Nothing I

There's nothing more I can do for him. I know this, and he knows this, and he still smiled like that.
And somehow my gut tells me, “no, no, you can do something. Wait.”
So I wait.
He's lost a lot of blood, I know. The doctor said he might survive, might, maybe, if he has a transfusion.
There is no blood for a transfusion, not for him. My blood does not match his, but I know this, and it is true in too many ways. There's nothing I can do here.
But I wait.
The steady rise and fall of his chest is half matched by the slow beep-beep-beep of the heart rate monitor, occasionally in sync and most of the time not, but it doesn't matter anyway. Both will stop soon. He fell into unconsciousness a few hours ago, as his body slowly started shutting down. The mountain of blankets on top of him seems to be crushing his frail form, but they're his best chance. And he's pale, so pale, and there's nothing I can do.
I am waiting for a miracle.
The nurse comes in every half hour or so, asks me if there's been any change. There hasn't been, just the rise and fall and the beep beep beep and the slowing of them both and he's dying and I don't want to let go of his hand.
And there's nothing I can do.
Lucas is going to die tonight.
All I can do is wait.
His eyes are closed I think, still covered beneath the bandages, and I know that it's better this way. He has always been ashamed, so ashamed of them, and I know he wouldn't want to be ashamed in his last moments.
But he shouldn't feel that way, because there's a bullet hole in his shoulder instead of in my heart, and it didn't have to be that way.
It's dark outside the little window, but the blinds are down regardless. A policeman shifts outside the door, listening to the beep-beep-beep and the hospital carts rolling past and the sheer weight of the air, and I know he's afraid, but not like I am. He is afraid that someone will come to kill me too, and he'll fail and I'll be shot, or he'll be shot this time, like Lucas was. But I am afraid because Lucas is dying, and I am living, and I don't want it to be that way.
And I know, I know, that my testimony will avenge him, but it doesn't matter. The man who shot him is in custody already, and the men who hired him will be in custody soon enough, and I will nail their coffin without Lucas by my side. That is what I can do, and what I will.
But it doesn't matter, because Lucas won't be there, and that's not how it's supposed to go.
We were supposed to do it together. I promised him, really promised, that I'd stick with him until we brought them down. And he promised, with all the sincerity of a man who never doubted anyone but himself, that he would stay with me until the end.
I doubt he has much time left for that.
The nurse comes in, her shoes click-clicking against the white tile, and she smiles at me in the way of someone who knows there is nothing to smile about, and I try to smile, but realize that I'm crying. She hands me a tissue and asks me if there has been any change. There has been no change.
She moves to remove the cloth from his eyes, the one thing still clean, still untouched through all this bleeding and dying and catching bullets, and I move to stop her. She says she has to clean off his face, because he's sweating, and for some reason that's bad. I still can't let her do it, and I'm crying, and she's still trying to smile that same way, but can't. So I say let me do it, if I do it it might be alright, even though I know it's not, and he would be ashamed.
And she agrees.
So I carefully, careful not to rip the bandage or touch his skin or wake him, carefully remove the bandage. I apologize as I do, but he cannot hear me.
It is surprising. The nurse doesn't know, so she goes to work washing his face. But there's nothing wrong. There's nothing different, nothing to hide. His skin is just as pale, just as smooth as the rest of his face, and his eyes are closed, with long black eyelashes and I am curious now. There's nothing wrong.
And there's nothing for him to be ashamed of, and he shouldn't have to feel that way.
The nurse is leaving now, and I don't say goodbye. The rise and fall and the beep-beep-beep are unchanged, the sky is still dark and the policeman still stands there and the blankets are still far too heavy, and Lucas is still dying, but now I don't understand and I never will.
And there's nothing I can do.
I watch him now, like I did at the very first, a man who looks dead in a thin blue hospital gown, except now he really is dying, and there is no panic to hide my feelings with. And all I can do is wait for him to die.
He shifts, almost imperceptibly, with the same weak, barely fighting spirit he's always had as he tries to hold on to life, but there's not enough blood for him to hold on to, and I'm crying again.
We're still for a moment as he lies there, weightless beneath the mountain of blankets, and I reach out to brush his black hair out of his face, because I want to see his eyes (and I am sorry, Lucas.)
And my hand lingers for a moment, and the beep-beep-beep is going steady and I am crying, and there's nothing wrong except a hole in his shoulder and I'll never understand, never understand why he was always so ashamed, and there's nothing, nothing, nothing I can do.
He opens his eyes.

Defiant Chapter 3

“So,” Cain said with a smile that would reassure a vampire, “I understand that it's you gentlemen who saw the phantom?”

Surveyors One, Two, and Three, better known as Jim, Carlson, and Edward, looked at him from their hospital beds. “Um... Yes,” said Jim.

“Who are you?” asked Carlson.

“And why do you have a loaded rifle?” Edward chimed in.

“All in time, my friends. As for now, just think of me as the creepy man with a rifle in your hospital room who's going to ask you questions. You're going to answer them.” Cain enjoyed scaring people, and this was a prime opportunity. “Right?”

After a moment's hesitation all three chorused, “Right.”

“So exactly what do you want to know?” asked Jim hesitantly.

“For starters, where did you see it?”

“In the west side of the forest, slightly south of the hidden trail head we found a few months back. He... I mean, the phantom, hadn't been seen there before, so we figured we'd be alright,” said Carlson.

“Wrong...” muttered Edward.

“You say the phantom is a he?” Cain focused his attentions on Carlson, but Jim answered instead.

“Yeah. Me and Ed got a better look then Carlson did, cause we started running later.”

“Hey, he was scary! Leaping out of a tree in a cloak the color of blood, and then just standing there, staring...”

“Hey, you took off almost before he started coming at us! For all we knew, he could've just been some random dude... In a cloak... Leaping out of trees... With freakish red spirals all over half of his face... Ok, so he probably wasn't normal,” Ed conceded.

“Anyway. He's a guy phantom, or whatever. Not a normal human. As Ed mentioned, he had freakish red spirals on the left half of his face.”

“ Red spirals?” questioned Cain. “You do realize that your story contradicts the wraith-like-tortured-spirit face story we've been getting up until now.” They shrugged. “Ok, back to the spirals. Just that made him not human?”

“Well, that and the flying. I swear he was flying.” Carlson interjected.

“Oh, not the whole 'It flew, It flew!' thing again. Are you sure it was flying?” Cain glared and fingered his rifle as he spoke. “Because this will go much easier if your story follows the laws of physics.”

“Hey, no need for violence.” Edward held up his hands, one of which was in a cast. “We're just telling you what we saw. The guy might not have been flying, but it looked a heck of a lot like it.”

“Ok, start from when you first saw the phantom.” Cain sighed.

“Well... We heard a voice when we were just heading down the trail, minding our own business...”

“And mercilessly mocking Carlson,” interjected Carlson.

“We were not merciless,” muttered Edward.

“Boys?” Cain tapped his fingers on the rifle. “I only need one of you to tell this story.”

“Um... Boys?”

Carlson made a face at Edward, then caught Cain's glare. He shrank back. “Shutting up now.”

Edward smiled. “Phantom tree, Carlson, Phantom tree...” Cain relocated the glare. Edward flinched. “Joining him.”

“Thank you,” said Cain, then motioned to Jim again. “Continue.”

“Well... We were minding our own business, mocking Carlson about believing in the phantom and all...” Jim paused and sent an apologetic look to Carlson, who smiled an I-told-you-so type of smile. “Headed towards where Edward thought he'd heard something. And I'd just said that if we saw the phantom, then I'd believe it exists, flying red ghost all the way. Just then, the thing did a front flip out of a tree ahead of us and landed about 40, 45 feet away, with this billowing red cloak thing swirling around it. Honestly, it was almost sorta cool.”

“And you almost sorta wet yourself,” interrupted Carlson with a grin.

“Look who's talking.” Edward said, dissipating Carlson's smile.

“Guys, now is not the time...” Jim was watching Cain.

“Gentlemen...” Cain's voice carried a warning tone in it. “There's two bullets in my rifle and three of you. As I mentioned before...”

“Um... Yes. Being quiet is a wonderful thing, with many redeeming qualities! Boy I sure do love being quiet, it's one of my favorite things, and...”

“We're going to practice right now! Yes, right now! Why don't we just let Jim get on with telling the scary rifle man the story now.”

“Anyway! After the billowing cloak thing, he just sorta stood there and watched us for a moment, and I told the boys that...”

“Wait, it sorta stood there? How can it sorta stand there?”

“Well, it's just the way he was standing. He looked ready to move, almost like he was moving already, like he was just waiting for us to run before he started chasing us. And he pointed at us, like he was accusing us of something... Of course, when we didn't run right away, he just leapt into the air, about ten feet high, coming towards us, and... Well...”

“We screamed like little girls and ran.”

“Very fast little girls. Manly ones.”

“Yeah,” Jim shrugged. “Pretty much.”

Hey! It's a new chapter! That has been written for like, a month now! Feel free to critique.