Running Edge

Kurisu followed after Mya also sprinting off. "Yeah... so do I." he responded, also having naturally picked up the wailing sound.

 

alex slowly pulled out each individual staple with the pliers.
"lynne you shouldn't feel anything, but in the event that you do, speak up right away and i'll give you more morphine."
once all the staples were out she picked up the scalpel and slowly traced the still fresh incision on lynne's stomach and chest. it took no work to cut her open the difficult part would be removing the bomb without damaging any of lynne's internal organs.
"all right. time for the hard part."
she picked up a clamp to pull lynne's abdomen apart.
"i...i see it..."

 

Ryku nodded and swallowed. He wasn't so well with blood, but in this case, the severity of the bomb threat was overwelming his revulsion to blood. "Yeah, me too. It's not so complex. You see that? The and red wires running from the bomb upwards? It must be connected to a device set on her heart. Her heart rate must be key to setting it off."

 

alex stared down into lynne's chest.
"she did say she needed to stay calm. obviously if she gets too worked up then the bomb will go off. how quickly can you take it out? i can't keep lynne open. this is isn't safe for her. plus i have a limited amount of morphine."
she couldn't take her eyes off of the bomb. it was actually quite beautiful in a way. the time someone would have had to go through to construct it is just as tedious and time consuming as surgery.

 

Ryku pulled out a wickedly sharp dagger, "Not long. I just need to find the right wire to cut to defuse it before trying to take the wires around her heart out. Making sure it doesn't explode is first. Worrying about heart failure isn't as severe as her body in pieces." He trailed down the wires and around the bomb. "Dammit...it must be underneath... Lynne...this is going to feel really weird, but I promise you'll be fine. He stuck a hand inside her and underneath the bomb, reaching...fumbling for the wire he was looking for. He pulled out, frustrated. "Deep breath for me Lynne." Doing as he said, Ryku watched the bomb lift up and he snatched at the darker wire. Red is the pizza you want, blue is the sorrow you'll feel. Cutting the blue wire, all the lights died on the bomb and he lifted it out, tugging lightly at the red wires near her heart. "One last...thing." Cutting them as close to her beating heart as he could get, Ryku stripped the wires out and slowly pulled the plastic tubing away from her heart. Setting it all on the ground beside him, Ryku leaned backwards, "She's your patient now."

 

the anxiety was painstakingly obvious on alex's face. the hard part was over, but it was hard to believe it. they made it without anyone dying. alex removed the clamp and picked up the needle and thread. she slowly started stitching lynne up. she didn't want it to rip open so alex took her time with it since there was no real hurry anymore. when it was done she rubbed some salve over the incision and put a large guaze patch over it.
"lynne, i need you to slowly sit up so i can wrap the bandage around your abdomen. it'll keep the gauze from moving and help from tearing the stitches."
she grabbed lynne's hand with one hand and her opposite shoulder with the other.

 

Lynne squeaked, "It hurts... Alex...I wish...we could just have a normal day for once."

Ryku tinkered with the bomb for a while, "Interesting....this is completely something Lazard would make...."

 

alex sighed.
"me too lynne. me too."
she wrapped the bandage around lynne's waist and then pulled her shirt down. alex pulled out the morphine bottle and gave her another shot to help ease the pain. she turned her attention to ryku who was relishing in the bomb.
"i know you're fascinated with that bomb and all, but we need to get lynne out of here. is there anything we can carry her out on?"
she turned back to lynne.
"you should lie back down. just sitting up is risking the stitches from breaking."

kaleb looked around the store at the things nearby to see if he could find anything to carry lynne.

 

Mya ran into the shop and frantically made her way to the floor Lynne and the others were. So sorry! I tried getting here as fast...as...possible...As she saw the scene in front of her, emotions of fear, horror, happiness, and relief passed through her. Is she...alright?

 

Kurisu too was worried about Lynne of course, but his eyes were drawn to another source...
Ryku.
"You..." he glared at the EBO before turning his attention to Alex.
No... now isn't the time for this. he thought before speaking. "After we've sorted everything here... then I'd like to hear what happened... but..." he saw the state of Lynne and quickly concluded the majority of what happened anyway. "I can tell you've had a tough time." He put his hand on Alex's shoulder. "Well done... I can tell it must not have been easy... I'm sorry we didn't get here sooner."
He then looked at Ryku as well. "I guess we should thank you too... am I right?" he guessed.

 

Ryku pried his eyes away from the bomb and up to Kurisu, "Yes, I'm the one who defused the bomb. After all, you didn't expect your medic to do that, did you? I'm not asking you to thank me. I have my own agenda." Ryku rifled through his pockets, "Jee, I must've left my pile of heavy stuff to carry people on at home." he said sarcastically. He bent over Lynne and set a warm hand on her stitches, "You did good, Alex. Hey, Kaleb, her stitches are sturdy enough for you to carry her. I have to get back."

Lynne closed her eyes. Kaleb was starting to look like Ryku to her.

 

alex gave ryku an uncomfortable look. granted she was a stitching wizard, but she didn't feel comfortable with the idea of kaleb just carrying lynne all the way back. especially because it would cause her a lot of pain from having to be semi-upright. she looked up at kurisu who had his hand on her shoulder.
"oh ya' know, another days work. i have to do something to show i'm useful."
her gaze moved back and forth between kurisu and mya.
"we'll talk about everything later. now we need to move lynne."
alex went to stand up, but the pain in her foot made her stumble and almost fall over.

kaleb nodded and walked over to lynne to try and pick her up.

 

Lynne patted Kaleb's cheek, "You're a good boy....I can tell..." her eyes were glazed over and her hands weakly clutched at his shirt as she struggled to move to his ear and whispered, "I saw what you did. When I'm better, I'll kill you myself, I swear it."

Ryku steadied Alex, since she would've fallen onto him. "I told you, you should've let me carry you. Here, let me see. I'm no doctor, but I got a lot more experience than your friends. And you're not fixing it." He crouched and tapped her leg with his fingers. Raising his eyebrows as he looked up at her, waiting, patiently.

 

kaleb froze. lynne saw him with his gun. he was caught and would be expose. at least with lynne out of commission for a little while he could possibly come up with an excuse. he tried to play it off like it was nothing.
"oh haha! lynne you're so amusing. even when you have no energy you can still make jokes."
he lifted her up into his arms as delicately as possible. it looked like they would be leaving as soon as ryku was done checking on alex's foot.

alex sighed grudgingly.
"ugh...fine."
she waved her hand at him in a go ahead manner. the last thing she wanted was to let an e.b.o. treat her, because things could turn out horribly. for all she knew he could poison her through the cut in her foot. alex just wanted to lie down herself, but wasn't willing to give in quite yet.

 

Lynne glared at him and gave up, "It's your fault I'm like this... It's all the EBO's fault...they killed my mother..."

Ryku lifted her leg gently and slid off her shoe. Pulling a pair of tweezers out of his pocket, he picked out what wasn't skin and didn't belong and swiped an alcoholic wipe along the cut. Figuring she'd make noise, he gripped her foot tighter and rumaged through her bag for the gauze wraps. "And...done." Strapping the wraps in place with a bit of tape, Ryku eased her shoe back on and stood. "Better? Even a little?"

 

kaleb continued to smiled as he turned them towards everyone else.
"i don't know what you're talking about. that would imply that i am e.b.o. and to be honest we've all lost family and friends from the e.bo."
he wasn't necessarily lying, but it wasn't the whole truth either. his father did die, but it was from being an e.b.o not from an e.b.o.

alex rolled her eyes as she tried to stand up. her boots didn't really make it much easier with the pain in her foot. walking back down those two flights of stairs would take a lot longer than it was walking up them.

 

Lynne continued to glare at him. Her stubborn temper refusing to be swayed. "I'll never believe you. You're a rotten liar...you have a gun...name one Runner with a gun. We don't carry weapons...but you do."

Ryku ignored her eye roll and started along the way Hikaru and Kaoru had left. "I'd best be off then. See y'all later." With a backwards wave, Ryku bounded down the opposite stairs and chased after the Twins with the bomb under his arm.

 

kaleb continued to try and play it off.
"i know you've been all in the hospital and kidnapped and whatnot, but in the last day i have yet to receive any rules and guidelines i should follow once accepted as a runner. i've had this gun since my father died. it's always been a last resort form of protection that i've never had to use thankfully until today. how was i supposed to know that you all don't carry weapons? with the amount of trouble the lot of you seem to get into it amazes me that you don't, but if anyone would have said that guns were off limits than i would have brought it home to it's case and left it there. no one has sat me down and said the do's and don'ts of being a runner lynne. so i apologize if it looks like something it isn't, but what have i done so far to disprove my loyalty? everything i have done since you all accepted me was in the sake of helping. nothing otherwise."
he wasn't sure how much of it she was going to believe, but for the most part it was all true. he kept a pitty me look on his face, like her accusations truly hurt him.

alex looked up at everyone. she wanted to go home, but knew it would probably be awhile before that happened.
"should we really just be letting him walk away? and with the bomb?"
she mumbled under her breath about how she wanted to study it, but figured no one would want to hear about it.

 

Lynne huffed, "Then you wouldn't mind me telling Mya and everyone about your little keepsake from your father." She perked up to Alex's mumblings, "Don't worry about it Alex. I'm sure he won't do anything with it..."

 

kaleb sighed. he was defeated. there was no of getting around it.
"no i guess not. feel free."

alex looked up at lynne in kaleb's arm.
"lynne, i know you trust him, but he is e.b.o and he did just walk a way with a bomb he diffused. that means he would no better than anyone the proper way of hooking it back up together. he knows all of our faces. that is a problem straight up."
she attempted to stand up, still shaky. it took a moment to get her balance and even when she did, she was still standing there balancing on one foot.