World Ashen

Chapter 22 - Kenneth

It was hard for me to tell if mentioning her younger brother bothered her or if it was something else. "Do you know of the gang called the Psychos? Peter said he knew them as a gang in middle school, but they were in High School," I said.

"Yeah. I remember them; the year we moved here, there were also tons of German transfer students."

Jensen jotted that down. "Was he friends with any of these people?"

Piper nodded. "If you're wondering if Peter is the leader of the Psychos, then the answer is—" just as she was about to finish, a window shattered, making glass fly. Piper, Jensen, and I dove behind the couch as bullets sprayed the living room. Jensen shouted a warning as he scooted over to his footlocker, grabbed a grenade, and re-joined us.

"Luckily, we won't be sitting ducks after the first wave. Most of us went out to restock while you were busy with Peter, B.J., and Aaliyah," Jensen explained and I nodded.

"Good. I'm still worried, but less than I was a few seconds ago." I had censured Shaun's outrageous at six months before, but he had ignored me, which ended up getting him killed. "Hopefully we won't be reckless like last time," I said.

Jensen nodded. "Yeah. Now, let's kick some Psychos to the ground!" The three of us rose since the gunfire halted. Most of New Haven fought. We fought for several days until New Year's with no deaths, but then we started dropping like flies. Shiloh, August, Sarah-April, Ellie, and I worked like crazy to fix injuries. Every single one of us, besides August, had to drag mattresses into the living room because so many were falling. By the next morning, we lost four people; one to shock, one to blood loss, and two to infection. At the moment, losing four people was good news since if it was only August and I, we would've probably lost most of the injured. About half of them continued fighting the next morning.

No matter how much August tried to talk them out of it, they always said it was in their best interest. They grabbed their weapons and went back onto the battlefront. "I guess they plan to keep fighting until they drop," August sighed.

"Hey, any word from Flight 0116?" Jensen asked from the doorway, clutching something to his chest. Blood leaked through his fingers, so I flew to him as he started falling. A girl had Jensen's arms wrapped around her. I didn't recognize her, but she fit B.J.'s description of Aaliyah. "She's not hurt badly," Jensen said as he lost consciousness. Sarah-April laid Aaliyah on a mattress and checked her wounds. Ellie and I moved Jensen into a separate mattress. There were a couple of bullet wounds in his body, but they weren't deep enough to be fatal. August stopped us. "Take him to the hospital. I'll be there in a second."

I was stunned. "How? The ash and snow destroyed the hospital."

"We have little choice. Sarah-April, get us a sleigh. I'll get Sh-Wyatt to help me get out of my wheelchair." Without saying another word, the of us got Jensen onto a makeshift stretcher and waited for Sarah-April's sleigh. Cayler, Kairi, Lily, and Angel were the medics while we were gone. Gavriel came with us to help us unload.

Once we were in the emergency room, we started working. Sarah-April and Gavriel went to get water boiling to sterilize the instruments while Ellie, August, and I stayed with Jensen. We had to stop the bleeding and remove the bullets fast, without killing Jensen. I grabbed my flashlight and shone it into his stomach. It helped August, but not a lot. Ellie helped stop the bleeding while August removed the bullets with forceps. Everything was going well when both Ellie and August exchanged looks with one another, and August began performing CPR. "Come on, Jensen! You aren't dying, now or ever!" Ellie and August switched places, and they took turns doing CPR. About an hour later, he was breathing again, gasping actually. We all hugged him carefully. "Jensen! We nearly lost you!"