Boon

/bo͞on/

noun

a thing that is helpful or beneficial

The next thing I remembered was waking up with a searing pain still in my leg reminding me to never get shot again. I looked around the plain white room I was lying in for clues as to how bad the bullet wound was. The only thing I could see on my leg was gauze covering the hole in my flesh.

"Good, you're awake," an older man said, entering my confined space. He noticed the confused expression on my face and nodded as if he was expecting this reaction from me. "I'm Doctor Wills, you probably don't remember me because you were in and out of consciousness on the operating table."

I nodded my head, still slightly confused as the last thing I remembered was being in Luke's arms as he pressed a piece of cloth against the bleeding laceration in my skin. When I opened my mouth to speak, it felt as if it was burning. Doctor Wills must have noticed because the next thing I knew, he was handing me a cup of water.

"Thank you," I rasped out after I've drank the cool liquid. "How bad was it?"

"You're very lucky it didn't hit your MCL or ACL ligaments," he began. My eyes widened at the news. If it had hit one of them, I wouldn't be able to do many physical activities, one being going on any other raid. "Bad news is that it did hit pretty close, meaning that the healing process is probably going to be very uncomfortable," he finished, giving me a sad look as he took in my facial expression.

I slightly smiled at this news. "Are any recoveries pleasant though?" I asked him jokingly.

He laughed slightly before finishing up writing down my vitals from the machine behind me. "Not really."

After he said this, he was out the door and I was left alone yet again until a blonde head peaked into the room.

"Hey," he, slightly shyly, greeted me.

"Hey," I responded simply, waving at him from my stiff hospital bed.

He made his way across the room and sat in the chair next to my bedside. "You know, Michael's pretty mad at you," he spoke all of a sudden.

I sighed and leaned my head back on the pillows. "If I didn't stay in there, we wouldn't have the files," I countered back.

"If you would have died from that gunshot we wouldn't have any of the files," he growled, a scowl covering his face. My face fell at his rough tone. Judging by the way he is looking at me right now, his hatred for me only grew since this raid started. But then he surprised me with his actions.

His arms flew around my neck, embracing me into a hug. I awkwardly wrapped my arms around the lanky boy's shoulders, returning the hug, but still wondering why he is showing this amount of affection when he clearly hates my guts.

"We wouldn't have you," he whispered into my ear, his grip tightening around.

I stiffened involuntarily from his revelation. Did he really care?

"You would have one less problem then," I offered, jokingly.

A light chuckle came from his lips, but it was short lived as he pulled away from the hug and stared back at me. I suddenly felt a wave of self consciousness come over me. What is going on with me?

"Yea, but then I would be missing the only person to ever call me quiffie," he joked back.

I laughed at this and his blue eyes lighting up when the sound registered in his ears. This boy, despite how confusing and infuriating he was, was causing me to feel something I had never felt before. Something that I never thought I would feel in the confines of the lab I was held in. When he touched me, I felt butterflies, and when he looked at me, it was like the world stopped spinning for a second and we were in the stillness of time.

"You have no idea how hard that would be if we lost you, Lis," he mumbled, his hand coming up to my cheek for only a few moments before flying away like I had the plague.

I looked at him in confusion as he shook his head and allowed something register in his mind. A sigh emitted from his mouth as he stood from his seat and straightened out his shirt.

"C'mon, we have a meeting you have to attend," he solemnly said, his face staying stone cold the entire time as he turned to the door and opened it to leave.

I got out of the bed, took a hold of my new crutches, and followed him as quickly as possible, rolling my eyes when he said to hurry up. I almost had to physically restrain myself from hitting him across the face and telling him to get shot in the leg and walk any faster, but decided against when I realized he had probably been shot thousands of times.

We reached the meeting room and took our spots just all Ben is about to begin.

"Thanks to Melissa over there," he said, pointing to me, "we now have their bomb sylums passcodes. We can blow them up whenever we like. We also have public records, and access to any twin case that is different than most."

His face was lit up, happy to be getting closer to what he has been searching for his whole life- the code.

"What kind of twin cases?" I asked, out of the loop as to what that meant.

Luke tensed before looking down at the table and explaining it to me quickly. "When a pair of twins aren't identical, the same gender, or if they have the same brain capacity during the test they give to three year olds, then they label it as a special case."

"We could access some before, but now we can access all of them," Ben finished for him, too excited to allow Luke to speak, but Luke didn't seem to mind as he just sat there twiddling his thumbs, trying desperately-and failing- to seem busy.

"You, Melissa, for example are a different case."

Everyone's eyes widened as if I wasn't supposed to know. Ben kept smiling until it occured to him what he just said. A line of curses spilled from his mouth when the lightbulb goes off in his head.

"Don't mind him Melissa, he's just an older man," Michael tried to cover up for him. My mind was swirling with ideas, unsure as to why they were keeping this information from me.

"If it has to do with me, I want to know what the huge secret is," I fought back, beginning to stand from my seat, only to retract when I remembered my condition.

Michael gave me a warning glance just as Luke stepped in. "Lissa, calm down. We aren't hiding anything," he told me truthfully before turning back to Michael. "And Mikey," he shortened his name while speaking to him, "don't get your panties in a twist."

Michael and Luke finally sat downs free the topic was put to bed, letting the meeting proceed.

"Getting back on track," Ben began, "we need to know what they have against us. Did anyone see what they had when they were inside?"

Calum was the first to speak up when this was asked. "There were robots, not just any old robot, but war robots by the looks of them. Their metal was more resistant to bullets and they seemed better trained."

"Anything else to add?" Ben asked, taking notes of what Calum had just said.

"They have really good gunmen," I muttered under my breath.

Ashton, who was sitting next to me, heard me, and began laughing hysterically, making me think he would fall out of his chair. Luke simply rolled his eyes at his behavior despite him laughing only a few minutes ago next to my hospital bed.

"What was that?" Ben asked from his spot, confused by the laughing.

"They have good gunmen," Ashton said innocently as Ben rolled his eyes jokingly.

Michael and Calum laughed at this and joined in with the fun, all of us thinking that we needed to loosen up despite the obvious war coming. Luke, however, stayed out of it and sat with his arms crossed next to me.

"Well," Ben spoke, calming the boys down slightly, "if that is all you have to report, then you can all go. Meeting adjourned."

Calum, Michael, and Ashton were the first ones to leave, most likely headed for the game room. Boys would be boys, even if there was a full on war in the making. Ben was the next to exit, leaving Luke and I in an awkward silence next to each other.

"Well, I'm going to go," he mumbled, getting up from his chair and walking out the door.

Seconds go by before I stood and raced after him, as fast as I could, down the hallway. The damage done to my leg slows me down as I winced at every step and limped slowly down the hall.

"Luke!" I called after him, but he ignored me.

His long legs don't stop walking as he travelled back to the dome area, despite my yelling and pleads for him to wait for me.

When we reached the hall leading to our rooms, I am almost in tears. The tears threatening to drop from my eyes were from both pain and aggravation that he refused to stop and talk to me. I continued limping after him, but when he arrived to the dome, he entered his room and locked the door behind him. I approached his door, rapping my knuckles against the wooden frame of it.

"Luke, we need to talk," I yelled to him through the door.

No sound came from him, and I began to think he had ignored me yet again until the door opened to reveal an exhausted looking Luke.

"Hey," I said just as shyly as he had back at the hospital.

"Hey," his gravely voice spoke. His door opened wider as he invited me in his room.

The walls weren't the grey mine were, instead they were painted navy blue and covered with white designs. Some of them were band symbols, others were song quotes, some just montages of song and band names together.

"What did we need to talk about?" he asked from behind me, snapping me out of my trance.

I turned to face him to find him leaning against the wall beside the door, holding a ball and tossing it between his hands.

I sighed, taking a step towards him. "Why are you mad at me?" I asked him, referring to the times he had been rude to me since I arrived.

"What do you mean?" he innocently asked, only infuriating me more. My mind almost blew off with the anger brewing inside of me because of his words.

"You. You're so against me, and then you are protective and comforting me. Why can't you just make up your mind? You're so confusing!" I practically yelled, pacing the room with my hands on my head in an attempt to calm myself down.

"I'm confusing?!?" he spat back, the veins in his neck and his face turning a dark shade of red signalling he was mad. "You are just as confusing as me Melissa!"

His voice boomed off of the walls and amplifying the sound. He slowly started coming closer to me, his long legs closing the gap rather quickly.

"You, Melissa, are infuriating," he muttered, his face so close to mine that if I moved a centimeter our lips would touch, and the scary part was, I was okay with that.

**Sorry that this was a little boring most of the way through. Next chapter will be better, I promise. Enjoy!! Thank you for supporting me so far, and don't forget to vote, comment, add this book to your library, and follow me!

Peace Out Girl Scouts!

-Dani

Edited: 18 October 2016