We were sitting in the hall, waiting for Ruby to do her magic and hoping to hear a good news.
Hoong was sitting quietly on the couch looking at his phone.
"Are you okay", I asked.
He remained silent.
"Sorry", Lee suddenly said.
Both of us turned our head in his direction.
Lee spoke again, "Hoong, I apologies. I know I went overboard, I shouldn't have hurt you. You see she means a lot to me. And if anything happens to her...I don't know how to answer back to her father or even to myself. I am really worried about her. I know I took my anger on you, and I was wrong."
"Its fine, old man. I am sorry too, I also crossed my step", Hoong finally spoke.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
I punched him softly and said, "can I ask you something little brother?"
"What's with this formality, makes me want to puke. Shoot."
"I know you could have used your power, why didn't you check out on her before going out for the patrol. You touch us all before our patrolling, but why don't you ever check on Florida?"
Hoong took out his gloves, which he always wear so that his hands doesn't come in contact with human body otherwise he starts having vision. So in order to avoid that he always wears the gloves that Ruby gifted him a few years back.
"I have my reasons", he replied and wore back the gloves.
"What can be so bad? Do you seriously hate her so much?
"Its not about hate. Why do you want to hear something which makes no sense to me."
"Still", I persisted.
Hoong got up.
"I can touch anyone and get a glimpse to their future. But like you all know if there is no danger or life threat then the vision appears black, and if there is a threat, I catch a glimpse of it and warn the person of that thing, place or situation, or that stimulus to be precise. But when I touch Florida it's always black I never catch a glimpse of anything so I fail to prophecies anything even when she might be in danger. And moreover whenever I touch her I feel an unusual attraction towards her, more like a craving so I stopped touching her altogether. Now that you have got your answer, stop pestering me with your nonsense."
Hoong's confession really startled me. 'Who is this girl really, the more I get to know her, the more mysterious she gets. She is like a Pandora box!'
After 20 mins or so, finally Ruby shouted from the second floor, "Lee can you get me a tub of warm water"?
Soon after Lee came back with a tub of water, I followed Lee to her room. Before entering I shouted from the stairs, "Hoong you coming?"
He didn't answer back. I knew he was still angry, even though Lee apologized. I didn't bother him and entered the room.
Florida was still unconscious. Ruby changer her clothes and now she was wearing a white flannel Tee and navy blue shorts. Her whole body was covered with bruises. Her right neck had a bite mark, her right arm had a deep scar, there was also another scar near her left hip; all left by those ghouls. Blood was still coming out of her wounds. There was another scratch near her head.
Ruby looked at us and said, "I cleared her wound but I am not being able to stop the flow of blood, if this continues she will bleed to death and the wound will become infectious and she might even end up in coma."
Lee replied in a heavy voice, "try applying your medicine over her wounds. And then use your power on her."
"I was also thinking the same but I need your help with that. While I try to restore my energy and then heal her using my aura, you apply the medicines. All these have already made me loose out a lot of my energy, so I need to restore the rest and concentrate. As, I will need a lot of my power to save her."
Ruby had a healing aura. By touching others, she can suck in their pain and heal the injured back to their health. All the women of our Elocossa family is born as a healer and the men as hunters. This is like a heredity where the power and the legacy is being passed down through generations.
Lee simply nodded.
After taking the herbal bottle from Ruby's hand he sat beside Florida and emptied the vile in the cotton swab.
I was standing at a distance, watching the actions unfolding.
I knew the medicine burns a lot when applied on the wound, fortunately Florida was unconscious. This might relive her out of some pain, although her wound was indeed very deep.
Lee slowly started pressing the swab over her wounds. Even in the state of blackout, Florida grimaced and she started taking uneasy breaths. I have always been indifferent to her and thought of her as a stranger living at her place. But today, I was genuinely feeling bad for her.
Lee applied the medicine and then closed her wounds with gauze and micropore. Watching Ruby all these years healing us, he sure has learnt a lot.
Finally he stood up and took a long breathe.
"Even if she is unconscious, she was hurting a lot. It took a lot out of me while applying the medicine, while looking at her panic-stricken face." Lee sighed. "Ruby are you ready?"
Ruby nodded.
We stepped back and watched Ruby holdin g Florida's hand as a deep blue light surrounded the duo.
All of us were hoping Ruby's healing power to work. The light became more deep, but suddenly Ruby fell on the ground with a thud.
We rushed towards her to help her up.
"What is going on?" I asked.
"I don't know Jung. This is for the first time my powers failed. My aura failed to reach her. I have healed her many times but her body this time completely resisted my energy and surprisingly something or a more stronger energy from her body threw me away from her", Ruby spoke at once.
Suddenly all of our eyes fell on Florida's wrist. The phoenix mark was glowing red. We all looked at each other in surprise.
"Lee, what to do now? It's been hours and she is showing no signs of recovery. What should we do now? And why on earth is Ruby's power not working. What the fuck is going on?" I asked visibly perplexed.
"Call Dalv. Only he can save her."
We all looked behind, Hoong was standing with his arms folded across his chest near the door.