Story: Steel Sapphires and Shattered Emeralds (chapter 8)

Authors: Stephanie

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Chapter 8

Steel Sapphires and Shattered Emeralds

Chapter 8

Sage was running before she’d even finished the note. He was a dead man, but first she had to get to him before he killed Kayleigh. She knew exactly what he was capable of. 

She sped out of the city, breaking the speed limit and pushing her computational skills to their limit. She would not be too late she told herself. She would not leave Kayleigh to suffer at his hands as she had been left.

It took her only minutes to arrive at the place in the photo, but to Sage it seemed like a lifetime. She didn’t even bother to stop her bike as she arrived, just leaped off of it and rushed into the ruins towards a single light shining in the darkness of the summer night. 

Bogan’s host had his back to her, but at the sound of her footsteps on the rubble he turned, revealing Kayleigh, who’s battered and bloody body was pinned by the shoulders to a wooden support beam with two metal stakes. There was no sign of a pulse, and she didn’t appear to be breathing. Sage realised that she was already too late, and Kayleigh was dead. Her gaze lingered on Kayleigh’s cheeks, where two bloody furrows traced down them. Under the sickly yellow lamp Kayleigh looked small and frail. Sage could barely take in everything the scene made her feel.

“Do you like them, my dear? I was just putting them on when you arrived,” he waved his hands at her. “Now you match.” 

Sage’s hand went to her own scars as she focused on Bogan.

“I couldn’t get to you through your precious X-men, they weren’t as innocent as I’d been led to believe. But this one is.” He leered at her, “or was, anyway. She’s still warm if you want one last kiss.” 

Sage stood in shock for a second, unable to comprehend what was happening. But as she stared at Kayleigh’s rapidly cooling corpse and the gloating Bogan something snapped.

Body moving as fast as her mind she pulled out one of her guns and shot Bogan’s host in the kneecap. As the body crumpled to the floor Sage tugged a knife from her boot. She strode over to where Bogan was trying to work through the pain, grabbed his host by the hair and pulled him up onto his knees. She thrust the knife into his abdomen, cutting through his diaphragm. As she did this she unleashed her telepathic ability, and with rage fuelling them caught Bogan as he tried to detach his mind from that of his host, tethering him irrevocably to it. 

She watched as he struggled to breathe, asphyxiating gradually. She felt nothing. No pity, and no mercy. “I win.” She whispered into his ear as his heart gave out and he died. As Bogan let out his last gasp, Kayleigh whimpered.

Sage’s head snapped up. She realised with horror that Bogan had wanted her to think that Kayleigh was dead. She’d been bleeding to death while Sage had stood by and watched Bogan dying. 

She ran to Kayleigh’s side, immensely worried about the deathly pale tone of her skin, and the pure whiteness of every hair on her body.

“Kayleigh? Can you hear me?” she called gently, moving closer, but all Kayleigh did was flinch and whimper. She was loosing too much blood for Sage to be gentle. She’d have to deal with her physical wounds first, before there was no more Kayleigh. 

Running back over to Bogan’s corpse she hauled its long coat off. The thick leather would protect Kayleigh from the cold, rubble-strewn ground. She also stripped off her own coat, to use as a blanket. As she did this she contacted Bishop, telling him to send the air ambulance to her position, and to make sure the crew was all female. Then she signed off and turned her full attention back to Kayleigh.

Supporting her with one arm around her waist, not even noticing all the blood she was being covered in, Sage grasped one of the stakes and pulled. She shuddered slightly at Kayleigh’s scream and took her weight as the stake slid out, slicked with gore. Quickly, not wanting to stress Kayleigh’s other shoulder she did the same with the second stake, bringing another scream from Kayleigh, and dropped her sagging body onto the coat on the floor. Kayleigh screamed again, and Sage saw the huge amount of glass shards still embedded in the flesh there. There was no other position Sage could lay her in without doing more damage, so she left Kayleigh on her back. 

Using her hands and her eyes, Sage fully assessed the damage and began to deal with it. She hit several acupressure points, hopefully deadening some of Kayleigh’s pain, and then relocated her kneecap. It was severely damaged, and by the look of it she’d done it tripping in the rubble. Finding the remnants of Kayleigh’s clothing, Sage bound what of the smaller wounds that she could afford to and then turned her attention to the shoulder wounds.

If Kayleigh was lucky she would have some limited mobility in her arms, and with surgery could probably have even more, but that was only going to be a possibility if Sage stopped the bleeding. She wadded the wounds as best she could, after the first pad soaked through she added another, and another, until she had nothing left to wad the wounds with and Kayleigh was still bleeding. It was then Sage knew that if she was going to save Kayleigh, she would have to go to extremes. 

The helicopter was still too far away, and Kayleigh didn’t have that much time. Accessing the data from when she’d first met Kayleigh she found what she was looking for. There was a minute amount of inactive healing factor associated with Kayleigh’s hair changing. She could kick start it, and it should give Kayleigh a chance at surviving.

Knowing that this was going to hurt Kayleigh, Sage made her as comfortable as possible and whispered that she was sorry. Then she kissed Kayleigh, triggering the power boost and trying not to cry when Kayleigh arched beneath her, another scream ripping itself from her, swallowed by Sage’s kiss. 

As she pulled away Sage noticed a marked change in Kayleigh, with the blood running from her wounds slowing to a trickle. It wasn’t going to be anything like Wolverine’s healing factor, where wounds healed themselves almost instantly, but it would now take Kayleigh only three weeks to heal a wound that would take a normal person four weeks. It would hopefully allow her torn muscles to return to full health and her damaged knee to recover.

Sage held on to Kayleigh’s hand and watched her, intent on catching any signs of deterioration and listening to Kayleigh babble in broken Gaelic, calling for Sage to help her, and stop the pain. 

Sage heard the helicopter circle overhead, its searchlight trying to pick them out amongst the rubble, and realised that in the darkness it couldn’t see them. She ran over to her bike and dragged it to closer to where they were. It didn’t take much to make it burst into flames, with a few holes in the right places to prevent an explosion. She contacted the ambulance and told them what to look for. As the ambulance touched down she heard Bishop running across the rubble.

After filling the EMT’s in on what had happened, what injuries Kayleigh had and her slight healing factor, Sage headed over to where Bishop was standing over the body of Bogan’s host. 

“So, this was our serial killer?” he asked, poking the lifeless body with his foot.

“It was Bogan.” Sage said flatly. At Bishop’s shocked expression she continued. “He did it all to get at me, and then found out about Kayleigh. It’s my fault, but he’s dead now. I tied him to the corpse. He’s not coming back this time.” 

“Oh Sage.” Bishop noticed the tears running down her cheeks and pulled her into a hug, which she stayed in a moment before pulling out of his arms.

“I’m going to go with her to the hospital, make sure they treat her properly.” Sage said, “Can you take care of things here?” 

“No problem.” Bishop said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you going to be ok Sage?”

“When she is, yes.” Sage climbed into the helicopter as it prepared to take off again. The doors slammed behind her as she took Kayleigh’s hand again. She would make sure that Kayleigh was all right.

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