Wild Tiger Chase - Chapter 51: Chapter 51

— Léon - hours later, one AM sharp —
The voices sounded distant as if coming from behind a wall. Léon opened his eyes and the blurred shapes made more and more sense as he blinked.
"All I know is that this situation is awfully uncomfortable for my tastes." The first voice he heard belonged to Rafa.
"It might be for you, but I'm loving it." And this one to Phillip, hushed and soft.
Léon sat up, the bed creaking underneath his weight. When the dizziness passed, he sneaked towards the door. His breathing shallowed when he gripped the knob; this would be the first time he saw Rafa after everything that had happened.
He opened the door, but just enough to peek outside. The public emergency unity was a big square with a tropical garden in the middle. The rooms were built in the outside of the square, while the corridors in almost all of the floors were flanked on the other side by a half wall that faced the garden. Rafa and Phillip now leaned against one of these half walls, their silhouettes cut against the moonlight. The only thing Léon could see clearly was the plaster around Rafa's left arm, the feathery white lining their hair, and an orange glow between Rafa's fingers.
Phillip plucked the cigarette from her hand and took a puff. As he spoke, a weird-scented smoke escaped his lips and glared bright against the natural light.
"I love all the drama, the pain, the hurt... and the certainty that Jackal is out there, waiting for me to break every single tooth in her fucking mouth." Another puff.
"You can't be serious." Rafa took the cigarette from his hand. "We're bloody locked inside this bubble, mate; nothing but sitting ducks waiting for the hand that will take us to the kitchen."
Phillip stole the cigarette back before Rafa's lips could touch its silk. Ignoring her complaints, he pivoted around to rest his back against the railing. "You said Rio gave you memories of us, right? Stories I told, things I like, all that shit?"
"Yeah, for whatever reason." Rafa tried to get the cigarette back.
Instead of letting her, Phillip held her healthy wrist. "Then you must know me better than anyone here. You know things I didn't even have the courage to tell Léon—things only Rio knew about." He let her wrist go and offered her the cigarette.
She took it. "Do you think he was trying to tell us something? To help you, perhaps?"
Phillip shrugged. "Maybe? I don't know."
"Hum." Rafa faced the garden; she supported an elbow on the railing and her chin on the palm of her hand. "I hope so because I'm... I'm scared, Phillip. It's like you always told me... history repeats itself. And I don't want a repeat of this story."
Phillip placed a hand on her shoulder as his own sunk. "Hey, it's..."
"Don't tell me it's okay, mate. We know it's not." Rafa sighed. "I don't know what would've happened if Jackal hadn't stopped him. We..." She lowered her head even more. "We need to do something... because I don't think my brother can take this, Phil. None of us can. Not another Toni; not again."
Léon stumbled backward and fell on the bed. As his breathing quickened, his eyes welled up.
Not another Toni; not again.
He rubbed at his temples and pulled his covers over his head, trying to control his breathing. Besides the pain drilling his brain and how scrambled his memory felt, every time Léon closed his eyes, he saw red stains that diluting like droplets of blood in cold water. This wasn't normal; it couldn't be. Maybe he was losing control again.
Again?
Everything came crashing down at once.
The faint memory of his actions made his stomach twist and churn. Bile climbed up his throat and the sound of cut flesh and the sight of blood filled his memory. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to fucking shred her, then to do the same with anyone who stood in his way.
No. No, that's not what I want!
Léon pressed a hand over his lips and shut his eyes, willing his stomach to calm down. It didn't. This whole situation was exactly what he feared. The loss of control, the people taking advantage of him, and the fact that not even his loved ones were safe at his side.
His breathing quickened even more; he tried to take in deep breaths, but it wasn't enough. He felt the air rushing in, but his lungs wanted more. Quicker now; his head was getting dizzy.
Without request, his thoughts took him to the nightmare he had in the toxic beaches of Old Continent, on his first night here. He was in the center of a hurricane, lost, dangerous, and uncontrollable like nature herself. In his nightmare, Léon destroyed everything in his path. Hours ago, inside Toni's undimension, Léon had done the same to the people he loved.
Not another Toni; not again.
Of course. He would become Toni, yes; uncontrolled and thirsty and cruel like him.
Breathing quicker still. His vision got dark.
What if he had chopped her arm off?
What if she hadn't intervened?
He would've killed Rob. He would've killed everyone!
A sad moan escaped his lips. He tried to stop it, but the muscles in his stomach forced violent coughs and contractions as his lugs constricted, asking for oxygen.
Tears broke. Breath quickening. Head dizzy.
Rob, then Rafa, then Phillip, then Jackal, Rio, and Toni. He would've killed them all. But there would be pleasure in killing Toni.
A noise to his left. Rushed steps towards his bed. A hand on his arm.
"Léon?"
"No!" he shouted. "Stay the f-fuck... away, I'm—!"
A door opening. More steps.
Air grated its way inside his lungs, hard and cold, and thick like ooze.
Kill Toni. He deserves it. Think of everything he's done to you.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. Léon? Léon!"
Kill him. Think of everything he's done to Roberto!
"We need Kali here. Now!"
Someone tugged his blanket off, and Léon curled into himself, his shoulders shaking.
Kill him!
"Stay away!" Léon cried. The words scraped his throat when he shouted, "I'll kill him!"
Power again. It rushed in, along with a hurricane of voices. The wind blew outside, howling and shaking the window panes. The black veins in his arms glowed red, then purple, then red again. He half-opened his eyes, and the tears in them made everything look eerily like a dream.
"He's losing it!"
"Step back," said the only calm voice in there.
A cold hand rested on his forehead.
And then, the rush of power stopped. Whoever had done that stepped away, giving space to two other people.
"Léon. Look at me."
A pair of hands rested on his shoulders while a second pair helped him to sit up. Léon blinked the tears away and met Amma's warm eyes. Beside her, Satina offered him a worried smile.
"Breathe, meu amor. Gently now," Amma said. She caressed his hair and massaged his chest. "Breathe, baby boy. We're here."
Léon's fingers met Satina's, and he closed his eyes. One, two, three...
"It's okay, Cous. Everything will be okay," Satina said.
And for a moment, nothing but a moment, Léon let himself believe that.
Almost one hour later, most of his visitors had gone away. Amma had a long list of surgeries to go through, Rafa needed the rest as much as he did, and Cae—Satina told Léon he was the one who helped him to control himself—went back to whatever dark hole he had left.
Now, with everything under control again, Léon looked at the man sleeping in the corner of his room.
Phillip looked awful.
The moon was high outside, pouring a milky light on the dusty room. Léon wasn't hurt, and the sickness seemed to be under control, so Amma had ordered him to rest. With the emergency unit so crowded, the only place for Léon to do that was in that small room that Amma used as a dorm slash office for the past three months or so. There was a narrow bed at the left—way too narrow and too hard to be any comfortable—and a myriad of old reference books, washed clothes, documents, and holoframes; two narrow doors stood to the right, facing the bed. The first, still ajar, led to a dark corridor near the ICU, while the second opened to a small bathroom that was barely one-meter square.
Satina was still asleep in the armchair beside his bed, and Pipo was well protected in her arms, while Phillip tried to balance himself in the narrow office chair behind the desk. Rob, though, was nowhere to be seen.
Rob must really hate him after everything Léon did.
"Shit," he mumbled. He rubbed his face and felt the puffiness of his eyes against his fingers. If there was a bright side in all this, it was that he had cried all the tears he had left, so now his eyes could finally take a break. "That makes one of us," he mumbled.
Bile again, this time stronger. He tossed the bed covers aside and tried to stand on unsteady legs.
He barely made it to the bathroom in time.
With violent coughing, his dinner was gone. Léon washed his mouth to clear the bitterness and used a coarse towel to dry the mix of faucet water and tears on his face—turned out he did have a few more in him.
Léon sighed and rested his sweat-covered back against the cold tiles of the bathroom wall. It had been years since his anxiety hit this strongly. When he was little, Amma made him chamomile tea with little mint leaves in it to calm him down. She used to brush his hair, tell him stories, and hug him until he felt better. Now he was almost 26 and wanted nothing more than that... but unfortunately, he couldn't have it.
There was a knock on the bathroom door. Léon looked at her through the small mirror in front of him.
"Do you need anything? Maybe some water?" Satina raised a bottle, rubbing her eyes.
Léon cleared his throat as gently as he could. He reached for the bottle and frowned when he met the dark veins in his inner wrist. They seemed bigger. Léon knew Satina was watching him so, forcing a smile, he blinked the worry away.
"Maybe I'll go for a walk." He sipped his water. "How long have I been in here?"
Satina hesitated. "We brought you in yesterday afternoon, so"—she checked her phone—"maybe eleven or twelve hours."
Léon nodded. In eleven or twelve hours, Rob hadn't shown up once to see him. He closed his eyes and breathed in. Another sip of water.
"Hey." Satina rested a hand on his arm. "You know I'm here if you need me, right?" she said in a gentle voice. "And by 'here' I men beside you, cousin. Whenever you need."
"Yeah, you'll be," Léon answered, his voice only a little harder. "Until I get angry or scared and lose control—after that you might not be here anymore. And by 'here' I mean alive!"
Satina glanced back at Pipo, who shifted around in the armchair, looking for a more comfortable position. She opened her lips to answer, but Léon raised a hand to stop her.
Léon sighed. "Forget it, Tiny. I... I just wanted to go home and to hear the waves of Ercilia shore and... you know, just be well again." He closed the bathroom door.
Pipo drooled on the armchair's floral upholstery. Behind the desk, Phillip now had his eyes open and worried.
"Uh. Why Ercília shore? That place is a dump," Phillip said.
"Dump?" Léon scoffed and raised an eyebrow. "That's not what you said at Christmas last year when you..." Léon trailed off. As realization dawned on his eyes, so did tiredness. At once, his shoulders sunk; he shook his head and bashed the bottle against Amma's office desk. Water spilled on the mountains of cheap paper on the table. "Oh. Yeah. Rio messed up my memories. Let's add that to my growing list of great things that keep happening." He took a hard couple of steps towards the door. "Now I can't even say what's real and what's not, Tiny. I... I need some air."
"Leo, wait." Satina stopped in front of him and placed her hands on his shoulders. "You heard Cae. Your memory will be scrambled only for a few days. It'll go back to normal soon, so don't get caught up on this—you just have to give it time to... to heal, you know?"
Léon scoffed and rolled his eyes. He held Satina's hands and pressed a gentle kiss on her knuckles. Then, Léon reeled back towards the door. Before he left the room, he said,
"That's the thing, Tiny. I don't think I can."