As there were no comments on the last chapter, I am going to just respond to any comments posted at later dates. Thanks and here's the update.

Pernicious

/pərˈniSHəs/

adjective

having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way

"Luke?!?" a deep voice yelled from the other end of the hallway.

I didn't do anything to respond, only a small whimper left my lips as I ran my fingers through Melissa's bloodied hair. Her cheeks were covered with the grime of debris. Small areas were cleaned by my tears, revealing her porcelain skin.

The steps grew closer to me, slowing down as they drew closer and closer to my body holding Lissa's tightly to mine. Gasps were let out as I assumed they caught full sight of us. A hand came down to my shoulder in comfort, and unlike last time when I jerked away, I leaned closer and let out an anguished sob.

"It's okay," I heard Calum's crackly voice assure me and I could only assume that it was him wrapping an arm around my shoulder.

Melissa's weight was taken off of my arms by Ashton. I began to stand up, trying to get her body from him. As I was about to reach for her, two bulky arms restricted me. I looked back to find a teary eyed Michael shaking his head to say 'don't do it.'

"We've got to get her to Wills," Ashton said as he took off down the hallway. I followed closely behind him, finding it hard to watch someone other than myself hold her.

Not to say I didn't trust Ashton, I trusted him more than I was willing to admit, but it was like a knife to my heart as he carried her.

Calum ran ahead, slamming his fist against the metal door entrance of the bunk for rescue to teams. Michael was next to me, his eyes glued to Melissa, assessing her wounds. Glass was stuck in her arm, not too deep, but obviously still enough to draw blood from the amount of dried blood scattering on her arm.

When his eyes reached her legs, a sigh is released from his lips. The large gash ran from her knee to the middle of her femur. It was still gushing blood despite the probably long time span she had in between it being injured and now.

We passed through the door being held open by a member of the colony quickly. Ashton headed to the doctor's area of the bunker, followed closely by me, Michael, and Calum. The surgeons were putting on surgical gloves when we arrived, being alerted by others in the bunker that we had found Melissa critically injured.

"Set her on the bed," Doctor Wills instructed us, a mask muffling what he said slightly.

Ashton did as he was told, lying her on the bed covered in sterile, white sheets before we were told to leave so they could begin the surgery.

"I'm not leaving," I said as I was dragged out of the makeshift room by Michael whose eyes were glassy with fresh tears. It was obvious that he was feeling the same way I was, but knew that it was better to follow orders than to defy the doctors, unlike me.

"Luke," his voice snapped at me, "it's for the better that we go."

I finally gave in, slumping into his arms as he practically carried me out. I only heard slight mumbles from the inside before the door closed to the room, blocking out all sound. My hands reached for my hair when Michael released my arms from his death grip.

"Dude," he called after me, walking towards me with his hands thrown in the air.

"What if she doesn't make it?" I asked him, tears clouding my vision as a familiar tingling sensation took over my fists.

I couldn't stay still; I was simply pacing back and forth. If she didn't make it, I don't know what I'd do. So many things I wished I would've told her would be forgotten and she would never know how I really felt.

The anxiety and worry felt like they were waves, collapsing around me, and drowning me in a whirlpool of my own tears.

Just the thought of never being able to hold her again was enough to send me over the edge. Normally people tell you that being protective of someone was the best feeling, knowing that you care that much for one person. But I really wished I didn't care as much as I did for Lissa right now, because maybe, just maybe, that would ease the hole threatening to swallow me from the inside.

Michael said nothing in response. He didn't want to give me false hope, and I was thankful for that. I couldn't handle anymore devastation at the moment.

Third Person POV

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Michael stood there calmly, watching his world come tumbling down as his best friend tried to find peace in this unsettling moment and the person he had come to think of as a sister fought for her life in a makeshift operating room.

Luke was on his way out of the bunker and to the gym to get rid of the punching urge that had birthed in him due to the stress. His only outlet before Melissa was the punchingbag in the gym. When she came into the picture, Luke could always calm down in her presence. It was weird, it almost felt as if she had a secret power to calm him down just by looking into his eyes with her blue ones. For that very reason, it felt odd to him to be headed back to the place he had totally trashed when he was a teen and his sister died, the place he trained to become the leader of raids for, but most importantly, the place he hadn't seen since he captured Melissa.

His attitude had flipped from being one of grief to one of anger. He saw the fingerprints imprinted into her skin and the bruises that couldn't have been affected by the flying debris. Someone had put their hands on Melissa and nearly killed her.

Inside the sterile room were three doctors all hovering over an unconscious Melissa. Bags of blood were traveling through clear tubes to reach her. IVs were in each arm, each one providing a specific medication.

"Her heart rates going down," the nurse watching the monitor reported, her once blue scrubs covered in the access blood from Melissa's leg.

"Get her on a ventilator, stat," Wills said, keeping his focus on the stitches he was putting into the teenage girl's skin.

Minutes later, the same nurse came back, wheeling a cart with all the supplies she would need. It only took her and one other doctor to hook up all the wiring and place the slightly green tinted tube into her mouth, helping her breath easier.

"Doctor Wills, there's one small cerebral laceration on the left side of her brain," the same brunette nurse said, looking at Melissa's file to double check if they had fixed every need of hers.

"Will you get me a pressure gauge to implant then?" his agitated voice calls over the several beeping machines.

The nurse worked quickly, getting the cup, holding what the doctor asked for, off of her table in front of her and handing it to him. Without a second thought, Doctor Wills cuts a small slip into the blondes skin behind her ear and inserts the miniscule gauge before stitching the opened skin back together.

All the doctors in the room breathed out a sigh of relief as they wheeled her into another room, thankful the surgery was a success. When Melissa was settled in a small room for patients in the bunker, they returned back to the surgical room to clean the equipment before telling Melissa's condition to her friends.

Luke's POV

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I landed punch after punch on the dummy, not hearing anything to disturb me until Bob cleared his throat from the doorway. With sweat dripping from my body and my boxing gloves still on my hands, I turned to face him. He made his way over to me, his head slightly down in shame.

He put the sparring gloves on and held them up, signalling me to train with him. I rolled my eyes at him, but still walked to the center of the room, where he stood and threw punches at the training gloves.

"You know," he began. "I shouldn't have said that about her." I stayed quiet, not wanting anger to get the best of me. "I shouldn't have threatened to kill Melissa," he admitted. "And I shouldn't have killed your sister."

I threw another punch at the glove before quickly connecting my fist with his stomach. He leaned forward in pain while I simply stood there, watching him wither in pain from the force of my punch.

"Is this how it felt when you watched her die?" I spat, tears welling up in my eyes.

He didn't respond, but kept his head facing the ground, trying to even out his breathing. I grew impatient waiting for his answer, connecting my foot with his shoulder lightly to move him onto his back so he can look up at me.

"Watching her walk into a trap just like you did when you walked through that door. Is this how it felt? Because if you felt the same joy I am watching you wither in pain on the floor, you're more sick than I thought." I was fuming as he smiled at me as if he were proving something with our situation.

I clenched my fist tightly at my side as I squatted beside him. The amount of hate running through my body currently was probably wrong to some, being that he was my father. But to be honest, he stopped being my father before I knew he even was. That was the only thing in my mind as I threw another punch at him, this time hitting his jaw and causing blood to run from his smirking face.

"You know what they say Luke," he started, looking at me with joyful eyes for some phsycotic reason, "like father, like son."

I scoffed at this, turning my heel to leave him in the small gym we had built in the colony. "You're sick," I said over my shoulder.

"Am I sick, or simply gifted?" is the last thing my 'father' shouted after me as the door closed, followed by a line of profanities.

I stormed back down to the bunker, his words still fresh in my mind. Was I really like him? 'No,' I assured myself. He left me with complete strangers just because he didn't want to deal with me, and then wanted to accept me when I was of use to him. He wasn't my father, he just wanted to use me as his perfect spawn.

I made it back to the bunker to find everyone orderly leaving and climbing the stairs closest to the entrance. I slipped in the same door we came through when we had Melissa to find Michael talking to the doctor in charge of Lissa's surgery while Calum and Ashton were ordering people to calmly return to their residence and report if their was any damage to them. I practically ran to Michael and Doctor Wills when I saw them, needing to know Lissa's condition.

"How is she?" were the first words out of my mouth when I approached them.

"She is one lucky girl," he began, a smile lighting up his face. That's a good sign, right? "She suffered many scratches due to glass debris I am assuming, we found one, small cerebral laceration on the left side of her brain-"

"What's that?" Michael interrupted him, obviously confused by the terminology.

"It was simply a cut inside of her skull. The treatment was very simple, we implanted a pressure gauge near the laceration and will monitor it until we are sure it is healed," he explained, looking up at us from her medical file to make sure we got all the information we needed.

Michael and I nodded, giving him permission to continue.

"We had to give her several stitches due to her leg cut stretching from her knee to her mid-calf, but those should be just fine. One thing I wanted to discuss with you is the bruises on her skin." Doctor Wills leaned toward us, not wanting anyone to hear these specifics.

"Some of the bruises are in the shape of fingerprints," he whispered to us. "And all the rest are in shapes that debris couldn't have made."

"I noticed that," I spoke up, nodding in agreement with him.

"I suggest you check the security cameras for anymore information when you aren't with her. If it is what I'm thinking of, it may be traumatic for her to watch. Other than that," he finished, talking in a normal voice tone again. "You can go see her."

My legs carried me in to see her quickly, but when I opened the door my stomach drops completely. The sight of her covered in bandages, gauze, and stitching was overwhelming. I could feel the tears pricking my eyelids as I looked at her helpless frame lying in the bed.

Edited: 18 October 2016