"Max!!!"
The voice barely arrives and I turn around only to crash into air bags. No, that would have been painful. Airbags are unable to hold a candle to the softness that hit me. It is pillows I crashed into, soft, compact, and full. The best pillows ever.
The smell that hit me suddenly makes me relax and let go of the tension I thought I was totally free of.
"Liz!"
I move my arms around the soft body trying to merge with me, and return the strong embrace in full. But that doesn't last. Liz pushes me back and starts to take a good look at me.
She scans me with the sharpness of a concerned mother. Her eyes pause on the dirt she has not cared about when she has hugged me, and on the scratches on me. But I don't have any grievous wound. It is not like the last time I was at the hospital.
She feels relieved, so she glances at the bed I'm sitting on, and at the form unconscious on it. As she observes Emmie's state, I move my hands casually to hide my neck. But her eyes catch my movements, and they return like a hawk locking onto a prey.
She catches my hands and pulls them down, then focuses on what she missed before. Her expression changes at the finger marks bruising my fair skin, and her eyes, usually soft and full of the gentleness of water, welcome a storm.
I have never seen my sister so angry. She looks ready to swallow someone just to assuage her rage. Even her tone changes, and becomes low.
"Who did this to you, Max?"
Saying that, she doesn't wait for me to answer. Her gaze jumps back to Emmie on the bed, then to the male and female duo of policemen right outside the curtain encircling.
"What happened Max? Why did your school call me, and why did you end up here at the hospital with Emmie? How come you ended up covered with dirt and grime? Are you okay?"
The last sentence is the only one that came out calmly, softly. Even though she is not seeing anything beside dirt and scratches, she still has to ask, and that makes me smile. I really love my sister.
"I'm fine, sis. Emmie is also fine. She is just unconscious from inhaling some inoffensive gas in the chemistry lab. She will be fine after sleeping for a while. As for me, as you can see, I'm not really wounded."
Liz gives me a skeptical look, and I change the subject to defuse the situation first.
"Sis, did you just come from an OR?"
Liz is wearing the blue clothes of surgeons, lacking just the disposal overall, the disposal hat, and the disposal gloves. Moreover, her sweaty appearance from an activity that has demanded intense focus is unmistakable.
She gives me a look that says she knows what I'm doing, then nods, the intensity in her eyes falling back to a manageable degree.
"Yes, I just finished an operation. If not for someone coming to call me, I would still be there taking care of the last details."
I hold back a smile at the deliberate euphemism. Is she just avoiding startling me by not talking about skull bone to put back in place and flesh to suture back in place? I'm not as squirmy when it comes to those things as I used to be.
"Alright, miss neurosurgeon. You have really inherited mom's brain."
My joke sweeps away the rest of the gloom on Liz's face, and she offers me one of those smiles of hers full of soft affection, right before she tightens her expression and softly glares at me.
"Alright, if you are done diverting the subject to make me calm down, tell me what is going on."
I don't mind having been busted. I smile, glance at Emmie, then at the uniformed people guarding a few steps away, before I hold back a sigh.
"It is both a complicated and simple story."
"Start with the simple part."
Liz's voice brooks no refusal.
"Our chemistry teacher is a perverted degenerate who used his position of power to abuse female students. He used his position to get close to them and turn them into his toys. It has been going on for a while, and he targeted Emmie and I this year under the guise of providing free tutoring like he likes to do. Unfortunately for him, I investigated his tutoring class, and I busted him so he went from a rational criminal to a complete madman, and he tried to kill me. That is how we all ended up here at the hospital and with police around."
I notice the ones guarding Emmie and I while also keeping an eye on us have their attention on my words. The distaste from them even though they try to remain professional and composed is obvious to me, and that relieves me, even though policemen still can't let me feel at ease, especially at such close proximity. The last one who I dealt with when he visited home is still a bone stuck in my throat, a source of uneasiness and disgust.
Before my mind can wander, Liz keeps me grounded with her voice.
"Where is that teacher?"
I can't read her mind, just like mine can't be read. Speaking of which, that would be some damn coincidence if it really is one, something I doubt fiercely with everything that happened. Anyway, I can read Liz' thoughts, but I can feel her restrained anger. However, I smile at her question.
"Tyne must be somewhere still undergoing examinations. They must be checking if his testicles are still salvageable, if he has broken bones, and if his insides are bleeding. He might also be checked for a concussion."
Liz's face becomes unreadable, but the speechlessness flaring up from my guards is like glaring headlights in the dark night, especially as it grew at each possible trauma Tyne must be checked for. It seems, in the end, the one most pitiful in the situation has to be reevaluated.
Though, only if the girls Tyne has destroyed the mind and the life of are not included in the considerations.
I'm done answering to Liz, and I nod to myself as I voice my conclusion.
"Most probably, only after that will the school higher-ups and the investigators speak with Emmie and I let us go."