Chapter 7: hearing things

Jasper, Eli and i make our way to town

While we are in the car I admire the scenery, look there ain't nothing better to do.

I'm in the passenger seat with eli as he is driving,  and they don't particularly want to keep me on my own. As I might open the doors somehow and run away.

I can understand that they think I'm gonna run away, but I don't want to. Not yet at least anyway.

I think I'll sleep on it

Jas and Eli are talking, I get distracted by something along the road. 2 people: a male and a female.

I can just about make out what they are doing, the male is hitting her...but then I notice it, the female isn't fighting back and is bleeding on her head...and literally everywhere.

It takes about 3 seconds before I decide to get out of the car and get him away from her.

She needs to be saved.

Everyone is just too scared to help. I can see it in their eyes as they walk past, stumble past. Run past.

They are too afraid of getting hurt.

Luckily, as I'm in the front with eli. They trust me enough not to have the child lock on and for that I can get out of this car.

The two boys are distracted enough by talking to each other to even realise that I just undid my seatbelt.

Then I race out of the car, opening the door that leads me onto a main road.

The car is a range rover. So I have to jump to touch the ground.

I run along the road and I can hear Eli and jas shouting for me to get back into the car.

But I'm not. Not yet anyway.

I killed people. I took their lives. Now its time to risk my life to save another.

And I still have a knife. 2 of them located in my shoe.

"hey!" I shout at them, they turn around

"go away!" The guy shouts, and then turns his attention back to the woman

"you shouldn't assault somebody!" I yell again moving slowly, cautiously

"why? Why'd you care?" He shouts back, the male hitting the woman once more, the on lookers just watching the scene in front of them. Doing nothing about it. Idiots.

"don't please, just leave...its for the best.." the woman cries out, god I know how she feels, I'm not going to leave her.

"yeah take some advice." The male angrily shouts at me.

"I'm not the type to back down, especially to a low life scum like you!" I don't back down. I'm not gonna leave this woman here. 

"I now have 2 people to hurt." The male laughs, sadistically. 

"if your including yourself...it will be 5!" I shout, he looks at me but not for long and then yanks the poor woman up of the floor he had pushed her onto.  

"oh you bit-" he doesn't get to say the last words. I don't let anyone downgrade me to a dog, like do I look like a canine to you?

"don't even go there." I say through my teeth.

The male then huffs, coming over to me and tries to swing at me. But I block the attack, I know his tactics. I push the female out of the way from the man and behind me.

"oh you really shouldn't have done that!" I yell at him, he really should of left.

"why? Can you suddenly fight?" He yells back, aw how sweet he thinks I can't fight. Poor thing.   

"I've been able to fight for over 7 years." I say, putting myself in the middle of the man and woman.

The male them tries to tackle me, but like I said I've been fighting my battles for a long time so i see the attempted assault before he even tries to do it. I move out of the way, pulling a knife out of my pocket in the process, I shove it right into his gut. This guy is definitely goin down.  He does aswell, falling onto his knees groaning in agony, and then falling unconscious. 

"you know you didn't have to do that..." the female speaks up, breathing heavily as she comes in front of me

"I don't like people getting assaulted." I murmur she hears me though. 

"are they with you?" She asks me motioning to the 2 guys behind me, who I already know are eli and jasper.

"yeah. They're with me.." I mumble, taking the knife out of the guys stomach so he bleeds more.

"thank you." The woman says, offering me a smile.

"no worries. But you're gonna have to deal with him on your own.." I don't however smile back to the woman and turn to leave.

"that's fine." She mumbles then dealing with the beaten up guy.

I go over to eli and jasper, knowing that I'm probably gonna be shouted at for my stupid actions. They surprise me by looking happy.

"what?" I ask them bewildered "you shouldn't of done that you know. You could have been seriously hurt." Eli says, opening the passenger door for me to get in.

"yeah well I wasn't." I say to them, trying to understand I wasn't injured.

"you shouldn't of done that." Jasper mumbles, getting annoyed. We get into the car same places as before, but this time Eli puts the child lock on. I give him a weird look

"guess you have no trust in me." I say to them both, "I do, its just I can't let you get hurt." Eli says giving me a smile.

"you're stupid. You know that?" Jasper says, obviously I was expecting it so it didn't bother me.

"I knew that. I've known that almost all my life,  I don't need reminding now thanks jas." I say to him. We are on our way home then I spot a Starbucks, smiling as I look towards Eli.

"hey Eli?" I ask him. "yeah?" He replies.

"can we stop at star bucks?"

"no"

"but there is a drive thru..."

"fine." I silently congratulate myself. I order a mango ice smoothie, Eli orders an ice latte, and jasper orders a black coffee.

"thanks Eli." I say to him. He looks at me then replies, "no problem"

We then start to make their way back home

At the mansion, there is an unknown car in the driveway. Eli and jasper stiffen knowing who the car belongs too. "jasper,  take Dahlia upstairs. Don't let them see her." Eli says

"okay." He replies quickly

"who?" I ask them both.

"tell you later." Jasper says getting ready to get out of the house.

The car then goes into the garage and parks up

Eli gets out and goes first into the house, I follow him, and jasper sticks close to me.

"I will buy them off you for 1 million, that's it. No higher." The mystery guy says to Ajax.

"okay then." Ajax replies, with a straight face.

"thank you aj.." the mystery guy replies.

"no problem. Happy to help with your business." Ajax says still not showing any emotion.

Unfortunately, Ajax is finished his meeting with whoever that guy is. And the guy stands up and goes to leave when he spots jasper and myself.

He goes to leave and sees Jasper and I make their way upstairs.

Before he leaves however he takes something out his pocket and puts it into the ice lemon tea on the counter. He knows that its dahlias because 1) her name is on the cup. And 2) because he saw me drinking it before outside the cafe.

He spikes it with liquid VX (which is basically a nerve agent that blocks the bodys signalling between the nervous and muscular systems)

He stirred the drink with the straw (already in the drink) and left the house.

When the mystery man had gone and his car no longer there, Ajax called  everybody down to the main lounge (1)

"come on you lot we ain't got all day....    slow coaches." Ajax mumbles under his breath

"I heard that." Ashley says giving him a scowl

"well you weren't meant to. You have good ears that's all." Ajax replies to her

Everybody is down now.

"so...who was the guy?" I ask anyone

"he was a guy we deal with"  Eli sees my shocked expression, "oh no, we deal drugs but we don't take them."

"yeah in all honesty we hate drugs..." chase says drinking some of the coffee he had made

"well then...that's nice.." I say to them not really knowing what to say. I go over to the counter finding the lemon ice tea that jasper got me a few hours ago.

I take a sip of the drink, but it tastes...odd

"what?" Eli asks me, looking worried as my confused expression becomes noticeable

"tastes weird..." I motion to the drink I'm holding

"what of?" Alec speaks up.

"I can tell u it doesn't taste like mango...." I say to them, jasper comes over to me, taking the drink from my hands. "give it here..."

But instead of tasting the drink, he smells it instead.

"dammit!" He exclaims shaking his head. Before anyone can ask what's wrong, a violent coughing fit takes over me

"What's wrong?" Eli asks me, but I can't say anything before I fall on the floor holding my neck.

"its vx! Kelvin spiked her drink." Jasper shouts, everyone immediately pays more attention to me.

"jas...I can't...breathe.." I let out a faint whisper, but I don't know if anyone heard me because I then presumably pass out.

Jasper rushes over to Dahlia, completely shocked at what's happening.  "Ajax you have to call a doctor. Hurry this stuff can kill you!"

Ajax takes a moment, for the first time in his life he doesn't know what to do "okay..." he mumbles out.

Narrator pov ~

There is tension. It's dangerous but they need Dahlia to live.

The doctor, Vincent Donovan, arrives just 3 minutes after ajaxs call. He manages to stabilize Dahlia and then looks towards jasper and the rest of the hunters. "do you think she will be okay?" Jasper asks him.

"I think she does." Vincent says to dahlias brother, who looks pale and ready to pass out aswell.

Vincent then leaves the house, giving everyone the instructions to let Dahlia rest.

"how could this happen?  I mean he was under surveillance" jasper asks the hunters.

"when he was leaving he did stop in the kitchen..." Nathan says to jasper, who now looks pissed off that this could happen to his sister.

"that's when he did it! We won't be dealing with him again anytime soon" Ashley shouts, but gets shushed by everyone in the room 

"he nearly killed my sister, he also nearly killed the only person who can help you." Jasper says mainly to Ajax, but to everyone else aswell.

"we know. Brax. We know." Ajax says to jasper, trying to calm him down before he wakes Dahlia up.

"he was in your house, aj, your house. All eyes were on him. How could he have done that with all eyes on him!?" Jasper says looking defeated as he falls on the floor and just sits in silence.

"calm down jasper. She will be alright, if she was alone and we weren't there, then she would of died." Nathan says also trying to help out his friend

"does he deal with scorpios?" Chase asks ajaxs.

The scorpios are a rival gang of the hunters

"I don't know, if he was then we can't hurt him, not yet anyway." Ajax says looking annoyed

Jasper tries to get his words out but they don't get registered  in his  own head "but- he nearly killed her!"

"but he didn't, nearly. Jasper. But she's alive." Ajax murmurs, jasper now just sits down thinking.

"barely. Have you seen her yet? She's as pale as snow." Jace says shaking his head

"is she alive?" Ajax asks him, Jace doesn't think - no he doesn't need to think before he replies-  "just so."

"well she's alive." Nathan says patting his brother on the shoulder.

Jasper mumbles, "hopefully she will stay that way..."

Eli then stands up, "you still have a sister...brax. you should be grateful..."

Jasper sighs,  "well one of them..."

"wait what?" Chase clears his throat

"you've been in this gang for years, he's obviously gonna keep things to himself." Ajax comes to jaspers defense 

Jasper  takes a deep breath, "...we had a younger sister, nel. She was 11 years younger than me..7 younger than dj, when our parents died in a shooting she was only 7, we all went to the same care home, dahlia got out of it, and then it just left me and nel. When I got out of there a year later, i had promised nel id be back for her and get dj...."

Nathan looks towards jasper, "it didn't happen, did it?"

Jasper thinks for a moment, "no...things came up, and I went back there when she was 10 and- she wasn't there. I tried looking for her, but nothing came up including her. When I was in my first couple of months in this gang, there was news of an accident that had happened involving a 12 year old....there was no other information about her death."

Eli looks between the guys, "so she might still be alive?"

"unfortunately, where she died I was there. I saw her, pale. Cold. She had been murdered, but no other details came in..so I've been trying to find out but nothing new." Dahlia enters the room, on the stairs.

Everyone below exchanges glanced towards Dahlia, she doesn't show interest in why, she comes down the stairs holding the banister tightly.

She doesn't get very far down the stairs when she stops.

Dahlia pov

I take a drink of the mango smoothie jasper bought me about 3 hours ago.

But it doesn't taste like mango. Tastes like sick.

Then Eli looked at me

I couldn't focus on anything, I could hardly hear his voice when he spoke

Then jas asks me to give it to him. I do and instead of drinking it, he smells it. But he couldn't get a word out before I have a really horrible coughing fit.

Everyone looks concerned.

I fall to the floor and I can't stop coughing. Like something is getting shoved in my throat (don't be dirty like that)

Then jasper tells everyone something I never wanna hear.

"its vx, Kelvin spiked her drink!"

Vx also known as one of the most dangerous poison in the world.

And I just drank it.

Then it gets harder and harder to breathe. I can't breathe. Then I enter darkness.

It hurts when I wake up, I hear the guys (and Ashley) talking about me. Jasper shouts at Ajax. Then I can't take anymore.

I manage to make it out on the banister and then I try and talk.

My voice cracks when I speak.

Everyone looks at me, with worry in their eyes.

Yep, definitely talking about me .

I want to go down their, I just don't know if I can tackle the stairs. I don't want the stairs to tackle me.

Everything stops. I stop in the middle of the stairs. I get dizzy.

Then all of a sudden I feel 2 arms wrap around my waist, I open my eyes,  its Eli.

"let me help you, don't want you falling.." his still slightly British accent is calming.

"ha, thank you" I give him a quick smile.

Eli takes me down the stairs, making sure I don't fall down them. Then when we get to the bottom of them he guides me to a seat, then lets me go.