A Wanderer in Trader's Point

Nathan held the gun in one hand as he pursued the the gunman down the alley before the pain of the bullet wound overtook the adrenaline flowing through his veins. His pace slowed, the wound cut deeper than he had known and blood was still pouring from it. Finally he stopped, leaning against one of the buildings as he raised the sights toward the fleeing thug. A loud shot rang out aimed for the man's leg, but there was no telling if the bullet would reach its mark.

The bullet missed and banged sharply off of a nearby dumpster. The escapee fled down the next alley, turning sharply and disappearing into the darkness.

Nathan cursed, letting the weight of his head and body fall to the side against the building's wall. His head was spinning from blood loss as the droplets fell onto the asphalt below. He stood for a moment before his joints caved beneath him, letting his weight rush him to the ground without restraint. The wound had been worse than he could have known, his thoughts drifted back to that scene. The seering light burning his eyes, ears deafened by gunfire as the hazy shadow of a person in the distance fell limply to the ground.

"....Savannah....."

There was no telling how long it had been since the first shot was fired, but Nathan might awake to the sounds of sirens racing down the nearby streets to try and locate the source of the shots fired. They were still at least a block or two away.

There was another figure standing over him - clearly not the same, though. White clothes instead of black...and a sleek, minimal mask instead of a baggy hoodie.

"Nathan. Wake up. You've been shot."

The sound of sirens slowing crept into his hearing, the glaring white light breaking with the form of a person standing over him, seemingly glowing in the brightness. The images merged, and the light began to fade away into the night of Deysha.

"...Ajkadi..." he mummered as the sound of his surrounded fully flooded back to him. Nathan suddenly began to force himself from the ground, trying to stand despite the sheer pain of his head wound. "I have to go....." he said in a rushed tone, hinting only slightly at the fear that now surged through his veins. He could handle a gun to his head, but not the police. Not here, not now.

"You should be still. You're bleeding." She made no physical effort to stop him, but firmly stood before him. "The paramedics will be here shortly."

"No!" he growled. "No paramedics....I have to go...." he struggled to stand steadily, bracing himself against the wall for a moment longer.

The Ajkadi girl studied him for a moment, letting herself analyze the situation enough to see that he either had a very strong concern about being confronted by the officials about what happened, or perhaps just wasn't in his right mind.

"You need medical attention. But where do you want to go to, if not to the paramedics and the police?"

Nathan exhaled deeply, the pain making him unsteady on his feet. He watched the alley closely as the disoriented scene spun around him, shaking, and shifting with each passing moment. The bleeding had slowed by this time, but not stopped seeping through his now drenched red waves of hair. At Nathan's feet she could see a deep pool where his head had laid while unconscious. He heard the sirens coming closer, blaring through the streets at high speeds toward the crime scene. All he could think of was getting away, running if he could, but his body would not let him move more than a few steps at a time. He was so consumed by this urge that he hardly heard the Ajkadi woman break the noise with her question.

"No paramedics..." he muttered again still stammered away from the narrow street. "Anywhere, just not here." he paused and looked back, trying to focus on her for a moment. "Please trust me...I have to go...now."

She knew what was right and logical, and that would be to quickly and safely escort Nathan out to the paramedics and police frantically searching for him on the street. Still, she couldn't help but feel that there must be some good reason that he had. Her intuition was winning over logic.

"Be still. I can take you to our center," she said as she followed alongside him and kept a hand on his shoulder to help steady him. "We treat some cases there for people without insurance. Stop moving. We'll have the paramedics look you over to see that it's not life-threatening, and then I'll have them bring you there."

Nathan jerked his shoulder away from her, stumbling to the side into the building wall.  

"No....you don't understand.  They can't find me here or she'll be taken back into military custody.  Please....I'm not a criminal, I saved a child's life god damnit. Please...help me get out of here."  He stopped, shocked that it had finally come out after all these years.  His mind raced through if she refused, he was in no condition to fight her unarmed however; he knew he wouldn't be able to just let her go.  He remembered the gun, though unlikely he would be able to get back to it before she was able to draw her sword.  He stalled....staring through her mask into her eyes, his own reflecting the genuine  fear that coursed through his veins.

She recognized something in Nathan's eyes that surpassed the shocked ramblings of a man who had just suffered a gunshot wound, and decided - albeit somewhat foolishly - to trust her instincts and do as he asked.

"Come with me, then. We need to get you off of the street. Walk with me." With a calm and disarming approach, she reached out again to try and guide him by the arm as she looked around the alleyway for somewhere to duck inside.

Nathan had no choice but to trust her, there was no other way he could get out of the alley himself, and if she turned on him he knew he was in no condition to fight her or the police. He followed her lead through the alley, paying what attention he could to the turns she made, just in case she was circling him back toward the scene.

Nahdra tempered her swiftness to match the wounded man. Although she was unsure why he might be fleeing from the first responders, it was not her duty to question the man's integrity or sanity. Perhaps he was one of those who was treated poorly by police - not at all uncommon, by what she had seen during her time on Deysha - and wanted nothing to do with then. Perhaps he was a vagabond, afraid of being locked up for his wanderings - something else that she knew the taste of all too well. Or perhaps he was a criminal.

She would have to wait to find out.

Nahdra didn't know the alleyways of Trader's Point very well, and this was readily apparent as she stopped a few times to try and reorient herself, all while keeping Nathan on the move. The nearest solution was the back entrance of a small stocking warehouse. She ducked against the wall as the siren of some emergency vehicle roared by on the other side of the buildings only a few dozen yards from where they were.

"Stay down," she whispered.

Nathan followed her as helplessly as a lost child, he had no other choice and the clarity of his mind was drifting in and out.  He groaned as they ducked into the warehouse, falling back against the wall with his head hung low and blood flowing down the clumped strands of his dark hair.  He clenched his teeth but said nothing.  Anger with himself for making this woman his accomplice and the fear that she was circling him back to the police stirred his fatigued mind until he gave in, throwing his head back against the wall of the building.

"Go.  Lead the the responders back here, I will wait.   I don't want to involve you more than I already have." he said grimly, giving himself up was the only way he could think of that would free this stranger of the burdens he had placed on her shoulders.

"...you want the paramedics here now," she half-said to herself, confused. Maybe he had suffered some traumatic head injury and was finally starting to process his thoughts. "Be still, and I'll be right back."

Nathan waited until she was out of the building and timed about how long it would take her to get out of sight of the warehouse. Once enough time had passed he checked the alley way for movement before stumbling off in the opposite direction of the sirens. I'm sorry, he thought as he turned a corner and wandered off into the darkness.

After Nahdra disappeared down the alleyways, she found the nearest police officer and flagged him down. She led the responders back to where Nathan had been, just moments ago. They were nearly ready to dismiss her as misleading them, until one of the officers noticed a few drops of blood trailing on the ground.

"He seemed nervous about needing help," she explained as they began to follow the trail. Suspicions rose, and one officer stayed behind with Nahdra. Two others, scouting ahead for the paramedics, drew their weapons in preparation as they stalked down the alley in the direction Nathan had gone.

"Police and EMS! If you're wounded, we need to know your location so we can help you! Drop any weapons you have and keep your hands where we can see them! Call out so we know where you are!"

Nathan hadn't made it that far down the alley and with the sound of the first responders coming directly behind him he knew they would spot him shortly. He thought if only he could turn the next corner and stay out of sight but in the end he could not. He lost balance at the end of the next alley and crashed shoulder first into a nearby metal dumpster.

"Keep your hands up! Police! Keep your hands where we can see them!" The shouts grew closer and closer. They saw the wounded man as he clattered towards the ground. Guns drawn, they surrounded him, still not able to identify him as the aggressor or the victim.

More police came as they verified the man's location and soon, all the exits were blocked. The paramedic team was waved in on caution, as the police moved in closer and checked the man for a gun.

"He's got a wound to the head. Keep back until he's secured," one of the cops announced as he knelt down, taser and handcuffs at the ready if need be.

Nathan slowly eased down to his knees, with his fingers laced behind his head as the responders approached. He stared off into the distance, figuring his next stop would be the one place he never wanted to go back to.

The police swarmed in unison, and within a few brief seconds, his hands were holo-cuffed at his waist. He was searched and found clear of all weapons, so the paramedics were allowed in for triage and first response.

About half of the force of police peeled off in a direction indicated, for better or for worse, by Nahdra, their only eyewitness. The rest secured the scene with practiced precision - a shooting in Trader's Point was not entirely uncommon, but they handled it swiftly and with an efficient sense of locking down any possibility of the situation escalating.

"No majors hit," one of the EMS guys announced to the others, "blood loss is non-fatal so far, but we need to stabilize and transport." As assigned, another paramedic dashed to the ambulance and returned with a full back-and-neck brace stretcher. Nathan was very quickly being prepared to be loaded on.

The dim haze of light in Trader's Point hid the nights sky in an orange haze, Nathan watched the blank sky as he was loaded onto the stretcher and into the emergency vehicle. Once inside he closed his eyes and remained for some time silent.

"Where is the Ajkadi?" he asked after a long while. "I need to ask her something."

"The eyewitness?" One of the police that had been standing guard over Nathan from a few feet away, now positioned by the outside of the ambulance doors as the paramedics finished up and started to load in. "We're going to be asking her to come in with us for questioning."

The driver door closed as the last paramedic jumped into the back and reached to close the doors.

It only took seconds for Nathan to realize that they were not going to bring her to him.

"Wait, please. She's my sister...I need you to get her for me." he pleaded helplessly.