Is this destiny?

~ Los Angeles, LA Medical Center ~

Michael and Oni are in the exam room with Emma and two more nurses.

They got their casts removed, x-rays were done, as well as various other tests.

JoAnna is still at home with the twins, and Emma examined their hands.

She asked Michael to move his fingers on his right hand.

"How does it feel?" Emma asked. She can see that Michael is grimacing, while his fingers are moving in slow motion.

Michael hissed in frustration that he can\'t form a fist. And it hurts like hell.

"Give it some time…" Emma encouraged him. "Your bones healed well, but there are tissue and nerve damage. For now, I will get your hand bandaged, to remind you to take it easy. Rest your hand now, and from tomorrow we will start light exercises."

Next, it was Oni\'s turn.

Emma observed Oni\'s left hand. Her fractured finger healed well, but her reattached ring finger is a different story; it barely moved no matter how much Oni tried.

"It will get better, right?", Oni asked Emma.

"Of course. It can only get better from here. Same as Michael, we will bandage your hand and start light exercises tomorrow. Next week, Anna will be back to work and she will do additional tests." Emma did her best to sound encouraging.

After they left LA Medical Center, Oni and Michael had as their next stop to the base of the Army of Chaos.

They are going with a car, and they have a driver because neither Michael nor Oni should drive with one hand.

Since they left Emma\'s office, they were both quiet.

"How is your hand?" Michael asked Oni.

"It\'s fine now, the painkillers are working." Oni did her best to sound cheerful. "How about yours?"

Michael forced a smile. "The same."

He is disappointed to find out how hard is to move his fingers, but his heart ached when he saw Oni\'s dejected expression during her examination. He knows that all this mess is because of him. He made a mistake to follow after Jesse, and they ended up caught and tortured. If he was smarter, Oni would not suffer now. If he...

"Don\'t…" Oni interrupted his thoughts.

Michael looked at her questionably.

"I can see it on your face." Oni explained. "Every time we have a checkup, you are blaming yourself. Don\'t. It will be OK. I\'m sure that in a few months our mobility will return and we will forget that we had this episode. But even if it doesn\'t happen like that, it\'s not important. The only thing that matters is that we are together."

Michael pulled Oni into his embrace and held her tightly. "My only regret is that you are suffering because of my stupidity."

Oni exhaled. "We are together, sharing everything. Good and bad. Think of this as we are sharing each other\'s suffering."

Michael inched away and observed her face. "You have a gift to turn everything into romance."

Oni smiled brightly. "I can\'t help it. You started with romancing, and it rubbed off on me. I\'m still waiting for my next meal… my sandwich master."

Michael was happy that she remembered his sandwiches, which come with a lot of kisses. "Now that the cast is gone, how about I make sandwiches for dinner today?"

Oni kissed him on the lips. Once, twice… "I would love that…" And then she kissed him again.

~ Los Angeles, the basecamp of the Army of Chaos ~

The door of the dark cell opened, and Jesse narrowed her eyes at the light from the hallway.

"Get up." The man from the door said in a stern voice.

Jesse scrambled to the corner of her cell and sat on the floor while hugging her knees.

The man snorted. "If you don\'t want to come, we will need to carry you… And you don\'t want us to do that."

Jesse stood up shakily and made her way toward the door slowly.

"Hurry up!"

Man\'s shout made her jolt.

Jesse followed two men, and two were behind her. They walked in silence through the hallways and she wondered, how come they didn\'t cover her head this time?

Jesse is not sure how long she is here, but she is confident that it\'s more than a month. Two months, maybe? Or three? She can\'t tell the time but based on the rate of healing of the three studs on her left hand which are left after Sarah cut off her fingers, Jesse knows that it\'s several weeks.

So far, other than to see Sarah and Aiden, they moved Jesse three times. Every time she ended up in a different cell which is almost identical to her previous one. She assumed that they are moving her in order to keep the cell clean. And every time they moved her, they would obstruct her vision, but not this time. This time is different, and Jesse has a bad feeling about it.

She exhaled while thinking that this is for the best. By now, she lost hope that Shadow Ravens will come to her rescue. Even if Sarah lied and they are not destroyed, they will not come to her rescue. That is how they are, that is how things always were.

"Sit!" The man ordered when he pushed Jesse into the room with a metal table and three chairs, before closing the door behind him.

Jesse looked around and found herself alone in the room. She tried moving the table and the chairs but found that all of them are either super-heavy or somehow attached to the concrete floor because they would not budge.

The door opened and Jesse\'s eyes widened when she saw Michael and Oni enter the room.

After a second of confusion, Jesse smiled, revealing that she is missing several teeth (courtesy of Sarah). "No guards? And you didn\'t restrain me? Aren\'t you confident?"

Michael looked at Jesse with hatred in his eyes. After all the years they knew each other, she tortured him. But that betrayal is insignificant in comparison with the agony he experienced while sitting and helplessly watching Jesse torture Oni. Subconsciously, Michael\'s arm moved around Oni\'s shoulders, as if he needs to feel her by his side.

"There is no need to be afraid of the trash like you." Michael told Jesse.

Jesse sneered. Her gaze moved over their hands and she saw the bandages. "You didn\'t heal since the last time we met?"

"It seems that you are doing worse." Oni responded.

Jesse lifted her hands and narrowed her eyes at the sight of her left one which is missing a thumb, index finger, and the middle finger, and fingers on her right hand are crooked because after Sarah broke them, they didn\'t heal properly.

"Why are you here?" Jesse asked. "Did you come to mock me? Or to finish me off? Do it, already. I can\'t wait to die and end this misery. I will come back as a ghost and haunt you." She turned to Michael. "You ruined my life. If you stayed dead, everything would be fine. And look at me now. Kill me and let\'s end this!"

Michael looked at Oni. "What do you think?"

Oni gazed at Michael and smiled. "Death is too easy. But she owes me a finger…"

Oni looked at Jesse and then at the empty chair. "You were told to sit.", Oni said icily.

Jesse sneered. "Make me."

Oni moved to the door and opened it. "I need two men…"

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