Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 228: Desperate Times

Chapter 228: Desperate Times

I was glad to hear Wu Ying Tai giggling at my statement, but Bin An Sha and I knew that I wasn’t joking. The smirk on the man’s face was enough to let me know that it was now going to be a possibility.

And honestly? I wasn’t as upset over the idea of being picked up and tossed over his shoulder as much as I thought I would be.

"Head?" asked yet another newcomer.

"Yeah?" asked Huang Xiao Wen, not looking up from Wu Ying Tai.

"I brought them," grunted the new man, clearly confused about what was going on. And I couldn’t blame him; I was confused, too.

"You guys, out," grunted Bin An Sha, not caring about whose feet he was stepping on. The five guards who brought him looked at Huang Xiao Wen for direction.

The other man simply nodded in agreement.

"And you might want to hurry up," growled Bin An Sha. I could feel his stress and worry from where he stood behind me. The guards sneered at him but otherwise didn’t say anything.

"Bring in the first one," continued Bin An Sha, raising his hand imperiously as if he thought everyone should obey him.

"Um, Head?" asked one of the men outside.

I briefly looked up to see the doorway and hall completely crowded with people. Not knowing what was going on, I looked up at Bin An Sha for direction. We both knew that this many people in a patient’s room was not ideal.

"Just do as he says," grunted Huang Xiao Wen.

"But," stuttered the same man. "No one is allowed in this room."

"And I am giving you permission. Or do you only listen to the orders you want to?" hissed Huang Xiao Wen, looking up at the man.

A single man was pushed inside the room toward Bin An Sha. Grabbing him, my man used his other hand to close the door, shutting out everyone but the five of us.

"Eat," grunted Bin An Sha as he dragged the protesting man toward me. "If you want to heal her, you will need the energy."

"I need Reavers for that," I answered, not looking at Huang Xiao Wen or Wu Ying Tai. I didn’t need to see the look on their faces to know that they thought I was a monster. At least consuming Reavers was the lesser of two evils.

"Which is why Rip has disappeared, I’m assuming," grunted Bin An Sha. He changed his grip so that instead of holding the prisoner’s arm, he was gripping him by his hair. "You are going to kill him anyways, right?" he continued, turning his attention to the head of Black Mountain Syndicate.

Huang Xiao Wen didn’t reply, only looked between me and Bin An Sha.

However, I could feel my power starting to sputter, unable to keep Wu Ying Tai’s organs alive while fighting the poison that was trying to destroy everything.

"Fuck it," I grumbled. While I tried to be kind, I wasn’t so benevolent that I was willing to kill both myself and Wu Ying Tai for a man who was going to die anyway. And Huang Xiao Wen had already admitted that. Whether he stuck by that story no longer mattered. "Bring him here."

"That’s my Firefly," crooned Bin An Sha as he pushed the prisoner’s face forward. Reaching out my left hand, I blindly put it on the stranger’s body.

I didn’t know what I was doing; this wasn’t normally how I topped up my power, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

I thought I would need to take his life force into me before I could then transfer it into Wu Ying Tai, but that wasn’t what happened at all.

Instead, I acted as a conduit, taking the energy directly from the man and putting it straight into my patient. The result was absolutely staggering.

"Let go of him," I grunted through gritted teeth, worried that I would accidentally take power from Bin An Sha since he was touching the man as well.

The stranger slumped against my leg, completely unable to move as he started to deflate in front of our eyes.

Bin An Sha and I were used to the sight. After all, we had run that experiment on the three Reavers back in City A, but this was completely different.

This was a human that I was using, and I needed more.

"Next," I hissed, feeling the last remaining life force of the man being pulled out of him.

Without a word, Bin An Sha went to the door and flung it open. Not even bothering to look, he grabbed the first person he could find and pulled him into the room.

"Not him; he’s a guard," interrupted Huang Xiao Wen, finally finding his voice.

My man grumbled under his breath but opened the door again and shoved the man out. "Which one is a prisoner?" he grunted, not willing to waste any more time.

Which was a good thing because the man beside me crumbled into nothingness. I heard two gasps as the power, no longer having an alternate source, started to take from me again.

"An Sha!" I cried. I didn’t have the power to give her, and the toxins were starting to gain ground again. "Two!"

A body was brought toward me, and, once again, I didn’t bother to see what was going on around me. I needed to concentrate and to do that; I needed to be inside of her... not this half-and-half that I was currently doing.

"I need to go inside," I explained, knowing that Bin An Sha would understand. I was going to be entirely out of it until this healing session was done. Any disturbance would be enough to make sure that neither one of us made it out alive.

"Get her other men in here to guard," grunted Bin An Sha, but that was the last thing I heard before I was cut off from the outside world.

----

I stood in the middle of Wu Ying Tai’s chest, watching my power flow around me and into her.

While I knew what to expect, it was so much worse than I had feared. Where I had thought I would have found some healthy red tissues and cells after all of the energy I had pushed into her, that was not what I saw.

Black shadows surrounded me, vibrating with greed as it sucked up all of my power. There were a few spots of bright red tissue, but they were definitely the minority.

This whole time, I hadn’t been healing her; I had simply been feeding what was killing her.