Listen To The Silence by Sheryl

Chapter 16

You've been caught in one of those times,
when nothing's real or getting through...

"He's here."
"What?"
Waking, so disagreeable now. Who is that, barging right into his head, waking him up?
Tired eyes blink open, struggling to orient with reality. The world of dreams, so much better.
"Sav. Wake up, he's here."
"Who's here, who... YOU? What're you doing in there?"
Faint amusement now, that boy from the states, what does he think he's doing?
"Sav are you stupid? Jesse..."
"Jesse!"
Awake now, alert, he shakes off the sleepy logginess, mental switches thrown in an instant.
"Where, you're the only one linked to him, show me..."
"On your porch."

The mental line clicks down, leaving him reeling.
"On my porch? What the hell is he talking about?"
Feet hit the floor, mind still faintly reaching for the boy's signal.
"What did he hang up on me for? This house is too damned big..."
The hall seems miles long, barefeet padding on carpeting too opulent for his taste.
"What do I live in such a pretentious monstrosity for anyway? So it's a half hours walk just to get to the front door? Sav you're a moron..."
Hands run through tangled hair, rub sleep gritted eyes. There's nobody on his porch,
this is that kid's idea of a joke, it has to be. Jesse couldn't reach him without something tugging at his mental strings, it's not possible.

Still... uneasiness is beginning it's jittering run up and down his spine, adrenaline leaking into his bloodstream. If Jesse's here, why wouldn't he knock? Ring the bell? Come in? Yell? Something!
"Don't hurry, do NOT run."
Mental discipline. Stay calm, don't lose cohesion. If he's out there and can't make himself known then something must be wrong... well of course something's wrong, he's sick, and it's already known he's sick, but so sick he can't KNOCK?

Fear now, licking at him, little cold flames all along his nerves, his hands begin to shake as his mental hand reaches out... touches... nothing.
"Nothing... dead already?"
His hand on the door now, no memory of descending stairs, no memory of picking his way through the litter of instruments and artwork spilled into the front hall, his entire focus now on what may lie outside that door.

Visions of Hollywood horror suddenly etch into his brain, long dead zombies rising up to greet him, mangled bodies missing limbs.
"Sav stop it!"
The voice is his and Cara's, her presence suddenly ringing in his head.
"If you're just going to stand there he's gonna die, now open the door!"
Him or her, he doesn't know, she's there, he can feel her... but whoever, his link or himself, the message is clear. This is it.

He's not breathing when he opens the door, flinching as if from a blow, half expecting the nightmare images of his imagination to be standing there.
Instead he finds... nothing. Nobody.
"Ha, I knew he was pulling my chain..."
Turning to go back in, mentally cursing the boy, Cara, everyone, his eye catches a flash of fire, arrows him in and he sees him, groan of despair suddenly rising from his throat.
"Oh, Jesse, oh God..."
He's down the steps and beside him in a breath, thanking God for the flame red hair that caught that spark of sun, kneeling, heart in his throat, mental call thrown out to Angel, to everyone.
"He's here, I don't know if he's still alive."

Hand out to reach for a pulse, pulled back as physical revulsion overwhelms.
This shrunken scarecrow figure can't be human, no human could look like this.
"God I can't touch him..."
"You'd better... Kellan's on his way over."
He dismisses the mental comment, dismisses her, steeling himself to touch the filth that covers what's left of this boy.
There... it's there, he's still alive. But oh God, what could have happened to him?
"God I hate us sometimes..."
His voice falls soft in the morning air, landing on the deaf ears of the unconscious child on his steps.
"Look at what we've done to you, and you never had a choice, did you?"

Shock then, as the eyelids flutter open, brilliant green shining out at him, rabid fear, and the boy struggles up, scrambling away from him, mental voice active now.
Sav senses raw panic and unthinking reaches out with his own mind, catching deftly the random flailing signal that is Jesse, everything transmitted in less time than a heart takes to beat, fear of death, fear of abandonment, random flashing memories of hurt and betrayal, all compressed into this one moment in time, this one make or break instant of life or death.

The feeling of Sav fades as the voice of the guardian in him rises to the fore, saturating the panic, holding grasping pulling, and in that blink of non-time the fear is driven away, dying mind filled with the knowledge of absolute acceptance.
Here there will be no betrayal.

The boy falls back, struggling to breath, to stay alive, fighting to find a voice, eyes wary as the mental knowledge dims.
"Don't make me leave..."
And Sav, the guardian receding, finding time for humanity, reaching out, grasping skeletal fingers.
"Never..."
"Come on, get him inside."
"Kel... get the door."
He hears footsteps skip past him, hears the door open, never taking his eyes from the face of the boy at his feet, swallowing revulsion again as he slips arms around him, lifting him effortlessly, wincing at the feel of bone and fever.

"Oh God, Sav, look at his feet."
"I know..."
The feet are wounds, skin long since sheered away, soft tissue embedded with debris, glass, wood, grime. The angry yellow red of infection streams up out of sight beneath filthy jeans, the smell of death everywhere.
"Watch out, he's got riders."
"I know, I see them... we can delouse the place later, is Angel coming over?"
"She's on her way, she was at Tal's... I can't get him Sav, he won't let me."
Nodding, he reaches down the new link, tentative and shaky, and takes the
boy's mental hand, joining it with Kellan's, the message clear.
"Trust us..."
Jesse, beyond trust, steeped in betrayal, accepts if only to stay alive.
"I've got him but he's afraid of me."
"Yeah do you blame him? What're we dealing with?"

The healer takes over, psychic energy running over the boy, Sav can almost see it, blue white and jittering like mad, scrambling madly over him.
"Pneumonia without a doubt, he's barely breathing. Exposure, look at him, he's so sunburned he's blistered everywhere, EVERYWHERE, God Sav..."
"Kel..."
The warning is clear. Hold together, this is too important to fall apart now.
"Malnutrition, he hasn't eaten... he's eating himself, there's nothing left. He's out of reserves. His hearts not beating right. Infection everywhere, he's toxic. Sav, we gotta get him to a hospital, this is beyond us."
"Nothing is beyond us Kellan and you know it. Stop being afraid and get going."
"I'm not God! I can't heal this!"
"You can start, Kellan stop it!"

The boy in the couch moans, picking up their anger, and Kellan backs away, ashamed. His fear is blinding him, he knows it.
"Ok, ok... Jesse I'm sorry..."
He sends it out again, and Sav sees the blue white spiders making their frantic way over the ravaged body.
"You see his feet, they're GONE Sav, he's walked the bottoms right off them. If he doesn't lose them it'll be a miracle, there's so much stuff in there... he's too tired to keep going, I don't know what we could do, we can't feed him, he won't be able to eat, he's too far gone. But if he doesn't he's going to die, he's living off parts of him that just aren't made to be broken down. He's gotta have antibiotics, he's so toxic... get
his clothes off, I want to see what's on him, he's gashed up everywhere..."

He watches his friends hands, gentle, hesitant, removing clothes become a reeking horror.
"Burn those. Let's get him in the bathroom, I want to at least rinse him off and see what I'm dealing with. He needs an IV Sav, he needs a heart moniter, he needs more than we can give him..."
"Go on, go on, I've got him but I don't want to hold on to him any longer than I have to."
"That's not very nice..."
"Yeah well..."

Kellan nods, hoping Jesse's not listening.
Between the blood, the dried on remnants of God new how much vomiting, and the parasites, touching him was a horror. Didn't mean he needed to know that.
Leading the way into the bathroom, he feels those blue-white spiders sinking into the boy, his sigh bitter, bracing for the onslaught he knows he'll have to face.
It's not hopeless, if it were those blips and tendrils of energy would have retreated. Instead they embedded, beginning their work, healing damage and filtering it back through him.

Exhausted from the struggle to keep Jordan from killing himself, repairing psychically caused damage almost constantly, he knows that the effort to heal this boy, going on now even without his control, could be a final act.
His reserves are depleted, his body worn.
Knowledge dark in his eyes, he shrugs it off. If this is his final strike so be it.

"He's not gonna die Sav."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah. It's already started, it sank in without me even thinking about it. If something's futile, the energy just reflects off, it doesn't sink in. But..."
He stops, biting back the involuntary sob that suddenly chokes his throat.
"Kel..."
"I... Sav I'll have to let go of Jordan."

Despair in those gray eyes, pain beyond imagination, and Sav feels it's echo in his heart. They both love Jordan, and they know the only thing that's kept him alive is Kellan's constant counterstrike to his attempts to die.
Still, Jordan had put everything on this boy in front of them... did they owe him a life he didn't want, in exchange for one he was willing to die for?

"What's he doing, Kel?"
"He's blowing out blood vessels one by one and he's doing it on purpose. I keep sealing them up behind him but I can't do that and do this... and this is going on without me... it's already started, I didn't decide... if I keep on with Jordan while it's working here I'll die before either one of them is
healed..."
"And they'll die too."
Kellan's laugh rings hollow in his ears. He knows Sav doesn't like him, knows his death wouldn't bother him, unless it meant the death of someone he held credible.
"Yeah Sav, if I die I'd inconsiderately kill them too."
"Don't be an ass."
"Don't help me or anything...."
"You can't afford to sit there and cry, there's too much at stake!"
"It's already going, can't you see it? Look at him! It's crawling all over him! I'm not just sitting here looking at him. Go let Angel in, just go!"

Jesse's eyes blink open again, their anger once more rousing him, and Kel feels the bones of fingers closing over his own.
He smiles a little, that touch is meant to comfort.
How can anyone in such an extremity reach to comfort someone else?
"Jesse, it's gonna be ok... I promise you."

Go Back To: The Gifted Ones