Stolen

Chapter Three:

Leon pushed himself up a little higher, his fingers finally grazing the second story windowsill, its bricks slick with rainwater. Pulling the screwdriver out of the back pocket of his jeans, he managed to quietly pry open the window. He learned earlier that the second story windows weren’t equipped with alarms, a fact Leon was thankful of. Without making a sound he climbed inside, dripping water everywhere. He set down the rope he had been carrying with him and quickly set up way to get down when he had what he came for.

Trying carefully not to disturb his surroundings, Leon crept slowly forward in the dark. A flash of lightning illuminated the room for a brief second before letting the shadows take over once again. It was enough for Leon to confidently make his way over to the motionless form lying face up on the bed.

Another burst of lightning revealed where Sora’s hands rested palm up on the bed and Leon’s eyes widened in a mixture of shock and horror. Deep cuts decorated the delicate flesh of Sora’s small wrists. The boy looked like he was barely breathing and Leon couldn’t be sure how long Sora had been left like that.

“Shit,” Leon gasped louder than he had intended. Unsure of what else to do, he quietly rushed over to Sora’s dresser, pulling out some of the kid’s clean clothes. He took what looked like a blue t-shirt and wrapped it tightly but carefully around one of Sora’s wrists, doing the same to the other limb.

It looked like Sora had barely noticed that Leon was even moving him. The boy only made the slightest moan or his muscles would sometimes twitch at Leon’s touches. Leon cursed under his breath again as he took another article of the teen’s clothing and this time wrapped both of Sora’s bandaged wrists together. He crouched down beside the somewhat unconscious teen and pulled Sora onto one of his shoulders.

Standing up with the added weight was not difficult for Leon; Sora was a skinny kid, he probably didn’t weigh a whole hell of a lot. Walking over to the window, Leon checked to make sure there were no security guards in sight before he took one last look at the blood stained bed in the room that he was about to leave behind. With more lightening, Leon noticed something he hadn’t been paying attention to before; laying in a puddle of crimson fluid on the bed was a picture frame. On a whim, Leon walked back over to the bed and stuffed the frame into the front pocket of his hoodie.

Using one hand to steady the teen on his shoulder, he carefully climbed out the window and used his other hand to lower the two of them to the ground. Leon made it to the earth with relatively no problems. His feet made soft squishing noises in the lush grass as he wandered to the other side of the property, where another rope waited for him.

This time he had set up a pulley onto on of the branches of the big oak tree that hung over the side of the brick wall that stretched around the perimeter of the Almasy estate. Leon quickly tied the small harness around Sora and pulled down on the other end of the rope that forced the teen up into the air. After Leon had set Sora gently down on the other side of the wall, he climbed the wall the same way he had been able to scale the side of Sora’s house. Once at the top of the wall, he leaped down, careful to avoid the unconscious boy on the ground below him.

Something tells me I got more than I bargained for, Leon thought as he took the harness off Sora and pulled him into his arms, this time bridal style. To anyone watching now, it would only look like Leon was carrying a passed out friend to his car, a car that he rented using a fake name and had false plates on it just to cover his tracks.

~*~

It had been easy for Leon to bring Sora up to his home; he used the fire escape and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, right outside his tiny apartment’s bedroom window. He had left it unlocked so he slipped in without a hitch.

Leon laid the boy gently on his bed before he dashed into his bathroom to grab the tiny first aid kit he kept in there for emergencies. Sitting on the bed beside Sora with the small box in his lap, Leon sighed. What was supposed to be a simple grab and go mission had suddenly turned into Leon playing nurse.

He quickly pushed those thoughts into the back of his mind and opened the lid of the first aid kit. Leon took out what he needed and slowly worked on unwrapping the cloth from Sora’s wrists. He was surprised at how relieved he had been to find that Sora’s bleeding had slowed a lot but Leon knew the teen had lost too much blood and if he didn’t get help, Sora wouldn’t last through the night. He disinfected and rewrapped the wounds in bandages best he could.

Leon finally took a second to stare at the boy he had just kidnapped. Sora had an almost peaceful look to him. Instinctively he reached up to brush away the bangs from Sora’s face, but caught himself when his fingers were hovering just inches from the soft skin of the teen’s forehead.

Letting out a quiet growl, Leon pulled himself away and stood up. He paced a few times across the small room before he stopped and started down at the unconscious boy in his bed.

“I need a real nurse,” he said, thinking out loud. Moving a shaking hand through his still dripping wet hair, his gaze moved from Sora over to his nightstand where his silver cell phone sat. With one more worried glance at Sora, he grabbed his phone from where he had left it. “I don’t have any other choice,” he breathed restlessly and with a quick flip of his thumb, the phone was opened and he was already working on dialling the numbers.

He only had to wait two short rings before someone picked up on the other end. “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice, surprisingly awake for what hour of the night it was.

It was a second before Leon decided it was necessary for him to answer; he closed his eyes and spoke clearly into the phone’s receiver. “I need a favour.”

Only the background noise of beeping and people moving around could be heard for a moment. “Squall?” The woman finally asked in a surprised tone. “Is that you?”

“I need you to get me blood and an IV,” Leon replied.

“B-blood?” The woman now sounded frantic. “Squall, are you ok? Are you hurt? What happened? Did you call the pol –”

“Kairi,” Leon interrupted the woman’s ramblings. “It’s not for me, it’s for …” he trailed off, glancing back at Sora. “The less you know, the better. Can you get it for me?”

“Squall, I can’t just take those things from the hospital.”

Leon watched as Sora’s chest barely rose and fell with each shallow breath the teen took. “Then he’ll die,” he said more to himself than to Kairi.

He heard a loud sigh from the other end. “Are you sure?”

“He had already lost a lot of blood when I … found him,” Leon replied.

“I – I’ll see what I can do; I’m just getting off work now,” she said before hanging up the phone.

~*~

Thirty minutes later, Leon opened the door to his apartment to find a very annoyed looking red head on the other side. Not waiting to be invited in, she pushed her way inside. “Do you have any idea what I had to do to get this stuff?” she huffed. “You do not want to know,” she continued, obviously suppressing a cringe. “Where is he?”

“Bedroom,” Leon replied, pointing to the room off to the left. He followed behind her into his bedroom. Leon watched as she placed the bag she was carrying on the end of the bed and dumped the rest of her things unceremoniously onto the floor. Kairi was too busy fumbling with setting up the equipment she had brought, and only when she was ready to put the IV in Sora’s arm, did she actually get the chance to look at him.

“My god, Squall!” She shrieked, almost dropping the needle she was holding. “He’s just a kid!”

“Seventeen,” Leon confirmed.

She whipped around to attack Leon with a stern, almost mother-like glare through stray pieces of her red bangs. Leon uncomfortably shifted his gaze from Kairi to Sora. The woman was able to pick up on the subtle change in Leon expression and she sighed, getting back to work. She had everything set up in less than five minutes.

“There,” Kairi said, standing back to admire her handiwork in the make-shift hospital room for a second before she leaned in and placed two fingers to Sora’s neck to check the teen’s pulse. “His heart is weak, but steady.”

“Will he survive?” Leon asked from his position leaning against the wall by the door. He ran his hand through his hair again before crossing his arms.

“With any luck he’ll be awake in a few days,” she replied. “There’s nothing more we can do besides getting him to a hospital.”

“That’s out of the question,” Leon snapped right away.

“Alright, alright.” Kairi said gathering all of her medical things up. With her bags in hand, she made her way over to stand beside Leon, looking back at Sora. “His bandages need to be changed three times a day for a few days. And keep disinfecting the wounds. I want you to call me as soon as you think it gets infected. Also make sure he doesn’t get tangled in the cords or gets a kink in either of them.”

“Right,” Leon agreed.

“Squall,” she said turning to him face him this time. “You did the right thing in calling me,” she continued. “It’s just a waiting game now.”

After a few minutes of silence, Kairi gave up thinking she was going to get a reply out of Leon, so she made her way to the door; it had been a long day and she was anxious to get home and forget this ever happened. When she put her hand on the door she heard Leon call her name and she turned back to see him standing in the doorway; he looked exhausted.

“Yeah?” Kairi asked. Her expression had softened at the worried look in her half-brother’s eyes.

“Thank you.”

Kairi smiled and nodded as she turned the doorknob and stepped out of Leon’s small apartment, closing the door behind her.

~*~

It’s dark. Too dark.

Am I dead?

The darkness … I must be in hell.

It’ll be heaven compared to the world I was living in before.

Sora eyes burned when a sudden bright yellow light overpowered all his other senses. He instinctively shied away from the brightness, but it was too much. A cold, damp sensation spread from his forehead, down his cheeks and across his chest. Sora couldn’t help but let out a small moan from the feeling; it was such a contrast to how hot he felt that the feeling was almost overwhelmingly delicious.

The pain in his eyes faded and he dared to open them, to take in the surroundings of his new world. Staring straight ahead, he found himself looking at a plain white wall. Or was it a ceiling? Sora couldn’t be sure which way was up. It was strange to discover the new world looked too much like the old one.

The cold sensation materialized on his chest again, this time working its way up to his forehead. Sora caught a glimpse of a human looking hand and a black washcloth.

Or maybe he hadn’t left the old world after all …

With this realization came panic; Sora tried to move, to get up, to defend himself, but he only managed to flail an arm weakly into the air before he felt to exhausted to think. Slowly Sora slipped back into the realm of unconsciousness.

~*~

Darkness again.

What’s going on?

This time Sora felt more than just a cold sensation; there was a dull throbbing in his wrists. That’s right, Sora thought. I committed suicide or tried to at least.

“You weren’t successful,” it was a man’s voice. Cold but soothing, the voice sounded annoyed with a hint of another emotion Sora couldn’t quite identify.

Sora opened his eyes, this time he looked around. He found the person the voice belonged to; a man, a stranger but some how he seemed oddly familiar, was sitting beside him. The man was responsible for the cold sensation. Sora watched as the man dabbed the washcloth in a bowl on the table before it was placed gently against his skin. Sora’s eyes fluttered closed as the chilly feeling moved across his chest to wrap around his neck before disappearing.

It continued like that for several minutes. Sora just taking in his surroundings and every few seconds he’d get distracted by the man trying to bring down his fever. Every once in a while Sora let out another soft moan, but it didn’t seem to bother either of them. Sora felt oddly relaxed, and at peace in this new place. At that moment he didn’t care if he was in heaven or hell; all he knew was that he liked it.

He found himself staring at the man now. At the brow furrowed in determination, the stormy grey colour of his eyes, the way the diagonal scar made the man more attractive rather than ugly. Sora occupied himself by observing the way the strands of the stranger’s almost shaggy brown hair swayed and framed his with each small movement.

“Angel,” Sora whispered as the man pulled the washcloth down his chest. The cold feeling pause for a moment over his abdomen before it was removed completely.

“What?”

There was another attempt at getting the fever under control before Sora spoke again. “Feels good.”

“You have a bad fever,” the man said. “You’ve been just started on antibiotics, so I have to try to bring your fever down manually until the medicine starts working.”

“I’m alive?” Sora blinked. “Where am I?”

“My house.” That was all the other offered as a reply. A moment passed before he started speaking again. “What do you remember? Tell me who hurt you.”

That confused Sora. “I did this to myself,” he breathed out.

The stranger leaned in closer to Sora and he could smell the man’s very appealing scent with the close proximity. “I’m talking about this,” he said and brought up his hand to cup Sora’s cheek. He could feel the stranger’s rough thumb rub gently over the now almost healed cut marring his bottom lip.

The combination of slight pain and gazing up into the attractive man’s face sparked a memory in Sora. Realization dawned on him and his features reflected his new discovery. “I ran into you,” he said.

“Yes, I was tailing you,” the man admitted. “But how did you get this cut?”

Sora felt a little more pressure being added to his lip, like it was being split all over again. He flinched away from the pain and turned his head away. “Hurts.”

At once the man was back into his original sitting position and the cold sensation resumed. Sora heard something that sounded like an apology, before his eyes became to heavy for him to keep opened and he fell asleep.

~*~

“You didn’t bring the boy.”

Leon found himself staring unsympathetically at his client. Once again he had been called to have a meeting in the now too familiar alley. “There’s been a slight complication,” he said.

“You’re backing out?” The shady man almost hissed at Leon.

“No,” Leon replied, his patience was rapidly running thin. “It’ll be a few more days. You’ll have him by the end of the week.”

An unsettling laughter filled cool night air. “Good, good,” the shady man said. “Then I will have a little bit more time to come up with the munny.”

“Are you saying you don’t have it?” Leon asked icily.

“There’s been a slight complication,” the man said, throwing Leon’s words back at him. “I don’t have it all. Not yet. But you’ll have it all when I have the boy.”

Leon said nothing as he made his way out of the eerily lit alley. Already he was beginning to dread giving up Sora to his creepy client.

~*~

AN: Yay, no one really tried to kill me for the previous chapter's really bad (or was it really good?) cliff-hanger ending. And I can sit back and relax now that this chapter is up.