Chapter 7

"Jinora!" Hands come up and tightly grip the steel bars that cage the man, his face pressing tightly between them as he grins wide enough that she has the sudden fear it may very well split down the centre. "Jinora you—you're okay, right?"

"Li," She grins back and grips the bars as well to snake her hands against his reassuringly. "Yes, yes, I'm fine. I've brought help." She stands back slightly to let Bolin fall into the other man's view and draws her brows in as she watches the doctor blanch slowly.

"Ah, Bolin." His expression slowly bleeds into a wry smile as he steps back and throws his hands up defensively. "You are...not expected." He glances over at Jinora with a small measure of puzzlement and amusement. "I was expecting the Avatar."

"You two know each other?" Jinora asks incredulously and throws her gaze between them like a ball bounced back and forth against a wall.

"I've seen him around the arena…" Bolin says slowly, his eyes a deep green that burns slightly below the surface. "He's patched me and Mako up once after a fight." There's something wary flickering in his gaze, something in which he isn't telling Jinora.

"Perfect. Everyone knows each other. These introductions are always so lovely, I know, but can we please get out of here before Amon's men get here?" Kara stands suddenly from her corner of the cell and glares at them, her teeth grinding in a mixture of annoyance and extreme nervousness as her gaze darting down the hall in quick movements, waiting for any second for guards to come rushing in.

Turning slowly as if just remembering the woman was there, Li's hands come up to rest carefully against the her shoulders. Awkwardly, he gives them a gentle pat and begins slowly, gently, "Kara, I think…I don't think it would be a good idea for you to come with us right now."

"What?" She shrieks and jerks his arms off of her violently. "You're going to leave me to rot here? I don't think so."

"Listen," He grabs her hands again earnestly, "Last time we tried escaping with you…well, I told you what happened. We can't risk this again, it could be our only chance." His voice is pained, though not nearly so much as the expression on Kara's face as she realises that he's right.

Her body is shaking uncontrollably as she grips the front of his shirt tightly. "No, there…there must be another way. You can't leave me here. I won't come with you guys. I'll…I'll find my own way, just don't leave me here, please." Desperation is foremost in her voice, followed closely by a rising sense of panic that Jinora can feel palpably in the air as Kara's voice raises higher and higher with each word that comes tumbling out of cracked and drying lips.

"They will kill you if they find you out of your cell." Li murmurs in a tone that is trying to be soothing as he runs hands up and down her arms. "It's for the best…"

"No!" She screams and throws herself at him, her fingers drawn into tight claws as she scratches his face wildly. "Do you think that whatever they are going to do to me if I stay is going to be any better? You saw what they did to my father, you were there, you stood and watched as they cut him open in front of the crowds and I will not let that happen to me as well! " Her shrieks echo through the chambers and there is blood beneath her fingernail from a solid swipe she has managed to land on him. "They can keep you as a little pet if you're caught, you and your special skills and knowledge of the human body, but they will kill me if I stay here—YOU HAVE TO TAKE ME WITH YOU!"

Faster than Jinora can even register to stop the crazed woman, Li's hand flies up to a point on Kara's neck between cords of tendon and presses deeply. The reaction is instantaneous as Kara's eyes widen for a moment before fluttering closed as she collapses in the young doctor's arms unconscious. Grimly, he whispers a murmured apology as he sets her down lightly onto the stone floor and shares a pained expression with the young airbender.

"What the fuck was that?" Bolin asks, enraged. He bristles like an owl-cat, his eyebrows drawing in and his lips curling back to bare gritted teeth. The mass of muscle in his arms are bulging dangerously as he glares at the doctor, his hands coming to the bars to clutch them tight enough to cause them to bend beneath his rage. "You're going to leave her here for them to find?"

"Bolin," Jinora grasps his arm gently and bites her lip, pleading, "Please, we'll come back for her. But Li's right, because as long as she's with us while we're escaping and there's one of Amon's men around, we can't…we can't trust her. I'll explain later, I promise."

"Trust me when I say she will be safer in here." Li reassures quietly and steps back from the bars, examining the damage Bolin had already inflicted upon them. "I see you've partly got the job done, care to help a man out further?" He tilts his head inquisitively at Bolin, a small bite forming into his lip as the earth bender stiffens, almost contemplating the action of leaving him to rot down here as well. Instead, he shakes his head slowly and steps up to the metal bars and with a quick jerk, pulls them aside enough for the slim man to carefully manoeuver out of.

She can see now that he's not curled into a small cell and has light reflecting off each sharp bone that stands out against his skull how alarmingly thin he is. She knows she isn't in the best of shape either; but she never was able to eat much as the food made her nauseous and swallowing hurt her constantly dry throat. Lightly, she grasps Bolin's hand and murmurs, "How long were we in there for, Bolin?"

A pained expression flits across his face and he gathers her tight to him, holding her against the crook of his neck. "A month and a half. I'm so sorry we couldn't find our way here earlier. I tried, I tried so hard for us to get here as soon as possible, but we didn't have a working plan, no one would let me—"

"Bolin," She steps out of the warmth of his hug and places both hands on the side of his face before touching down on his lips in a gentle kiss, "Thank you for saving us."

The dulled thud of a nearby explosion shakes through the stone foundation of the building, sending pebbles raining down in scattered bursts onto their heads. Jinora's arms fly up to shelter her head and she hisses, "We need to get out of here. Now." With a bite of her lip, her eyes are drawn towards Kara who is lying limp and ragged in the cell corner, rocks hailing down around her. "But we can't leave her here after all." She ignores the small sound of protest Li forms and asks Bolin, "Can you carry her? If she's unconscious, I doubt she'll pose much or any of a threat."

He grins at her and nods. "Of course, Sparrowkeet. And you're right. We've got to get out of here now. Judging by the noises Korra's making up there," He jerks a finger in the direction of the slowly rumbling ceiling. "We've got about seven minutes before she tears this whole place apart."

"Then grab her and let's go." Li urges with an insistent wave of his hands.

Without further urging, Bolin quickly tears the bars from the door and scoops the emaciated girl into his hold where she is cradled protectively between warm arms. A small flare of jealousy ignites in Jinora as they fly up spiralling stairs, only for her to viciously crush it with a heavy amount of shame and disgust. For her to be envious of an emaciated girl that had been taken out with a single blow to the neck was hardly—

Everything comes crashing and rattling down as stones are raining from the ceiling harder than before and Bolin is screaming at her to run faster. Her muscles ache at the exertion she is putting them through after nearly a month and a half of them being let to atrophy but she can see the door just close enough, just close enough to make it. Behind the doorway that is torn off its hinges with a single jerk of Bolin's free hand though lies a spiralling staircase that Jinora can't help but despair at. Her steps falter and she hesitates as she isn't sure suddenly if either she or Li will be able to make it until a warm hand is pressed firmly against the small of her back.

"C'mon, Jinora, you can do it. I know you can do it." The desperation in the low murmur he utters at her fuels her forward and she's flying up the stairs, her heart threatening to frantically pump itself out of a pulse and fire licking searing pain through her calves and thighs as she dodges falling stones. It's no sooner than she manages to tumble into a well-lit hallway that is shaking with the resounding thunder of blows being thrown on behalf of her avatar friend does the entire stairway collapse behind them in a bellowing roar of falling debris.

"That was…close." Li pants on the ground next to her and rolls up on to his elbows to heave some bile onto the broken stone floor. "We should keep going." He wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist and looks at the two of them and the woman still past out in Bolin's dirty arms. "…But I have the sneaking suspicion that you two aren't planning on sneaking out quietly with me." At the unwavering stare that both of them return his comment with, the doctor sighs and holds his skinny arms out. "I'll take her. I can manage it the short distance out of here."

"…Thanks." Bolin manages to grunt and slowly lowers Kara into Li's outstretched limbs, wincing as the man staggers under the slight weight. "You sure about this?"

"Yes." He sighs and adjusts the deadweight in his arms to a more comfortable position. "I'm no use to you here as you try fighting Amon, and Kara will only prove to be in the way as well."

"Good luck." Jinora says uncertainly and reaches a hesitant hand to rest on his arm. "Be safe."

"Here's to hoping." He grins and turns his back on them, a limp painfully apparent as he attempts to jog away and down the corridor away from the thundering blows that echo throughout the building.

"Why don't you trust him?" Jinora knows that this is hardly the time to be having this conversation, or conversation at all really, but there is something biting at the back of her mind that she just can't shake. Something is wrong, wrong in the way Bolin wouldn't meet the man's eyes and flinches slightly at her question. "It's…it's not just that you don't like him. You're uneasy around him. What aren't you saying?"

His hand flies up behind his head to scratch it in a gesture that Jinora can recognize as complete discomfort in him. "…You know what I was like before as a kid on the street. I've never lied to you or hid it; you know who I've worked for. I did what I had to. What I had to do to survive, to make sure that no one ever had to come take me away from Mako." He becomes increasingly uncomfortable looking and grasps the air in front of him to stop himself from reaching for Jinora.

"I didn't lie when I said he patched us up before after a fight…but it wasn't a probending battle. This was before we lived at the arena and I think he was just doing his apprenticeship there for his medicine and…and I just finished a really bad job. I ended up being dumped there until someone dragged me in and had him fix me up." There was a pained expression on his face as he continues in a hoarser voice. "It was a really, really bad job, Jinora. I ended up pouring it all out to him what happened. He never said anything. He didn't judge me, or yell at me, but he would never meet me in the eye. He just fixed me up and sent me out. I saw him around the arena a little bit here and there after we moved in, but he was never our assigned checkup doctor and after you go around enough battles, you get to know everyone, so I know he had to have requested never to be assigned to us."

The shame was still so evident for a deed so long ago done out of sheer necessity and all she could do was wrap her arms around his waist and say, "I…will never ask you about this. You don't have to tell me because I don't care. You're here now, and you're you." She looks up at him and smiles slightly. "I would never have you any other way than the way you are now."

The returning kiss is so powerful it has her gripping at his shoulders for support as her legs becoming embarrassingly useless beneath her. She doesn't realise until now how much her body missed the feel of him close and warm until she has to clench her fists to stop herself from pulling him back after he draws away from the kiss. His eyes are somewhat glazed as he murmurs, "That…was probably not a good idea. Can't really afford anymore distractions."

She laughs and nods in agreement before sobering and asking, "Where do we go from here then?"

"I'm taking you out of here before things escalate any further—" His sentence is punctuated by the loud roar of the building being partially blown away by a force that rattles through Jinora's jaw and has her tumbling slightly in an effort not to fall flat on her face. "—and then heading back to help the rest of them."

"No." She hisses vehemently and grabs him by the collar. "No. You are not going back in without me. I'm not a little girl anymore; I can take care of myself."

"Jinora," He says patiently and holds onto her considerably smaller hands in a light grip. "This isn't…it isn't a matter of how adept you are as a fighter, but you've been in that cell for a month and a half and you can barely stand on your own, let alone fight Amon and his hoard of followers who can all take away your bending and even kill you with just a poke to the head—"

—Faster than Jinora can even register to stop the crazed woman, Li's hand flies up to a point on Kara's neck between cords of tendon and presses deeply—

"They can keep you as a little pet if you're caught, you and your special skills—"

""I'll take her. I can manage it the short distance out of here."

"Wait." She grips the fabric in her hands into a ball as they become fists and her eyes widen while the realisation hits her harder than if the ceiling came crashing down on them right then and there. "A poke to the head…Bolin, how did Li know to just jab a pressure point like that and knock her out?"

"Well, he's a doctor, they learn pressure points and stuff…"

"No," She shakes her head vehemently and clenches her eyes shut in frustration. "No, Bolin, I don't care how good a doctor you are, you don't just tap someone on the neck like that and know where that pressure point is while you have a hysterical girl set upon clawing your eyes out coming at you and what it's going to do from an apprenticeship in medicine. Kara started saying it too, she knew about it somehow, she knew that he was somehow valuable to him, and then he just…he knocked her out and left her for Amon's men."

The rumbling is getting closer as pillars surrounding them in the long corridor begin to shake and vibrate unsteadily. Frantically, Bolin's hand envelops hers in its large grip and he's dragging her down the hallway, yelling, "Okay, say his knowledge of pressure points isn't legit, you've spent a month and a half with him, imprisoned. Regardless of if he somehow was taught by them their pokey ways, he's obviously not on the same side as them!"

"Something isn't right with all of this, Bolin, I don't like—"

The breath is suddenly slammed right out of her as large and thickly muscled arms wrap themselves in a constricting grip around her small frame and she's thrown forward onto the ground. She's gasping in pain like a gaping fish, tears in her eyes, and barely registers the flash of movement in the corner of her eye that only instinct manages to catalogue as get out of the way. "Bolin!" She shrieks at the heavy weight pinning her to the ground and pounds at his back urgently.

The scent of charred hair is an alarming awakening to Jinora who can only stare numbly at the crackling rod that in the last second the earth bender managed to flip out of the way of and roll them over a foot away from it as it still crackles and sparks angrily with electricity in the deep hole in the expensively tiled floor it has gouged itself into. Thick fingers grasp onto her shoulders and jerk her up onto her feet unsteadily as Bolin roars, "Go! Run!" and flings a boulder at the feline opponent who deftly moves out of its way in a graceful sweep and darts forward swiftly, just giving Bolin enough time to throw up a jagged wall of stone to block him.

She runs. She turns down back corridors and runs through trembling doorways, and everywhere, everywhere there is shouting and screaming; explosions and thuds. She knows now that if she stays with Bolin, she will only distract and hinder him and if she is responsible for his death, there is no amount of forgiveness in the world that would overcome her own crushing guilt. She runs until she trips over splayed legs that stick out from behind a hastily placed tapestry and falls with a small scream, her clawed up palms bursting red with pain.

An airy groan resonates barely audibly from behind the expensive and finely decorated cloth and the groggy movements give Jinora the impression that the victim is just stirring. Slowly and through a scarcely comprehensible mumble, the words tumble out from under the embroidery, "Korra…"

She recognizes that voice and throws the drapery off of the man who has made it to a crawling position on his elbows now and gasps. He is so pale, more so than even his usual complexion and it's only after her eyes drift to the exposed burn that lies right in the centre of his chest red and pulsing and burnt does she realise why. "Mako," She breathes and clutches his hand desperately, "Mako, what happened?"

"I got slow, I guess…" He pauses for a moment to hack uncontrollably until the floor and Jinora's already sullied rags are splattered with red blood that spits across her skin like ashes. "Korra…put me here for now." His eyes widen and he grips her hand painfully tight in his. "Jinora, you have to go help her. She's alone, she's alone with Amon. There wasn't anything I could do but she needs help. She needs your help, Jinora." He's so desperate and so broken that Jinora can't help the frustrated tears that well in the corner of her eyes. She's useless too right now and so broken herself that even as she sits on the floor with this man she is panting uncontrollably from the exertion of running this distance.

"Mako…" She murmurs and forces her gaze down so he can't see the streams of tears that are dripping useless trails from the bridge of her nose onto their soiled and linked fingers. His defeat and anguish is palpable as he understands her wordless admission of surrender and slumps lifelessly onto her shoulder where warm moisture soaks into the fabric of her shirt and against her feverish skin. She isn't sure if it's blood or tears but it strengthens her resolve and she wraps her arms tightly around him to choke out, "I'll—I'll find her. I'll find help for her."

"Please, please, Jinora," He's mumbling incoherently now and gripping her back, "Save Korra."

She sets him back against the wall delicately as his gaze begins to glaze and waver and carefully wraps the tapestry around him, careful to make sure his feet are tucked in and away before standing unsteadily herself. She has no idea where Korra could have been cornered into with Amon, to but the resounding roar of waves echoing from down the hall gives her a good place to start. She's running again and puts to the back of her mind the pain that screams and beats against her lungs and limbs; she can't succumb to it, she can't fall prey to her weakness, not now.

The steel door is huge and barricaded with ceiling that has collapsed down right in front of it, barring her way, but she can hear them, the low crackle of lightning, the roar of wind and water, there is no doubt in her mind where the avatar is right now. Desperately, she begins throwing clawing away and small chunks of debris, working her way around the huge piles of stone that she can hopefully muster up the strength to just blow away after. She doesn't think about the impossibility and how it's only adrenaline that is keeping her from collapsing or how there's blood seeping through her rags from her ribcage; she just doesn't think, she moves.

"Jinora, Jinora!"

She turns around too quickly and stumbles back onto the piles of stone and cement around her, falling into his open arms and murmurs, "Bolin,"

"What are you doing here, Jinora, you were supposed to run away!" He yells angrily and refrains from shaking her only because any movement that doesn't echo certain delicateness looks like it will shatter her into a million tiny shards.

"Korra, she's in there…you have to help her," She breathes quietly and closes her eyes, resting her head lightly on his shoulder. She just wants to sleep. Everything is numb and she can't just push back the ache and fatigue that resonates through her entire body anymore. "You have to help her…"

"Okay, stand back and I'll do this, Jinora, just stay with me." He pleads and pushes back matted clumps of hair from her forehead. She nods and stumbles back from him until she hits a warm body that lightly grips gloved hands onto the shrunken biceps of her arms. Confused, she turns slightly to meet that dark green gaze and panic floods her system because she knew, she knew this was wrong.

"Li…what are you doing here?" Bolin asks slowly, his eyes warily seeking Jinora's that are darting around in panic for escape from the grip that has become iron tight.

"I'm afraid you can't go in there right now." The doctor frowns and glares frostily at Bolin, angry sparks flickering beneath the ice his gaze has taken up.

His movements are slow as he raises his hands is a surrendering stance and murmurs, "Okay, Li, let go of Jinora, she can't do anything right now."

The older man seems to contemplate this for a moment before shrugging and saying, "No."

She doesn't see from where he takes the baton but Bolin is roaring beyond a decibel that she thought was possible from a human being and pain tears through every nerve ending her brain can contemplate as the baton is thrust against the centre of her back, electricity rippling through her right through the soles of her feet. It's pain beyond what she can sanely contemplate and it's blessed relief when her skull cracks against the stone floor after collapsing and she suddenly she can't feel anything at all; isn't anything at all.

I just took out a small little piece of last chapter. Das all.