TavesSoul - Issue 10: Our Hero Does Kidnapping?

“I don’t like doing this,” I said.
“Ya, I know. I’m not exactly completely keen on it either, but I don’t see how we have much of a choice. And my parents used to talk about how this guy was the best for handling weird injuries.
“Well, hopefully that’s true, or Swartz is screwed. This would be a little easier if you could still do your whole Professor X thing,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Ya, your telling me. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to make do. Remember, the moment I cause the distraction, you grab him and do your zoot-ing thing. Trust me, no one will be looking at you.” We walked through the hospital doors in our plain clothes. Considering I was the only one that had a costume at this point, it made more sense that way. Of course, it also helped that we’d stopped by Ryan’s place while his parents were out to pick him up some clothes, including a shirt. That woman’s coat would have stood out on him, and we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves sooner then we had too. As Ryan and I walked up to the front desk of Freeport Hospital, Ryan smiled at the woman at the counter.
“Hey Ryan, your parent’s aren’t in today. What are you doing here?” said the lady from behind the counter. Ryan walked up to the counter, and learned against it, shifting into a pose, as he tends to do without noticing it.
“Oh, not much Nancy. I’m just here with my friend over there,” he said, pointing to me standing off to the side, just within earshot, looking at the floor with my cell phone to my ear. “He’s here to visit his Grandma. I hear she’s in Doctor Thompson’s care. You know which floor that is?”
“Ya, sure. He’s on the third floor. What’s your friend’s Grandmother’s name?” she asked. At this point, I closed my cell phone, having finished my fake conversation, and came up to Ryan.
“My dad says she’s on the third floor. Fourth room on the left. Let’s go.”
“Okay. Thanks for your help Nancy.” Ryan smiled at her, waved and walked off. We walked to the elevator, pressed the up button, and waited till the elevator doors opened. We both got in, and Ryan pressed the button for the third floor. “Remember the plan Greg. Once I spot him and point him out, you make your way towards him, and I’ll do the hard part.”
“Ya ya… I know. We went over it three times after Tim Horton’s. It’s not that complicated of a plan.” I said, smiling.
“Right, but that doesn’t mean we can’t mess it up. We’re not exactly criminal geniuses, my friend.” The elevator dinged, and the door opened on the third floor. We both walked out, and turned to our left. Seemed as good direction to start as any. We walked down the hall, glancing into every room that the door was open into, taking care to make it look like we were looking for a patient, and were lost. As I was glancing into the room on our left, I felt Ryan’s hand press against my chest, forcing me to stop walking.
“That’s him,” he whispered. Smirking, he said, “Okay, show time Greg. Remember, I’m the star. Don’t go stealing my spotlight.”
“Don’t worry. I’m a much better extra then I am an actor.” I said. I leaned against the wall, and pulled out my cell phone, making it look like I was texting someone, while I kept the doctor in my peripheral vision. Ryan walked down the hall slowly, and pulled out his lighter.

“Shit, I’m gonna miss this sweater. It was one of my favorites,” he said, smirking to himself. He took the lighter, and placed it his cotton sweater, and flicked it. You’d be surprised how quick cotton apparently catches on fire. Within 10 seconds, his torso was a ball of flame. Then he started screaming, like any person on fire would. A nurse looked up to see what the commotion was, and saw this flaming man walking towards her, and screamed.
“Oh my God! Somebody help!!” Within 5-10 seconds, all the nurses had gathered in the outskirts of the hall, as well as some of the patients. They all stared in complete and utter shock. Ryan, on the other hand, still walked around, with his arms held high, waving and screaming at the top of his lungs. What can I say, he was playing the part of ‘crazy man on fire’ pretty well. The doctor started to come out of the room he was in, but he stopped just on the edge of the doorway. “Oh my God!” he said, running across the hall and grabbing a fire extinguisher. “Somebody help him.” Instantly, some of the nurses made moves for other fire extinguisher. It seemed as though his voice of reason helped knock them out of their shocked stupor. That’s when Ryan made his move, and I made mine. Now, you have to understand, this next part happened in the span of three to five seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to me. The moment that people with extinguishers started to close in on him, Ryan started running. He ran pretty quicker, even quicker then I remembered him being, but I guess all that time swimming helps the muscles somewhat. He threw himself at one of the large plate glass windows overlooking the parking lot, putting his full weight behind it. It shattered instantly from the force, and he went tumbling threw. In the moment I saw the glass shatter, I made my move. I flashed over to where the doctor was standing with everyone else, in shock. I grabbed him around the waist, and flashed out of the window. Whether anyone even noticed this part, I’m not sure, since it happened in the span of 2 seconds, but I highly doubt it. I flashed down to the car once I was out of the window, and threw open the trunk, and threw him in. As I shut the trunk, I felt the ground tremor a little. Turning around, I could see Ryan, starting to get himself up, and dusting himself off. Up until this point, I didn’t know for sure exactly if he was as invincible as he seemed, but seeing him start running to me almost immediately after being lit on-fire and hurtling out a window made me realize that this new power of his was very handy. We both got in the car, and speed off. We weren’t going to wait around for cops to show up. Luckily, we were close enough by that we figured they wouldn’t check so close to the hospital.

Once we got to the house, I had Ryan open the house door, and I popped the trunk, pulled the doctor out, and flashed him inside the house. I figured if I moved him fast enough, he wouldn’t be able to tell where he was. I flashed him to the leaving room, where Swartz was passed out on the couch, and Ryan closed the door and locked it, then drew the blinds and turned off the light. Instantly, I lit up, glowing bright enough that I knew I obscured our side of the room from the doctor’s vision. Didn’t want him to be able to recognize us. Seguin walked up beside me.
“Where am I?” Dr. Thompson asked, trying to look at us, but having to look away due to the brightness of the light. “And who are you people?
“Where you are, and who we are, doesn’t matter right now. All you need to know is why you’re here,” Seguin said, sounding as intimidating as he could. We had agreed early that it was best if he did the talking. He was a much better actor then me, clearly.
“And.. And why am I here, then?” Dr. Thompson said, trying to shelter his eyes, as he glanced around the rest of the room. “Clearly, you guys have a reason.”
Seguin chuckled, “Well, I thought that’d be obvious. See our friend there. He’s been injured. It seems to be internal, and we’re told that you are a sort of specialist with odd injuries. All we need you to do is fix him up, and then we’ll let you go.” Thompson looked at Swartz, laying passed out on the couch, then he glanced back up at us, again shielding his eyes.
“So, you know my secret then,” he sighed. I glanced at Ryan confused, and he just shrugged his shoulders. We had no clue what this man meant, but it made sense to play along like we did.
“Of course, we do,” Ryan said. “It’s part of why we chose you.”
“So, you know I’m like you then.. I suppose I should have known that others like me would eventually figure it out. But you don’t understand. I can’t do what you ask, or they’ll know. They’ll be after me.” The way Thompson said they… it held such loathing and fear in it. Who was he talking about. Was it the company? I didn’t say why they’d go after Thompson. He seemed to be a genuinely good man.
“Don’t worry about that. Worry about what we’ll do to you if you don’t,” Ryan said. The way he said it, it sounded convincing enough, although we both knew that there wasn’t much more that we could do to convince him.
The doctor took a deep breath in, and seemed to gather himself. He sat in silence for what seemed like forever, but was really only probably 10 seconds. “Fine, but you don’t know what you’re asking of me. I don’t have much choice though, it seems. All I ask is that when I’m done, your drop me off by the bridge by Freeport.” As he said it, I could see a tear stream from his eye. It was at this moment that I felt genuinely bad for this man. He seemed to have a good heart, and was actually scared of using his powers, yet here we were forcing him to use him to help our friend. I knew what we were doing wasn’t right, but I also knew it wasn’t clearly wrong either. Still, I swore I’d never let myself walk this line again.

Thompson got up, and placed his hands on Swartz’s chest. He closed his eyes, and suddenly a blue glow started to radiate from his hands. Swartz breathing deepened, and he started to move his legs a bit. The blue glow extended from the doctor’s hands to Swartz’s chest. It stayed there, and intensified. The doctor’s breathing grew deeper with Swartz’s. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing, but I hoped it was enough. Suddenly, Swartz’s eyes sprung open, and he gasped in a huge breath as he sat up, forcing Thompson back on his ass. Thompson got up, and backed away. Swartz looked at Thompson, and then at Seguin and I standing where we were. I turned off the glow. Upon seeing us, Swartz smiled.
“Should have known,” he mumbled. I looked at Thompson, and he walked out the front door. “I’ll take him back,” I said, you catch Swartz up a bit. I walked outside. Thompson sat on the porch, a lit cigarette burning in his mouth as he stared off into the sky. I stood there, staring up as well.
“You know, as a doctor, you should know better. Those things will kill you.”
“Ya, I know. Doesn’t seem much to matter now, though,” he said. There was a such a lack of anything in his voice that it made me physically shiver. I don’t think I’d ever heard true hopelessness in a voice before until that moment.
“I’m sorry about all this you know. Sorry about the kidnapping. Sorry about dragging you into our fight. Sorry about making you use your power. We just didn’t seem to have many options.” I paused. “Listen. It seems like your scared of something, and if you tell me, maybe we can help. I know it doesn’t quite seem like it, but I think we’re the good guys. We could help you.”
He took the cigarette from his mouth, and put it out on the ground. Standing up, he looked at me. His face was wet with tears.
“Just take me back, please. It’s time I was going.” I flashed him down to the bridge, and flashed away.

Thompson walked down a path by the water. He pulled out another cigarette, and lit it, taking a deep drag of it. “Fuck, poor kids, they have no clue exactly what’s out there,” he remarked, seemingly to the wind. He heard the crunch of leaves behind him, but didn’t bother turning to look. “Ah, so you’ve come. Fine, let’s get this..” Thompson was in mid-sentence when he felt the pain in his back. He collapsed, grasping at the spot that hurt, but not being able to reach. He pulled his hands in front of his face, and saw they were covered in blood. He could still feel something in his back. He glanced up to see a dark figure standing over him. And then death came to him.