Skye's POV
"Oh, my god!"
I only have ten minutes left before my first job interview today!
I did not want to risk being late, so I pressed all the buttons going up of the elevators I found in the lobby of the building. And jump into the first one to open. And pressed the close button in a flash.
"Uggggghhhh…."
I heard the sound of someone groaning. It made me turn around.
"Hey! Are you alright?" I asked with fright. "What happened?!" I exclaimed.
As I tried to check on the man sitting on the corner of the elevator floor, I moved closer and tried to ask him. But I did not get any response, although he remained in his position. In my understanding, he was not well. He might have even fainted.
"Hey, Mister. Are you okay?" I asked, shaking his right arm gently. But the moment his hand moved to sit up straight as if he was awakened, a spurt of something sprayed my face. I wiped it away without a thought. But when I realized what it was, I yelped.
"You're bleeding!"
A hemaphobic me murmured. My voice was shaking. My body froze. I couldn't make another move! I felt like I was suddenly tossed into a cold cave. But I knew I have to hold a grip of my sanity. If I faint, this bleeding man might lose the chance to survive. I could feel cold sweats almost all over my body.
"What do I do?!" I exclaimed in distress.
"Shhhhh…." the man hushed me. "My car… I…" the next I heard him say was so gibberish I couldn't form any word out of it.
"You need to see a doctor," I reminded him. Then I was about to dial the emergency hotline, but the man held my hand tightly.
"No. Please…" he paused, groaning. "Don't… Call… anyone," his words were almost dragged out. "Just get me out of here," he sounded pleading.
The next moment I felt the lift stop. The doors slid open. I checked on the floor indicator and saw it said we were in the basement. I hurriedly pressed the B4 and then the close button.
"Hold on. You're going to be just fine. My car is parked on another basement floor. I will get you out of here. Just don't die on me, do you understand?" I said in the calmest tone I could ever manage to speak with.
The interview I was so worried I would miss earlier, vanished entirely from my mind. I could not ignore this man despite being a stranger. It's actually a miracle that I haven't fainted yet. My father can't even take me to the hospital even when we need to because I have significant trauma seeing bleeding injured people. So, the thought of a hospital is freaking the hell out of me already. My thoughts earlier were to call for medics and send this man to the hospital, but I will remain behind. However, he doesn't seem to agree with the idea, and I gathered we might have the same fear, so I am thinking about taking him to my father, who might know what to do with his wound.
"I can't carry you, Mister. You have to stand up and walk with me to my car. It's not far from here. We just have to pass three parking slots, and the fourth is already my ride," I stated as I helped the man get up from the floor and wound his left hand wound around my shoulders. We sauntered on our way to my vehicle.
“You better take the backseat,” I told the man as I assist him. And then I realized something. I had to know his name the least, I thought. “My name is Skye. What do I call you?”
I asked to ease my anxious mind. When we were in the elevator, the metal box we were in wasn’t as bright as the welcoming morning sun when we arrived at my car, which was parked next to the glass window on the wall. The building has basement floors but they weren’t really underground. The elevators were located on the opposite wings of the building because the parking space allotted for the employees and guests in this building was on the first five floors on both sides.
“You have to say something. At least tell me your name. Because I am afraid I might faint if I don't keep my fear of blood off of my head right now,” I urged the man as I buckled the seatbelt on him.
I couldn't explain why I was feeling like all my senses were at full alert. Whenever I would see such scenarios before, I would drop lifelessly before my brain could ever process the whole scene, unlike right now. I am not sure to say this, but I feel like I am having an adrenaline rush! The energy and strength were there, but the knowledge on how to respond or what to do was weighing so low.
“Mar….co,” he said softly followed by a deep groan.
“Marco, okay, that's a nice name, I guess. Or maybe not, seeing you are in this shape,” I said as soon as I sat in the driver's seat and took a deep breath to calm my senses down.
The man growled in pain but was accompanied by a short and arduous chuckle.
“Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?” I turned my upper body around to face him, making sure I do not miss seeing his response if he did not make it spoken. I was assuming he would nod or shake his head, instead. If not, I was hoping to see his expressions and take it from there before I start driving.
“No….” he winced as he paused on his words. “Hos-…” the man was turning paler by the seconds as he tried to speak. I was about to hold him back from saying anything more when he beat me to it. “Not… the hospital….”
“Wait! Wait,” I yelped when I noticed he was drifting on and off of his consciousness.
“Hush!” he frowned as he answered with audible agony. “Start driving but not above normal speed. And don’t stop or talk to anyone….”
“Alright! Alright. I got you. Just lay back there,” I hurriedly pulled the shirt I had changed with earlier and reached for the man’s hand holding his wound. “Use this as cloth to press on your wound. You’re bleeding so badly,” I told him.
“Lock the doors,” he seemed to speak with difficulty.
I pressed the automatic lock button from the driver’s side door and all doors of my second-hand silver sedan made a “click” sound. Not too long after doing so and got the engine started, a few men passed by. They seemed to be in a hurry looking around. Then I heard an exchange of yells from one group at the end to the other from the opposite direction.
“None!”
“Negative!”
“To the next floor! Find him!”
I started driving when I saw the group of men leave the area, and through the rearview mirror, I asked the man in my backseat.
“Are they after you?” “Uhm…” he answered without hesitations. “I don’t know what I am getting myself into by helping you, but they don’t seem to be nicer than you, so I hope I am doing the right thing by helping you,” I sighed as I nervously drove out of the building’s parking area. I had to drive the way down to exit the building, but it wasn’t spiral. As I drove out, I saw a few of the men searching for my passenger. I am glad I had my car tinted, they did not notice I had a passenger when they passed by my car earlier and when we passed by them. “I am not sure if I saw whatever I saw them carrying. I think they have guns. But they don’t look like cops,” I said while giving my wounded passenger a quick glance. “Don’t sleep! Tell me where to go, first, Marco!” “Huh?!” the man thoughtlessly responded when he heard my raised voice. “What?” he asked weakly. “Tell me where to take you if you don’t want to go to the hospital. Where would you go in situations like this? I mean
"Dad! He's in the backseat," I rolled down the window on my side and informed my dad, who was guiding me with his waving hand, to move closer to the door as I parked my car. When I turned the engine off, my dad opened the door of the backseat, and I was surprised when I felt his presence intently staring at me outside my window. "What….?" I asked as I opened the door cautiously because my dad was standing too close to the door. I was curious why he was by my side and not with the dying man with us. But my dad almost hurriedly, yet carefully opened the door wider for me to step out of it so he could stare at me closely as if checking my condition and analyzing the situation. "Honey, are you alright?" he asked as soon as I got out of the vehicle. He checked my pulse. Then, my head as if making sure I was at an average temperature, and he held my hands to check if I was cold, sweating, or anything of my reactions when I was feeling traumatized. "Are you dizzy?""I'm not sure, dad, but
Marco’s POVI woke up and panicked. I clearly told the lady not to bring me to the hospital. But the smell of disinfectant brushed off my nostril. I wanted to jump off the bed and leave the place. But my body won’t move to obey my thoughts. I tried to sit up. But even the tip of my fingers won’t even budge. “Are you awake?” I heard a man’s voice approaching my direction. “That’s quite odd. I gave you a good dose of painkillers so your body could heal and recuperate,” the manly voice continued. I wanted to answer and tell him that I am awake. But my eyes won’t open despite my eagerness to find out where I was. And even my voice seemed to have abandoned me. Nothing of my words came out audibly aside from grunts and groans. “Marco, right?” the man asked again. I could feel he was standing right next to the bed I was helplessly lying on. “Don’t be hard on yourself. This is not a hospital if that is what you are worried about. If you want to leave this place, sooner, I strongly suggest
I looked around and saw the tube of drips hanging on the left side of the bed next to my head. Its tube was connected to my left arm. If I have been sleeping for days, this liquid must have been my food for the whole time. Looking at the pack of colorless liquid that drops slower than a second in between the next drops, a thought suddenly flashed in my mind. This thought traveled from my brain down to that specific part of my anatomy. I felt like a marionette with a string being pulled away to make me move. I sprang up, but the pain in my left side made me pause. I couldn’t even lift a finger due to the extreme pain I felt at my sudden move. “Do you need a hand?” I heard a man’s voice speak softly as he walked closer to my bed, opposite where the lady was leaning asleep as she sat on a chair. In my pained face, I stared at the man. He looked like he was in his mid-fifties. He had pepper and salt colored hair. I could tell the man was a gym rat somehow. He has a fierce-looking face,
“Dad!? Marco?!” We both looked at each other as if we were asking each other if the other heard what one had just heard. “She must have realized it wasn’t her bed,” Theodor said soon after we heard a feminine voice calling our names one after the other. “She sounds like someone I have known or someone so close to me as a family or something with the way she would yell out my name,” I thought. “And I can’t disagree with you on that. I am beginning to feel jealous, young man!” “Huh?!” I was stunned. I did not know those words slipped off my lips and made the father hear of them. “I’m… Uhm… My apologies, sir…” I stammered in response. “What are you guys doing here?” the lady asked while rubbing her eyes off, one after the other.“Skye, honey, you should have taken more sleep. You look like a zombie, don’t you agree, Marco?” Theodor spoke with a hint of teasing to his daughter. “Dad, please…? I told you, it’s not like that. Stop it. You’re making me feel embarrassed in front of our
“You’re an injured man. My daughter can subdue you easily if you two get into a physical fight, and if you are trying to say you might take advantage of my daughter, I am telling you, with that injury you have, I doubt you have the ability to enjoy the moment,” Ted chuckled mischievously as he turned his back on me to walk out of the room. I was stunned at the father’s response. “Not that I am going to take advantage of your daughter, but I hope you don’t do this just to anyone,” I sincerely stated, trying to walk behind Ted. The father stopped in his tracks and turned around to face me. There were only halogen bulbs on so it wasn’t too bright, but I saw a bemusing smile sporting his mien. I waited to hear what he was going to say.“I haven’t done such things to my daughter. I haven’t had the chance to tease her about a man I think she is interested in, although she keeps saying I am mistaken. And I haven’t entrusted her to anyone before. But I know you respect her as you do to me
“I am not here to judge you. I see you as a light of hope beaming for me that whatever trauma I had in my childhood, I will get through all of them just like I am not afraid to see you bleeding. It makes me hold my grip on sanity knowing someone needs me or my help so I have to stay conscious and not faint despite the color of red seeping out of your wound. Whatever you do or whatever kind of person you are, I am not concerned at the moment. The victory over this fear that had been in my life ever since I could remember is the only thing that matters to me right now. So forgive me if I am behaving weirdly in your eyes. I know this too shall pass, but as of now, I wanna enjoy it.” I did not know why Skye was being so laid-back in front of me. But I could also feel the pure honesty of her words. Before I could even respond, she was talking again. “You might feel as if I am treating you like a newly found pet. I want to take care of you. I want you to get better as soon as possible. L
Skye'S POV“Hey!” Marco yelped chuckling. I could only hear his voice as my eyes were tightly shut in disrelish of the liquid as it reached my tastebuds and my brain declared it was a feeling of burning in my mouth and throat.“Agggghhh! What an agony,” I groaned and grimaced at the alcohol flavor. “Why did you do that? I did not even get the chance to enjoy the aroma of it,” Marco whined as if he was helpless.“I told you, you’re not allowed to drink. Not even a drop. Remember?” I squinted my eyes as I reprimand him. “I wasn’t going to!” Marco retorted defensively. He looked so cute as he pouted that I could not help smiling again. “I need that drink now, more than ever!” “Fine! Fine!” I exclaimed defeatedly. I poured another shot and handed it to him. “Here is another glass! Now don’t dare try having even a tiny sip of it! Ugh! I don’t even understand what taste this has,” I pulled a face as the aftertaste of the forty percent alcoholic drink’s flavor lingered in my mouth. Marco