Kalli
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Jet couldn’t help starting up at this, more concerned than ever as those fragments of Kal’s throat pinged off the roof. At least he would heal, but Jet was still worried. He was about to suggest that they get somewhere less conspicuous and rest when the sounds of people from downstairs got considerably louder. Jet scrambled to a kneeling position, wincing at the pain in his leg, and looked down over the bent railing of the roof. He could see movement through the dirty windows on the storey below where the apartments had caved in.
“You’d better get to safety before they find you.” he said, turning back to Kal. “Wherever you can find it, just so no one can hurt you. I’m going to try and salvage what I can from my apartment, but….I think it’s pretty much gone to hell. No point living there now.”
With a sudden push, and a hiss that escaped through his teeth, Jet forced himself to stand. His footing was unsteady, but he’d dealt with worse injuries than this one. Now wasn’t the time for weakness, or mourning the loss of his shitty apartment. In some way, he did mourn because it had been a sort of safe haven. What little he owned he’d scraped together with much hard work. Now…
No use crying over spilled milk; just man up and move on. “Sorry you got hurt because I was stupid…” he said, looking at Kal. “But thanks for taking that girl to the clinic…and for everything. If you manage to get to the woods, I’ll try to find you.”
Kal may not have understood Jet’s reasoning for any of what he said, but in the boy’s mind he truly expected Kal to leave him behind for greener pastures. That was what always happened with everyone else- when Jet was proved to be a walking disaster area, people just left him behind…or they died.
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(Nah, it’s ok! Get some rest lol)
Jet accepted the nod as an answer; he seemed to just need some assurance that there would be no more death and destruction.
“Will your throat heal on its own?” he asked after a pause, in which his hand fell back into his lap, and he leaned back to look into Kal’s eyes. It seemed ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers would have to do for now, but so long as Kal was alive and with him Jet was fine with that. he just wished he could do more for his friend.
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Jet perked up almost as soon as that pale figure landed, and though he couldn’t stand up just yet, he was trying. As Kal’s neck bent his large head down to examine the wound in Jet’s leg, the boy placed a hand on his head. It shook a bit, partly because he was holding back the urge to embrace that head in lieu of the body his arms wouldn’t fit around. It was a rather strange impulse, but Jet wasn’t a completely hardened streetrat, either.
“You made it back.” he said quietly, relief plain in his voice. The boy had exhaled a long breath he didn’t know he was holding, and he sat back, but his hand remained near Kal’s cheek…or what passed for a cheek, anyway. “You alright? How is the girl? Did she make it to the clinic ok?” Kal likely would not have understood this level of concern, or the vulnerable look in Jet’s blue eyes as they scanned him intently, but Jet couldn’t help it. The stress of the day was getting to him, and the thought of death hung heavy in teh air.
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Jet couldn’t see more than moving shapes that far away, but Kal was distinctive enough if you knew what to look for. The boy crouched on the roof, keeping his eyes on that white shape, when he suddenly let out a gasp. A sharp pain stabbed upward from his right calf as his weight shifted on each foot. Frowning, he slid into a seated position and felt down the back of his pant leg, feeling the warm wet of the blood he hadn’t noticed before, but was soaking the dark fabric.
Jet was surprised to find that a long, thin piece of wood had imbedded itself in the skin and muscle. How had he not felt that? How had he walked out with it? Probably adrenaline and focusing on the others, who were not here to distract him so much now. Wincing as his pain grew with every moment, he nevertheless grasped the wood and yanked it out, gritting his teeth. At least there were no other injuries that had gone unnoticed. He hoped.
Pulling back his pant leg, he grabbed the jacket that had been around the girl, and dropped to the roof as Kal leaped into the air. Using that as a makeshift bandage, he settled back to wait for Kal to return. Jet hoped they would both be alright. If only he hadn’t let teh girl go back for her rope… This was basically his fault, wasn’t it?
Jet rubbed his face, then half-slumped with the realization. Yeah….most of this was his fault. If he hadn’t wanted Kal to stick close-by, if he hadn’t let the girl go back to the other room…. He was pretty much a screw-up, wasn’t he?
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Without meaning to, as Jet was lifted, he clutched the girl tightly against his chest. That was probably what woke her. Looking down at her face, he was alarmed to see her blank gaze. When Kal took her, Jet followed with a pounding heart, his rough exterior gone for the moment. Worry for the girl, and for Kal, filled up too much of his mind now for masks.
When he got to the unbroken part of the roof with Kal, Jet looked out over the city, and pointed Eastward to a cluster of buildings near a very large metal and glass skyscraper. “See over there? The white building with all the air-conditioning units on the roof? It’s right next to the dark brown building. That white building is the clinic. They’ll have to take her there. I’m not sure how to get her in…maybe just leave her where she’ll be seen.”
Jet looked over at her, wincing. The poor girl looked horrible, and only the raspy sound of her breathing told him she was alive. His eyes traveled back to Kal, and he stepped back for the creature’s wings to spread. At teh same time, something intensely vulnerable entered his eyes, and pinched his features.
“Please…be safe, Kal. And keep her safe, too.” For her it was general concern, but for the creature, something far deeper and more personal.
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Jet took Kal’s tail with a rather weird feeling about doing so, because it was a tail, after all. But with it they were both able to get out of the ruined room through the door. Jet let those strange digits wrap around his hand as he carried the girl in his arms, which was tricky, given everything on the floor, and the fact that he couldn’t see anything. How Kal could see was beyond him, since debris blocked out any light for a couple dozen feet or so. That was why Jet had to trust Kal to navigate, or else he would have gotten lost and trapped, along with the girl in his arms.
Luckily, they were not far from the old balcony on that floor, which had survived more or less intact. Jet was happy to get through, as the air inside had become close and dense, and he choked every other breath. Cleaner air was a welcome change.
Outside, the sun was heading West in the afternoon sky, but storm clouds threatened on the horizon. Below their feet Jet could hear sounds of people moving around and shouting, possibly about the collapse of two floors. The only thing that had saved them from discovery was that the rooms below had been empty for years after a fire damaged them. It was part of the reason for the recent collapse of ceiling and floors. Whether or not anyone from below could now get up to the ruined rooms was some point of conjecture.
The girl, though waifish in build, was still a dead weight in his arms, and worryingly pale. Jet looked up at what he could see of his ‘home’, wincing. Half the floor was gone, and he could see his old fridge just staying balanced on the edge. There was no going back up there at this point. Maybe he could come back and try to scavenge what was left, but…
That would have to happen later. He had a very injured girl on his hands, and was not keen to have her die. But how to get her down and to the proper help was the problem.
“We gotta get out of here.” he mumbled, turning to look at Kal. “I don’t think you can carry both of us, but she needs a doctor. If I tell you where to go, could you drop her off? There’s a clinic near here….I just…I don’t know how bad she is, but I think she’s really hurt.”
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Just as Kal automatically stood over the two humans to shield them, Jet managed to roll over the unconscious girl, covering her body with his own. He didn’t even think about it, nor did he move from his protective position until the crashing and creaking stopped, and the dust started to settle. He checked to make sure the girl was still breathing, and released a breath when he felt her heartbeat.
The next intake of air nearly made him choke. Coughing, he waved the cloud in front of his face away, his eyes tearing up from all the contaminated air. Jet staggered unsteadily to his feet, trying to figure out how far they’d fallen, and how to get out. When he looked back to check on Kal, his watery eyes went wide. The girl now hung limply from the creature’s tail appendages, but Kal was looking at him, as though waiting for some signal.
“Whoa…hey….put her down!” he choked, moving to try and gather her in his arms. “Carefully! She’s hurt…and she’s just a kid.” It seemed strange to be defending the same girl who had shot Kal in the mouth, and had destroyed part of their home, but she was helpless at the moment. “Please, Kal….let’s just figure a way out of here, and we can worry about the other stuff later. You’re hurt, too.”
Behind him, Jet became aware of the sound of water gushing forth, and he turned to see a spray of it leaking over the wreckage. An idea occurred to him, then, and he turned back to Kal with hope in his eyes.
“Water…hey! Isn’t that what you need? Water? Will that help?” It would help the girl, too.
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Jet growled as the girl, who was even lighter than himself, darted over the unsteady ‘bridge’ between the apartments and out of sight. He had fully expected that to break, and was surprised when the rotten boards held steady. He was usually very careful about going over that way, but she crossed like it was no problem at all. Cursing, he followed, not in time to catch what she had pulled out from under the mattress. Not killing her the first minute was seeming like a bad decision, since she could now have a weapon he didn’t know about.
It seemed like an even worse decision as Kal suddenly came into view amidst a mess of debris and dust and noise. Jet had to scramble back as part of the floor under his feet cracked and slumped under the weight of the creature. It was that split second which gave the girl time to draw and fire, before Jet could aim a return shot at her. In the cutthroat world of the streets, Kal was his ally, and she was now an enemy. Jet had enough skill just to clip her arm, without killing her, but he wasn’t going to let his friend get hurt. If she died, it was her own fault.
Jet’s weapon was out, but the girl had rolled behind Kal and away from him. Several loud ‘pings’ followed the sounds of a gun going off, and Jet felt something graze his cheek. It was in that moment that he felt a bit like laughing because he remembered being down in the underground place and thinking he could shoot Kal. Back when he thought of Kal as a threat. Now, it was the girl in trouble, and though Jet didn’t want her around, he also didn’t want her dead, if it could be helped.
“Kal, wait! Don’t kill her!” he called, hopping over the hole in the floor, and trying to get to them both. He was afraid the creature would go with his programming and make her explode, too. Not that Kal didn’t have a right to defend himself…but she was just a kid! As Jet was finally able to find a viable path across the broken floor, he heard another shot, and winced at the strange, screeching noise. His cries as the girl was flung through the wall went unheeded, but then Kal turned a bit and Jet understood what he hadn’t seen.
“Kal!” he cried, moving to the creature and holstering his gun at the same time. From here he could tell that the girl had shot into Kal’s mouth, but it wasn’t blood leaking from the corners of the pale jaws. Jet looked up at him, his mask of calm gone. Fear was in his wide blue eyes, which turned to look at the girl, then back to Kal. A split-second decision was made, but jet wasn’t abandoning one for the other.
“Stay here a bit…don’t move.” he said, moving over to where the girl lay in her own blood. He was relieved to feel a steady pulse when he touched her neck, though it was slow. At least she was alive. On further inspection she didn’t appear to have any major broken bones or injuries, though he couldn’t be sure.
Carefully, Jet turned her over, so she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. Then, using her knife, he cut two small pieces of cloth off the hem of her jacket and stuffed them in her nose. He couldn’t tell if it was broken or not at this point, but the wads would help with that, too. Jet then pocketed her weapons and, on a last whim, removed his jacket to drape over her. Underneath he wore no shirt so the many scars on his bare chest and back were exposed to view. Jet didn’t seem to care much at the moment.
Having taken quick care of the girl, he moved back to Kal, his face pale and drawn with worry. Jet had no idea what he could do about it, but he felt like he should do something. he reached out to try and wipe some of it away with his hands, not knowing if it would hurt him or not.
“What can I do?” he asked, looking into those yellow eyes with obvious concern. “Talk to me, buddy…in my head. Can you tell me what to do to help?”
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Jet looked from her to the window them back again. His expression turned slightly thoughtful, but mostly he wore a flat, mask-like expression. When Jet was like this, it became harder to read what was going on in his head.
“Come on. We’re going to go down and get your stuff.” he said, motioning to the front door with a nod of his head.
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“Damn good thing you didn’t meet the guy who lives below me, then. He has a thing for underage girls.” Jet had seen him earlier in a drunken coma on the front steps. Too sloshed to climb up to his apartment, probably.
Jet’s mind turned immediately back to the girl, and what she’d said about the rope. “You climbed up twelve floors with just a rope?” he asked skeptically.
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Jet had never liked having to threaten anyone with grievous bodily harm, especially someone as young as the girl. He preferred to keep himself to himself. However, better to scare her now than have her coming back because she saw him as a soft target.
Jet followed her into his room, glad to see that Kal was nowhere in sight. The moment she’d gone in that direction, all he could think of to do was kick a piece of drywall to make noise so Kal would know they were coming. He didn’t know where the creature had gone, and was on pins and needles that the girl might discover their secret. His eyes scanned the room, then landed on the window.
“That’s a twelve story drop down the wall. How did you get up through that window?” he asked. His gun was lowered now, but ready to rise and shoot quicker than sight. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
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Jet’s blue eyes searched hers for a long while, and he said nothing. Her words were clanking around in his head like so many pieces of sharp metal. Obviously she didn’t have a drone, so that didn’t bother him. It was her other words that rankled.
“If I live in a shitty apartment, why would I have that kind of tech myself?” he posited, then stepped back, releasing her. “I don’t want your money, I just want you gone. You’re damn lucky I can actually handle a firearm, unlike the gangs I’m supposed to belong to.” Bastards couldn’t shoot straight, and usually ended up killing people they weren’t even targeting.
Though he had moved away from her, the young man still held his gun up, aimed at her head. “Show me which way you came in.”
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Jet was of Kal’s opinion, though that didn’t make him any more inclined to be nice to the girl. If he hadn’t been afraid something like this was behind her sudden appearance, he would have given himself and Kal away by reacting. Only a moment of hesitation, or going pale, and she would have known she was onto something. The girl was smart enough for that, but Jet didn’t give anything away. At least, he hoped not.
The hands pinning her wrists eased, and he pulled his gun away a few centimeters, so it wasn’t pushing into her skull. Yet he didn’t let go completely. His eyes were still fixed on her, narrow and cold, hiding the fear of discovery.
“If someone’s flying a drone around here it’s not mine. But they better not be using it on me.” He nodded at his gun for emphasis, then leaned in slightly to glare at her. “You sure it wasn’t you with a drone? I’ve had problems with rats before…” Yes, go with the lie, throw her off the trail. “And what do you mean you’ve ‘heard’ about me being alone?”
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Jet’s movement was quick and precise as he forced her back against the wall, the barrel of the gun sliding to her temple as he wrenched her arms over her head, pinning them with his other hand. For someone so underfed as himself, he was stronger than he looked.
“Listen,” he growled, “I don’t care for shooting kids, but I can break my usual rule if I have to. Either you tell me the truth, or your time on the streets is going to be cut very short.” Jet was not pleased at all, and it showed in the hard edge of his mouth, and the sharp color of his eyes. He had detected something like a lie in her quavering eyes, but having Kal confirm it definitely helped. Jet had decided to be frightening at the moment; he hoped it would work.
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Jet was only momentarily startled by the very mental invasion he’d been hoping for. Perhaps someday he would get used to it, but he was still not expecting to hear that familiar voice in his head. The only outward sign he gave, though, was a slight unfocusing of the eyes, and an increase in tension. He was going to lose track of how much he owed to Kal at this point.
Turning his attention back to the girl, Jet’s blue eyes narrowed. “I don’t appreciate being lied to. Want to try again? The truth this time.” He shifted a step nearer, more to scare her than because he really wanted to hurt her. “Tell me why you came here if you already knew this place was occupied.”