The Girl in the Middle

What happened to her ?

*Tom*

Inside the apartment there is an almost scary calmness. From the kitchen, I can hear Gerard and Zac's mumbling voices while they are standing around Michael, who is lying on the kitchen table. Clay is standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living-room, biting his nails. He hardly registers that I am here.

KC is squatting next to the couch, cleaning a wound on a slim seemingly unconscious person, while Hope sits beside him, on the empty beer crates that make it up for a coffee table and hands him what he needs. These are the kids I worry about. Kids that manage to care for the wounded. In the underworld you grow up way too fast. Nowhere else would a fifteen year old act as a nurse to a seventeen year old tending to battle wounds.

I know Gerard and Zac will call for me if they need my help, so I decide to take a look at this girl they have found.

Kattie is right. This is Amber or someone who looked amazingly much like her. The long dark hair with the natural curls, the slightly round almost doll like face with the slightly crooked nose. She even has the same little beauty mark on her ear. I don’t have to see her eyes to know they would be the same warm hazel colour, as Amber’s had been.

I only know Amber’s face this well because I watched her after she died. I had tried to figure out what made two men, brothers even, become mortal enemies over her. Tried to understand how her death could end the war without a winner.

"I know it, she looks like Amber". KC says in a low voice, while he is sewing up a gash on her arm with hands that are way too experienced for his age . "But it isn't her".

"Well Amber has been in her grave two years, she definitely would be much less pretty if we dug her up". I point out before kneeling down next to KC. I just spotted a bullet wound on the back of her head.

I don’t need to ask Hope before she hands me a small flashlight and a scalpel. When it comes to things like this, she knows as much as the older members that are trained in it. With Hope it is reality that has trained her.

"What happened to her ? Do you have any idea ?” I ask as I start examining the back of her head closer.

"She got herself caught in the middle of our shoot out with Zombie". KC is still talking in a low hushed voice, like he is afraid someone will hear us. "Someone hit her in the back of the head, but she has a lot more injuries that are not from the battle".

"Do you know who she is ?" I am holding the flashlight between my lips and it warps my words a bit. But I need both my hands to make the tiny cut and remove the bullet from her head. She has been very lucky.

"Sarah Nobel". KC whispers and glances at Clay. I have to close my eyes for a couple of seconds. The Nobel’s is one of the seven families that practically run the city of Farhill. She has family members on the board of directors that right now keeps our existence hidden from the president of the country, but who can decide to blow our cover any minute and throw us into a battle we can’t possibly win.

I don’t say anything else before I can place the bullet on the table. Hope hurriedly hands me something to clean away the blood, then a needle and thread to close the wound.

"How did she end up down here, with us ?"

The question is mostly to myself, but KC answers me anyways; "My best guess is The Suns". He says, meeting my gaze.

The Suns made a living of, among other things, making people disappear without a trace, of torturing and teaching people a lesson. Not only the inhabitants of the underworld, but also for the rich families of Farhill. The ones that can pay their prices. It is a logical guess.

"Unless she has run off on her own to be here". I suggest.

"She hasn't got the brains". KC says shaking his head. "The girls of the upper class are pretty, but stupid. That is how their fathers and later their husbands want them. Stupid women don't ask questions”. I know KC is right. If the women of the upper class were smarter, more of them would make their way out here to us.

"The question is why and who paid them to take her ?" KC looks at her thoughtfully again.

"It isn't only Sunny who has hurt her". Hope chips in. "Look at her neck and her wrists. The Suns never keep their hostages more than a couple of days".

Hope is right. There are marks, most likely, from rope around her neck and it looks like her wrist had been cut open several times, possibly by thin rope or handcuffs. This isn’t Sunny's doing.

"It isn't easy being a daughter of the upper class". KC dryly ascertains. He, if anyone, knows that. He had lived in Farhill before coming here. "Let's move her into a bed".

I gently lift her from the couch. She feels so tiny and light in my arms. So fragile, not cut out for a life here among us at all.

When she is laying in the bed I gently remove the clothes from her body, so I can check all bruises and abrasions. Her skin has more scars and marks than any of ours, and we live among weapons. That alone is grounds for worry.

"I know it is stupid to let her stay here, but I don't like to send her home to that treatment". KC says behind me. He reminds me of myself, when I was his age. Wanting so much to learn and impatient to grow up and be taken seriously. His dedication and maturity will surely give him a great career among us.