Chapter 15

"Do you mind repeating that?" Felicia put her phone on speaker so that the others could hear.

"I said that someone tried to shoot me," Sabine repeated. "They grazed my head."

"Shit. Where are you?"

"I was just leaving the lab when it happened."

"Are you still there now?"

"Yes, after I got shot, I hid in my office."

"Stay there, Eddie and I are on our way." Felicia hung up the phone. "Eddie, that gun of yours might be coming in handy after all."

~

The inside of Reynolds' car was nearly pristine, and it still had that new car smell.

"Clearly someone hasn't heard of personalization," Eddie commented. "It's like no one drives this thing."

"Something tells me that personalization isn't really his thing," Felicia replied as she got into the driver's seat. "He's got long-ass legs, that's for sure." She added as she fixed the seat so that she could sit comfortably.

What normally would have been a thirty minute drive took half the time, and Felicia ran into Sabine's office.

The woman was sitting at her desk, a cloth pressed to the side of her head.

"Let me take a look," Felicia said, but Sabine shook her head.

"I'm fine." Sabine insisted.

"Sabine." Felicia's voice was firm, causing Sabine to look at her in surprise. "Where is this sudden boldness coming from?"

"It's a long story. Now let me take a look, or I'll knock you out and look at it that way."

Sabine blinked in shock before she grudgingly allowed Felicia to look at her injury. "I'm sure that it looks worse than it actually is."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Felicia replied as she peeled away the cloth. "Sabine, we need to get you to the hospital."

"I'm alright."

"Sabine, you're lucky that bullet didn't take out a chunk of your skull."

"I said that I'm fine." Sabine tried to stand up, but she fell to the floor.

"Sabine!"

"I feel a bit dizzy…"

"Shit! Eddie, pick her up, we need to get her to the emergency room right now."

Eddie picked up Sabine with ease, following Felicia back out to the parking lot.

A shot rang out, and Felicia screamed, instinctively ducking. "They set up a freaking trap!"

The shooter didn't kill Sabine on purpose, Felicia realized. Somehow, they knew that Felicia would come to Sabine's aid.

Felicia looked around to see where the shots might be coming from. The area was all open, except for a group of trees near the parking lot.

"Eddie, get her to the car!"

Another shot, this one hitting the hood of the car.

"My gun is in my back pocket!" Eddie shouted. "Get it and cover me!"

Felicia grabbed the weapon from his pocket and clicked off the safety. A third shot erupted, and Felicia saw a flash of light from the group of trees. She shot in that direction twice as Eddie ran to the car, putting Sabine in the backseat.

Felicia pulled the trigger again, but nothing happened other than a clicking sound. "Are you kidding me?! Eddie, you didn't even fully load this thing!"

"Just get in the damn car, you can lecture me later!"

Felicia ran to the car and ripped the door open, a bullet shattering the window. She wasted no time in starting the car, and they zoomed out of the parking lot.

~

"What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" Eddie panted, relaxing a bit when no more shots rang out.

"Some deep shit is what," Felicia answered. She was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. She drove faster than what was safe, but that was the last thing on her mind at the moment.

She pulled up to the emergency room entrance, honking her horn loudly. A few moments later, two nurses came out with a stretcher.

"What happened?" One of the nurses asked.

"She was shot," Felicia replied, trying her best to keep calm. "The bullet grazed the side of her head."

"And how long ago did this happen?"

"I don't know, I got a call from her maybe an hour ago, which was when she told me that she had gotten shot."

The two nurses rushed Sabine inside the hospital, and Felicia was able to follow as far as the emergency surgery doors.

"You need to wait here." The nurse told her. "Someone will come and let you know when she's out of surgery."

"Come on." Eddie gently took Felicia by the arm, leading her back toward the waiting room.

"It was a trap," Felicia said as she sat down. "It was a trap, and Sabine was the damn bait."

"But how did they know about Sabine's connection to you?" Eddie asked.

"I don't know, seems like I don't know much about anything these days." Felicia stood up, pacing around the room. "Damn it!" She shouted as she kicked at a chair, causing multiple people to look at her in concern.

"Felicia, you need to calm down," Eddie told her. "You're going to get yourself kicked out."

"How the hell am I supposed to remain calm, Eddie?! Sabine was shot because of me!"

"Felicia, you've got to try and keep it together, you're not going to be able to help Sabine if you're not even allowed to enter the hospital." Eddie stood up, going to Felicia's side. "Let me see your arm." He said in a low voice.

Felicia looked around to make sure that no one was paying them too much attention before she rolled up her sleeve. The dressing that she had applied to her arm clearly wasn't doing any good, it was almost like it was stuck to her skin, or what was left of it. There was barely any skin left, and you could see raw flesh underneath.

"Holy shit, Felicia!"

"Ssh!" Felicia quickly yanked her sleeve back down. "Keep your voice down, I don't exactly want the whole hospital to know that my flesh is rotting away!"

"You need to get this looked at."

"By who? No one is going to know what this is, Eddie, or how to cure it, and the last thing I want is to be someone's lab rat."

Eddie knew that he wouldn't be able to dissuade Felicia, so he dropped the subject. "I'm gonna call Kirk, let him and Hank know what's going on."

"Good idea, he's probably losing his shit right now because neither of us has called him."

Felicia watched Eddie walk away before she sat back down. She could tell that she was slowly starting to lose it, and there was no telling when she would snap, or who would be caught in the aftermath.