Efferent

Chapter 60

"Chain him up!" Travis shouted from his position on the ground to the Afferent milling about after the attack on the streets. He pointed at Clark's unconscious figure with a slightly shaky finger. "I injected him with sedative, but it will not last long!"

My vision shuttered as my head swayed back and forth, as though I was being carried, but I managed to see the Afferent roll Clark onto his side and prop him up on a pair of shoulders before he was being carried in a similar fashion.

"Put them in the back!" James' familiar voice called from a vantage point that I could not see. "The one has sustained injuries, and the cause of those injuries has been removed." A chill went down my spine at what he had implied: killing one of his own soldiers because they fought against one of us.

I was set down on a hard surface, but could barely muster up enough energy to slit open my eyes, let alone turn over to examine my surroundings. A metallic bending echoed across the face of whatever platform I was laying on as more weight was added on. I glanced quickly to see Clark's body lined up in a row with Blaise's, but the angle was far to narrow for me to examine them closely.

"Allow me to be perfectly clear: no Efferent are to harmed." His voice grew quiet as he spoke, but his words rang out like a bullet. "Or consequences will be dealt swiftly, and without mercy."

"Sir?" Travis spoke from behind, "What do we do with him? Blaise? He is bleeding severely." Panic crept up my spine at his words, and yet I had no way to assure myself that he would be alright. The tone of Travis and the rushed whispers of James implied otherwise.

"He might lose his leg, James." Travis walked out of my view and I closed my eyes. "But we can not afford to have one of our soldiers back there with them, administering aid."

"Why not?" James asked, incredulous.

"We narrowly defeated the Militia, James," Travis hesitated, "We slaughtered the soldiers that came, but I guarantee that there will be more, and we may have to fight our way out in retreat once more."

"The you go." James ordered, "When they wake, you are not to engage them, only administer treatment. Do you understand me, Travis?"

"Yes, sir." He responded quickly, "Yes, sir. I do. And Clark?"

"What about Clark?" James asked with an impatient tone. I could just imagine him corssing his arms and tapping his foot.

"What if he wakes up? He escaped his bonds the first time."

"He will not wake up. You will keep giving him whatever drug you gave him earlier until you reach the home, and then we will preform the extraction ourselves while he is still sedated, still too weak to fight against us."

"What will that do?" Travis inquired, his voice wary. "Shouldn't we at least try to train him, rather than take his powers indefinitely?"

"We should take his powers indefinitely, and then we train him." James offered simply in answer, "No more questions. We need to move, before the city calls for reinforcements."

"Of course." I heard footsteps along the metal platform as Travis climbed into what I assumed was the back of the vehicle, and he slid the door shut on its rails. I cracked myeyes open wider as the adrenaline kicked in, and the engine started to hum.

We were in the back of a covered truck, Travis rummaging through a pack on one side, Clark, Blaise and I laying flat on our backs on the other. "I know you are awake, Ardyn." Travis called without moving his head, "I can sense it. I saw your eyes open earlier."

Sighing, I placed my hands on the floor and sat up to face him. "No restraints?"

"You can not get out," Travis shrugged, again, without turning his head from the pack he was searching through. "And you are too exhausted to act out in any other way." He unveiled a roll of gauze and medical tape, turning to examine Blaise.

I followed his eye line, and gasped. Blood pooled in the divots of the aluminum surface, the bed of the truck a dark red. "What happened? What did you do to him?" I rushed over on my knees, placing my hand on to his forehead and drawing his hair from sweaty, pale skin.

"I did nothing, or I would be dead." Travis grit out, glaring at my hand, "Someone, an untrained Afferent, tried to use their underdeveloped powers and ended up harming your boyfriend."

I was too concerned to rebuke his comment, and I hardly cared for his petty jealousy anyways. "Will he make it?"

"If you allow me through." He spat.

I moved over quickly, ignoring his angry attitude, watching as he grasped at Blaise's leg, the source of the blood, and tightly wrapped it in bandages. His touch was gentle and precise, not at all what you would expect from your captor if you had been harmed.

"Why?" I asked out loud, "Why are you even wasting your time? You killed him anyways when you traded sides."

Travis gave awry chuckle, but did not take his hands from his work. "You heard James. Injury to an Efferent causes injury to me."

I scoffed. "You do not even care, do you? How could I have been so blind?" I shook my head and looked over to him, "You were the first to have met James, at the first extraction. Maybe you met him before that, maybe you were working for him before that, I do not know. But I should have seen it."

"You should have." He nodded. "I had been thrown out of Walter's sanctuary. When I was on my own, I ran into James. He took me in, on one condition. I find the serum. That led me back to Katherine, and eventually, back to you. And now," He pulled the bandage tight, and secured it in a knot. "Here we are."

"You are sick." I whispered vehemently, "I thought we were friends. Family, even."

"I do not have a family."

"Now you certainly do not. Do you even care about what they are going to do to Clark? Even a little?" I questioned, resting my head against the shelled wall of the truck bed as my emotions grew higher. When he remained silent, I scoffed.

"I do not." Clark whispered. "I do not care."

"You do," I looked over to where Clark's sleeping form lay, tears springing to my eyes. "You do care, and you know what it will do to him. What it might make him do. And yet, you continue on in fear of James, knowing that what you are doing, your actions that only you can be held accountable for, are wrong."

He did not respond, and yet I knew that I had hit a nerve.

"When we arrive, when Clark enters that room, that terrible room, you know whose fault that is. You know that if he dies from the extraction, his life lays in your filthy hands. You have killed many times, of that I am sure. You surely have a way of coping with the death of strangers. Most of the time, however, you do not call fro a second thought, because you did not know them."

I looked over to him, finally meeting him dead in the eye. "But nothing else will leave you quite as empty, as the loss of something that you could have had."