard kick to Scorpio’s chest. Ryan thought he felt something crack in his foot, but it didn’t hurt. Scorpio stumbled backwards, closer to the containers, where the monster’s tail was still hanging. Ryan delivered another kick into the creature’s stomach. His foot sank in.

“Not armored everywhere, are you?” Ryan muttered, as Scorpio stumbled farther back, closer to the containers, “I knew that wouldn’t stop you, but this will!” Ryan jumped into the air, and folded his wings in. He fell like a rocket, his feet smacking into Scorpio’s body, hard enough to send the monster flying back into the containers. The force of the creature’s body slamming into the tubes made liquid nitrogen burst out, covering Scorpio in one wave, and spreading over the floor, before freezing into a puddle.

Ryan stared at the frozen figure. Staring at the face, Ryan could have sworn that the face looked happy in its final moments. Ryan took his eyes away from the ice, and looked around the room. There were cracks in the walls, and blood on the floor. Ryan couldn’t tell where the blood had come from, until he looked down at his side, and saw that the wound had opened again, and was bleeding profusely. His shirt was in tatters, ripped from his wings flying out. Ryan walked over to the ice statue, being careful not to step on any of the frozen nitrogen, just in case.

Ryan grabbed a microscope, said sorry to the frozen creature, than threw the microscope with all of his force against the ice, cracking it, sending little pieces of frozen Scorpio onto the floor. With the evidence of Scorpio destroyed, Ryan walked out the broken door, and down the hallway. He was looking for a linen closet. If he couldn’t find anything else, He would just wrap a sheet around his shoulders. Along the way he spotted the earpiece lying on the floor, with a voice yelling out of it.

“Scorpio, answer me! Scorpio!”

Ryan walked over and picked it up, and spoke into the mike, “I’m sorry, Scorpio is indisposed at the moment. Please hang up and try again later.”

“Alpha Triple Oh? What happened? You killed Scorpio?” The man on the other end shouted.

“I’ve got to go. If someone finds out that I was included in the mess in the lab, have fun explaining why there is a genetic freak running around.” Ryan flicked the switch on the phone to off. . He pocketed the little phone, than started to stumble down the hallway again, moving towards the nurse’s station. From what he could tell, there were no more people on the floor, because if someone had heard the battle, human curiosity would have taken over, and they would have come looking.

Inside the horseshoe shaped station, Ryan found a cart full of scrubs, and it didn’t take long to find some that were in his size. Taking the cart for stability, Ryan moved back into the lab, and found a door that led to an elevator. He pressed the button for the lobby, than leaned back against the door, hoping he would stay awake for the ride down. Darkness was starting to creep in on the edge of his vision, but Ryan was fighting it, tooth and claw. The elevator only took about a minute to get down to the first floor, but to Ryan it seemed like it took an hour.

When the doors finally dinged open, Ryan was instantly grabbed out of the elevator, and was laid down on a couch. Though the blackness was starting to cover most of his vision, Ryan could still make out the words.

“That is why we need to try the steroid!” He heard Mrs. Rodriguez say, as someone lifted up his shirt, just enough to show the wound, but nothing else.

“Yes…I guess this would be a good time to try.” He heard Dr. Jordan say, with a worried tone in his voice, than he continued, “Ryan? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, give some kind of reaction!” The doctor ordered.

“Uh.” Ryan gasped.

“Good. You are about to feel a slight pain in your left arm, but it should only last a few seconds. It is the steroid going into your system. After it is in, it will momentarily induce a coma-like state. You will wake up in around an hour, than you’ll wake up, and we can start monitoring the wound.”

` “…D-d-don’t…t-tell…him…a-a-b-bout the…” Before Ryan could finish his gasping message, he heard hurrying footsteps, and than felt someone holding his hand, than a whispering in his ear.

“We know. We won’t tell him anything.” It was Marisa. Ryan didn’t know if he nodded or not, but than he felt the pain in his arm, than he slowly felt himself slip away.

An hour later, Ryan slowly opened his eyes, and awoke into a state of pure numbness.

“Okay, he’s awake!” Ryan heard someone shout.

“I could really use some water.” Ryan murmured through a cottonmouth.

“Dr. Jordan figured as much.” Ryan was staring at the light above him, so it surprised him a little when the bottle appeared above him, “You’ll have to sit up, or I might end up drowning you.” Ryan slowly sat up, though the pain in his side didn’t seem to fell so bad. He was lying in a room whose walls were covered in couches, and vending machines. Marisa was sitting on the floor beside him, holding a bottle of water in one hand, and in the other was a walkie-talkie.

“Where are your mom and Dr. Jordan?” Ryan asked drowsily, waiting for his mind to snap to attention.

“They’re upstairs. You made quite a mess, and they want to get most of it cleaned up before anyone else comes here. What did you do anyway?” Marisa asked, handing Ryan the bottle. He unscrewed the cap, and tipped it backward. The water was cool, and tasted oddly metallic, but Ryan drank it like he had been through a drought.

“I broke the ice…” Ryan said, when he took a breath at the end of the drink.

“You stabbed him with ice?” Marisa said, with a strange face.

“No. Not even close… I froze him with the nitrogen, and than broke him.” Ryan said.

Marisa looked horrified, but she quickly covered it up by looking away. Ryan decided to change the conversation to something else.

“Did the steroid work?” He asked.

“It is, but it isn’t going to make you heal automatically. The wound is healing fast, though. This morning before I left for school it looked like it was infected, but now it is fine, and is down a third of its size. You should be fine before the week is out.”

“Good. I think I should leave before anything else happens.” Ryan said.

“I figured you’d say that. I just wish I could come with you…” She blushed and turned away again.

Ryan didn’t know if he could keep changing the conversation, but he tried, “Dr. Jordan doesn’t know about my…condition does he?” Ryan used the word condition just in case there was someway someone could hear him.

“No, we made sure of it. There is one problem…”

“Great, what? He wants to take X-rays?”

“Close. He wants to keep you here, so that he could study how the steroids work.” Ryan’s heart almost stopped.

“How am I going to get out of that?” He asked, more to himself than anything.

“My mom came up with that answer. She’s arguing with him now, while they clean. She said that the steroids might work better if the patient was in an area where he felt comfortable. So, I think you’ll be coming back with us.” Ryan noticed that she still looked sad, but he couldn’t think of anything that would make her feel better, so the two sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the hospital, though that day the hospital was just about empty, except for the small group who was there.

“How long ago did they leave?” Ryan asked, after five minutes of the heavy, awkward silence that had settled upon the room.

“Almost the same minute that you went to sleep. They’ve been up ever since, so you must have done some real damage up there.”

Ryan nodded, “I wasted three tanks of nitrogen, broke a few microscopes, smashed a vial, and Scorpio made holes in the walls.” Ryan muttered, “It might take awhile to clean up.” Just than there was a ringing, and Ryan looked around the room, looking for a phone. But Marisa was looking at Ryan’s pocket.

“When did you get a phone?” She asked. Ryan reached into his pocket, and pulled out the earphone.

“How do I…?” Ryan asked, before Marisa reached over, and pressed a button, than handed it back to Ryan, who whispered, “Thanks.” And than, “Hello?”

“Hello, Alpha Triple Oh.” Ryan recognized the voice of Dr. Phull.

“Why can’t you people just leave me alone?” Ryan asked, his body tensing. Marisa looked worried, though she couldn’t have known whom he was talking to.

“We can’t, because you are a security risk. You hold the secrets of our organization, and you could tell anyone. We know that you’ve already told the family who so graciously let you into their home.”

“You have been using the cameras!” Ryan almost shouted. As he did so, the elevator dinged, and Mrs. Rodriguez walked out.

“You keep proving that you are smarter than we thought you were. Yes, we have been using the cameras. That is one thing you must know: We are everywhere. Wherever you go, what ever you do, we will be there. You will never be safe.” Then the other end of the phone went silent, and Dr. Phull spoke no more.

“I have to leave, now.” Ryan said, trying to stand, but he instantly fell back to the couch.

“Why? What’s going on?” Mrs. Rodriguez asked, walking over.

“They’ve been watching me. They know everything I’ve told you. Until I leave, you are in danger, and you probably will be, even after I’m gone.” Ryan said, forlornly.

“That doesn’t matter. If you can handle one of their monsters when you’re injured, then we can handle one, like my dad did the other night!” Marisa said.

“I only just beat Scorpio. A few more seconds and he would have won. I’m pretty sure your dad was fueled by adrenaline more than anything.” Ryan retaliated, remembering the look in the older man’s eyes when he stabbed with the broom handle.

“We don’t care.” Mrs. Rodriguez said, “You are in our care now, no matter the circumstances, and we are going to continue to take care of you until you are able to leave.” The look in her eyes destroyed any arguments that had been building in Ryan’s mind.

Ryan only smiled and said, “So does that make me a patient, or a hostage?” They both smiled, than Mrs. Rodriguez grabbed Ryan’s arm, and helped him to his feet.

“Dr. Jordan said that he could handle the rest of the lab, though you really did a number with the nitrogen.” Mrs. Rodriguez walked out the door and returned with a wheel chair. “Get in.” She ordered. Ryan stumbled, and fell gratefully into the chair. Mrs. Rodriguez acknowledged his trouble walking with, “Your motor skills should return by the end of the day.”

As she started to push him, Ryan turned and gently knocked her hands off of the handles. “I may not be able to walk, but I am not being pushed out of here.” He began using his hands to roll the wheels. It was a slower ride than it would have been if Mrs. Rodriguez had pushed him, but Ryan didn’t mind, and his companions didn’t either. As they got to the door, Mrs. Rodriguez stopped Ryan, “You can’t take the wheel chair with you; it’s hospital property. You’ll have to walk from here.”

“Okay, warden, ma’am.” Ryan joked, struggling into a standing position. He slowly shuffled out the door and stumbled into the car that was parked outside the door. He noticed that there was a long scratch along one side. Marisa opened the door for him, and Ryan lied down in the back seat.

As Marisa took her seat in the front, she asked Ryan a question, “What did Scorpio look like?”

Ryan muttered, half sleeping, “A demon scorpion…”

Ryan slept the whole way back to the house, so he didn’t get a chance to watch the security cameras on the way back, but if he had, Ryan would have noticed that they were still following the car, though now they didn’t seem so interested, as if they knew where the car was going.

It was just as the car was pulling into the driveway that Ryan awoke, and got a bad feeling. He didn’t know what caused it, but he knew that something bad was about to happen. It was Marisa that turned him towards the source of the feeling.

“What’s that noise?” Ryan leaned forward and turned down the radio, which was playing some song that was coming in as more static than song. There was a dull clicking noise, coming from in front of the car.

Without thinking, Ryan shouted, “Get out of the car!” As the other two did, Ryan jumped into the front seat, and started feeling under the dash, under the seats, looking for anything that could make the noise, though he was sure he knew what it was. In his desperation, Ryan pulled the hood release button, and the hood flew up, startling him.

Ryan pushed the door open, and looked around, making sure that Marisa and her mom were in the house, before turning to the entrails of the car. The clicking noise was louder here, and it didn’t take long for Ryan to find where the noise was coming from.

The bomb looked like an oversized light bulb, with one end a third of the size of the other. The larger end was pointed at the drivers seat, and the smaller end was connected to a hose that poked out of the engine. Ryan grabbed the bomb, and pulled, falling back a little as it snapped off of the hose. Ryan flinched, expecting it to explode.

When it didn’t, Ryan looked around, fear boiling up inside his stomach, for somewhere to throw it. There were trees planted all around the house, and on the street cars were driving by to fast to give Ryan a clear shot, so he went with the best idea. He ran to the backyard, and snapped his wings out, ruining the shirt again, and jumped into the air and started flapping. His shoulders started hurting, but they felt stronger. Ryan flapped, until he was twenty feet above the house. He turned towards the beach, and threw the bomb as hard and as high as he could. The second his hand let go of the bomb Ryan was back on the ground, his wings folded.

The bomb was just beginning its downward ark. As it reached the top of a tree, the bomb exploded. The flames only shot out of one end, though, and Ryan realized that if he had left it in the car, the driver would have been almost instantly killed. The tree had burst into flames, and the bomb was still shooting out flames. The tree was at another yard, at the edge of town Ryan had come in, but the tree was tall enough for Ryan to see the top, totally engulfed in flames. He walked towards the door of the house, and threw it open, hearing it bang against the side of the house. Ryan entered, and saw Marisa and Mrs. Rodriguez were leering out a window, staring at the tree, now totally in flames. It looked like a fiery geyser, shooting out of the grassy lawn.

“That is another reason why I can’t stay…” Ryan exclaimed, out of breath.

Next Chapter: Chapter 12