It was an hour before Willow was able to bring them to a broken down restaurant similar to the ones Willow had worked in Sichuan. The floor was concrete and there were broken pieces of furniture and run-down metal or plastic chairs.
After much search of the place, Willow then brought the family in just as there was the first drop of rain splashing the concrete sidewalks.
The mother was uncertain at first when she saw Willow's change of expression upon her strange chain of actions. Even her first step into the broken yet cool restaurant was filled with hesitation.
However, as Willow mentioned how soldiers are searching for ill civilians, the mother calmed down a little. Willow secretly had the child version of Akira sneak out behind them into the back as she locked down the metal doors of the open restaurant.
She left the three together in a bedroom that seemed to have been left untouched after the events and gave them a couple bottles of water. Willow closed the curtains and told the mother how to find her in the back where Willow will do some investigation.
After telling her that, she returned to her work with Akira.
Apparently, the mother was called Li Yun and had just been widowed a few weeks after the quarantine of Beijing started. Like always most individuals, Willow did not ask about Xiao Li who is called Li Yan or the brother who was also called Yan Wei.
Poor fox still had an uncomfortable feeling watching her dissect the people without the supervision of professionals, but there was no one except them capable of going to do this.
After the work she went through yesterday, it was a lot easier this time as Willow had wasted no time with her forensic works in the bleak empty warehouse clean of any rot, at least amateur work.
The place was cooler than the rest of the buildings that all parts of the small room had concrete walls. Four wooden tables sat inside with at least three against different sides of the walls.
There were a few stools and a chair here and there that had all been dusted clean as well. With this, Willow had more space and an easier time working, which took a couple of hours or so this time. When she was done, Willow wrote down all of her findings and thoughts on the situation with the worms before cleaning up and helping Akira respectively wrap up the sutured bodies for burial when the rain would cease.
Willow took a deep breath after having cleaned up everything with the in the small warehouse, Willow was quietly examining the limp worms in the clean petri dishes with careful inspections when she noticed her familiar poke at one of the worms in another dish with slight interest from the corner of her eyes.
"Don't play with it." Willow scolded the child form with disinterest, "If you swallow it and it lay eggs in your belly, don't blame me."
Hearing her words brought a shiver down the boy's spine as he dropped the scalpel. Yet, Akira smirked, "This coming from the person that unemotionally cut open the skulls of a few dead bodies."
"This is forensics." Willow sighed, "Unless you can get me a forensic specialist to do this for me instead?"
Akira rolled his eyes and sat down on his wooden stool, "So what are you going to do about that family?"
"That depends on them." Willow shrugged, "I have to go somewhere so they can't always be following me around. Medicine can't wait either."
"Want me to go get some medicine from the Hospitals?" Akira suggested with a smirk on his face.
"Go ahead." Willow responded unfazed by it all, "Don't blame me if you get caught though."
"Meanie." The child stuck out his tongue.
That coming from an eight hundred years old fox. Willow continued her writings before she heard something banging from the outside rooms. She frowned and threw her notebook into her bag.
"Akira." She telepathed as the child flew off his chair for action.
"Got it!"
With the door open, the child took on his cat form again and dashed out the room with Willow hurriedly behind him putting on her leather gloves and scalpel in hand. The warehouse was a part of the building and attached to the kitchen which they dashed through and through the intersection into a hall where she had brought the family.
However, when she swung open one of the rooms she brought the family to, she only found the two children in one of them hugging each other in fear behind a worn-down bedding. The mother was nowhere to be seen.
"Your mother?" I asked the children in Chinese after seeing that they were fine.
"She went to the other rooms." The older brother Yang spoke up hugging his red-faced sister who was trembling as she struggled to leave his embrace.
It was then that she heard another crash followed by a scream on the otherside of the walls.
"Good. Stay here." Willow looked about for a way to keep the children silent and safe before picking up Aki and stuffing him into the little sister Li's arms, "Aki will protect you, okay? So don't make a sound. I'll be right back."
"What?!" Akira screamed into my mind in outrage before the sister nodded quietly and hugged the cat like a doll
"Bear with it for a while." Willow responded quickly before dashing out the room and shutting the door behind her to Akira's mental scream that still went on cursing her.
However, she had no time to persuade the fox further as she rushed to the other room with her scalpel in hand. She swung open the door and she could see the woman pinned down with a hand around her neck and one of her arms pinned behind her back.
The assault was led by a large figure with long spiky hair dyes red with a purple streak. He wore a reddish indigo vest over a blood-stained white shirt with rolled-up sleeves revealing muscle in his arms. There was no need to guess from the build of the body that the opponent was physically strong.
But, what caught her attention aside from the reddish-purple color from head to toe was his eyes of reddish indigo and purple glaring straight at her.
Heterochromia iridium!
What's more was that it was so pronounced in him under the light of the lightbulb in the room. The man's skin was tanner than Willow and the other residents here.
She frowned as she stared straight back at him after dropping the scalpel. She could see the broken glass of the window that had once been there with the rain all over his clothes most likely irritating whatever wound he has as the blood continue to spread slowly across his shirt.
"Quite a way to treat a woman." She said sarcastically with little amusement as she saw the man's eyes widen in shock.
"You..." The man frowned, "You can speak English?"
"You can understand the words coming out of my mouth, right?" Willow shrugged with a sigh.
The man saw the scalpel thrown on the hard ground and smirked nervously when he noticed the woman struggling to breathe underneath him, "Can I be nice to a woman trying to attack me?"
"Funny." Willow shook her head feigning unfazed dismissal, "Between a man killing a tiger and a tigress attacking a potential predator to defend her cubs with her life, which is more honorable or reasonable here?"
"Cubs? Tigress?" The man's eyes narrowed in confusion before doing the opposite upon realization, "There were children here?"
"So, will you let a mother go or will I have to knock you out to do it?" Willow responded with a sigh, "At least, let her breathe. She's not a monster that can turn 360 for a bite."
The man hesitated but let go of her neck before turning to Willow with a look of suspicion and not any will to let Li Yun's neck, "If you provide me shelter, I'll let her go."
"I wouldn't mind that in the least, but I'll need to have second thoughts if you harm the woman." Willow answered quietly, "You'd do well to keep your hands wet with rain water right now. Anymore sunlight will proceed the process faster and what you're doing isn't helping her case anymore."
Her words further agitated the man's expression as he stared straight at her with a harsh glare.
With a sigh, Willow threw her object onto the ground where the man had stood before he jumped to dodge her attack and grabbing hold of the woman in his arms. However, the object shattered after the hard through onto the concrete floor before them. The woman's eyes widen in shock as he turned back up to glare at her with confusion on his face.
Yet, the smell of a floral essence came about the room as Willow held her breath and watch the man struggle to keep steady on his feet with Li Yun who was collapsing in confusion bringing down the man as he also faints.
Willow shook her head and looked to the broken window. She then poured water over the heavy scent of the medicine bottle with a water bottle. She had no time to whine over the loss of precious provisions since it was safer not to be caught than to die from dehydration since she could always boil the water before consumption.
She then dragged the two bodies into the halls and closed the door. There had only been two rooms to begin with as the third door was just a closet. So, Willow brought the mother into the last bedroom the children were in and escorted the kids staring at the tall man into the kitchen when she looked for the preserved foods and rice to give the kids.
That delinquent looking guy was then brought into the warehouse and placed onto the table as she had Akira help her keep an eye on him as she began looking for the source of the bleed pulling aside one side of the vest and the formerly white fabric. Sure enough, there was a gash on the left side of the man's chest. Akira whistled as he saw this, "That's pretty close."
"Another inch deeper and it would've gotten through the ribs and into the heart." Willow agreed with a sigh, "He has good luck there."
She quickly grabbed some medical disinfect and suture strings she managed to take from the doctor back in Sichuan. Taking the disinfected tweezer and scissor, she became making an examination on the wound before performing the sutures. As Akira watched her work, he commented with a smirk, "You're gonna save this guy, after all."
Willow didn't respond till Akira added, "Watching you do this so easily makes me want to try doing it instead."
Willow scowled as she muttered, "Don't try unless you have practiced already. For now, just watch. Since this is an emergency, I can't make it look as neat as I want it to be, but we just need to stop the bleeding."
She recalled the first time she tried to perform a suture back in college on a dummy and pierced her finger. Her professor was definitely not happy when he saw that. If he learned that she bent a sewing needle and practiced, she wondered if his face would turn a sheet of white or become a tomato.
Then again, he was a professor and she was a poor student. It was probably in his range of thinking that she would use a sewing needle to get better.