2023-05-12 23:38:11
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Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 211. ER
The hospital is busy, and I sit in front of the ER.Although it was my duty to call Coraline’s parents, the moment Gerald gave me the phone with their number already loaded to the screen, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t call them and tell them what had happened to their only daughter right in front of me, I couldn’t tell them that I had been standing right next to her when her throat was slashed by a psychopath, watching helplessly while trying to move an automatically locked iron gate with my bare hands so I could to them. I couldn’t tell them that I’d come so close to saving their little girl only to fail at the last minute. I couldn’t tell them about how she had bled in my own arms.So, I did not take the call. Instead, I asked Gerald to do it and walked away to where we had parked the van.“Hey,” a voice comes from right next to me, and I raise my head to see who it is.Clara stands with two cups of coffee in her hands. She offers one of the cups to me, looking really tired.“Here,”
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 212. One hour
One hour passed and we still do not get any news from the ER.Every time the door opens, and someone walks out, I get a giddy feeling in my chest and spring up to interact with them, but every time they walk past me to talk with someone else. Gerald had come and gone about a dozen times, checking in to see if I had any news about her condition, only to leave disappointed. I don’t know what exactly he is doing, and why he looks so busy, but he got his phone glued to his ear and I’m pretty sure that he is pulling all the strings he could just so we could not be in too much hot water.I know that no matter how noble our intentions were, we were going against a powerful enemy here, and that enemy somehow had an entire city’s police force under his thumb. And as Clara said before, going against that police force was going to blow this case out of proportion, and I wasn’t sure if we could manage that now with everything that was going on. Right now, the priority should be given to Coraline
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 213. Freezes
Mrs. Granger breaks down crying before I can even get to the middle of the report of what happened today, and although I feel so awkward, uncomfortable, and frankly hurt about telling her all of this, I see Mr. Granger who is doing his best not to follow his wife’s example, looking at me with desperate need in his eyes. And I understand and recognize that need, it’s the same thing that I’ve had since the beginning of this whole thing. The need to know what the hell happened.When I get to the part of the tale where I have to reveal the culprit behind the kidnapping I feel my throat close up.“If we hadn’t believed the word of the police and gathered information ourselves, we would’ve been able to see through the sham,” I say, “because the kidnapper was Aiden.”That pauses Mrs. Grangers cries and she gapes at me with tear-filled eyes.“What?” she utters, sounding utterly disbelieving. “Aiden Collins?”“Yes,” I nod, “Aiden Collins. Coraline’s ex-boyfriend.”Mrs. Granger buries her face
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 214. Sob
I stumble out of the hospital, swaying on my feet as if I was a crazy man. Nothing registers in my eyes, not the vehicles traveling in front of the hospital, not the ambulances coming blaring in bearing patients and paramedics, not the normal patients coming in with their health crisis sorted, coughing into tissues or holding bags of medical information…I certainly do not register the visitors coming in, bearing small comforts for their recovering loved ones, hoping to see them lit up with health upon seeing them enter their wards or their separate rooms.Recovering loved ones. What a concept that is.I do wonder, however, distantly as if I’m having an out-of-body experience, if they had witnessed loss as I had. I wonder if any of them had their loved ones rushed into the hospital after being tortured or shot, after being held in a dark basement while suffering unspeakable horrors hoping for rescue, only to be cut down like a lamb right in front of the man they thought would be their
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 215. Fond
I felt guilty for leaving the Grangers to deal with the news they received as I did, but at the time I had felt like I had no choice but to escape the confines of the ER waiting area. Had Gerald not found me when I did, I don’t know what I would’ve done. Probably walked into the traffic, judging by how distraught I was.How distraught I still am.The doctor told us that they would give us the final verdict after a day of observation, and Gerald is telling me that we had to go to the police soon to give them a sentence.“We have to get our story straight,” he tells me, and I don’t know if he’s oblivious to my fuming or is ignoring it for the sake of focusing on what’s more important than my temper tantrums. “We’ve botched this up already, and if not for Erikkson’s quick thinking in notifying the police in Clandestine City before attempting the rescue we’d have been in more heated waters. But now, we at least have some sort of a justification in case they try to turn this case around to
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 216. Stained
The aftermath of a crime is always messier than the crime itself especially when you’re a witness who just might be an accomplice to the crime as well. And this, coupled with the sadness of losing a loved one, and the anger of having a loved one taken away due to the crime itself, is bound to be tricky to navigate through. I know that I shouldn’t be angry with the Empire City police department because they were not the ones who were in charge of the investigation. They were not the ones who had been bought off by criminals, those problems belonged to Clandestine City. In fact, ECPD had been more than accommodating and very focused on the case, which was refreshing after the leg pulling the CCPD did, had I been in a better state of mind I have very much appreciated it. But I had not had any sleep the night before, and now I had been told that my girlfriend had died. There was nothing I wanted more than to return home to yesterday where Coraline was still alive. Hurt, yes, but alive ju
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 217. I stumble
I stumble out of the police station with a wad of tissues in my hand and another pressed to my nose as blood keeps spilling down my skull. I was instructed to put my head down so the blood flow won't choke me from trickling down my throat, so that’s exactly what I do. The officers release me, and rather than look for Gerald and the company I find another exit and get out of the police station. I’m not ready to face them yet, especially not with a nosebleed that seems to have come out of nowhere.Or maybe not nowhere. I’ve heard that people could get nosebleeds from stress, and God knows how much stress I’ve been under for the last few days. I should be grateful that I did not collapse because of it.But as soon as I step out into the crisp afternoon air, I feel dizzy. The smell of my own blood reminds me of the night before, and I’m so tired of the thick, red liquid. I feel like I’ve seen too much of it in my life. First, my mother, hit by a car and bleeding out in the street, and now
Revenge of The Furtive Billionaire Heir 218. Serious
“I’ve never gotten a nosebleed before like this,” suddenly I find myself saying to this woman who I met just minutes ago. “Think it’s serious?”“It does look like that,” the masked woman notes, and digs into her pocket before handing me an unopened package of tissues, “here you go, I have a feeling you’re going to need more of these. Did you hit your head somewhere? Got a headache?” she looks around, “I mean, with a place like this I might have wondered if you had said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”“Nothing that exciting,” I do not know why I’m speaking to her as if I had known her forever. This level of familiarity is bizarre, but it doesn’t feel wrong. She’s still holding out the tissues, and wiggles her hand trying to get my attention, “thank you very much.” I take the tissues.“If it’s not too forward of me, can I ask you what’s wrong?” the woman questions conversationally, “I caught sight of you just a while ago, and I swear I wasn’t talking to you. I noticed that you loo
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261. Supernatural?
“Oh, fuck!” I let out as I spring away from where I’d been lying with my head on Estelle’s lap. “Holy shit, I’m normal! I’m normal!”I pat at my body, and sure enough, it’s two-legged, hairless, and my hands are actually my hands! With fingers and pink skin, with only some fine hair on my forearms, and no black fur in sight!I immediately look behind me, and nearly cry in relief when I see that I have a normal, human posterior, not one with a tail.And to my surprise, my clothes are still intact though I had ripped them when I had turned into a dog, but they were still here. Thank God, because I did not fancy getting naked for the second time today.“I did not think that would happen,” Estelle comments, and I turn to her. She doesn’t look too shocked at my reappearance as a human. She stands up from where she had been sitting, brushing off her pants as if on habit before turning to me with a smile, “Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t call that hospital.”I stare at her for a moment, won
260. Scream
I cower near the toilet, scared out of my fricking mind as the door opens, hoping to everything holy that she would not freak out, which is stupid considering who would not freak out when they see an animal in a room where they initially left a human in?But to my utter surprise, when Estelle opens the door, she does not scream or throw anything at me.Instead, she blinks.Once.Twice.And then she opens her mouth to say, “Oh.”I blink at her. What did she mean oh? There’s a fricking dog creature in her bathroom and no sign of a human, the human that came to her house naked in the middle of the rain! Why does she look so calm and curious? Why is she looking at me like this was every other Tuesday in her life? I feel so confused that a whine falls from my throat, and that seems to snap her out of her contemplative stare.“I didn’t realize that you were one of them,” she tells me in a confused tone, brows furrowed, “I mean, it’s not like I’m new to this, I should’ve been able to smell y
259. Coming in
I felt different.It was like everything that made me myself, my personality, my conscience, my thinking, and my control over my body, had been plucked out of the said body and then put into a small box somewhere in my mind. I didn’t have any control of my body, although I could feel my body, but then I could not actually feel like I did every day. No, it felt like it wasn’t my body, but then it felt like my body, but not my body again…I didn’t know what to make out of this. My head hurt, and I felt like my breathing capacity had increased and my legs had shortened, and I couldn’t stand up regardless of my somewhat dubious control I tried to open my mouth to talk but couldn’t do that either.And my visions feel weird, everything feels lower than it did before whatever happened to me happened, and the pictures flitting through my eyes seem far more intense than normal. I can hear so many noises as well, the fill of water in the tank somewhere, the sloshing of liquid in the septic tank
258. Get out.
“Okay, so this is going to sound utterly unbelievable at first,” I say, “but bear with me, okay? This really happening and I am not lying, not one bit.”Estelle raises a brow at me. “Okay, normally, if someone tries to defend themselves that much, I might get a little suspicious, but then again what happened to your girlfriend made it to the news and I would never have thought anything like that taking place outside movies or books so I’m going to let you tell your story and pass judgment afterward.”“Fair. To be honest, I don’t even know if I should tell you all this considering there’s still an active investigation happening,” not that the active investigation was doing anything to help. You would think that after being one of the centerpieces of a murder and kidnapping investigation you would be questioned by authorities daily and at least be sent to jail once, but so far, we were only hearing crickets from the police side. It felt like they were truly living under the impression t
257. Ex
Estele sighs, running her fingers through her hair.“I honestly don’t know at this point,” she says, “I’ve never really given any serious thought about this. I knew from the start that I was going to be very careful when having sex with people and was always prepared up until yesterday. And like I told you, I’m not the one for hookups and one-night stands. I love relationships, and I’d gotten out of one just mere months ago and still am not over it, not really.”“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I wince, wondering how two similar people like us could’ve done the same mistake, “was it a bad breakup? I didn’t bring back any memories or something, did I?”Estelle gives out a snort of laughter at that.“No, dude, I can’t even remember the hookup so nothing like that happened,” she reminds me, “and it wasn’t a messy breakup per se. I just…we fell out of love, you see. I never thought that would happen in a relationship. We had been dating for like two years now, and I honestly thought that the next step
256. Good news
After spending quite some time rifling through her wardrobe, Estelle comes downstairs to where I’m sitting on one of her mauve-colored couches with a fluffy blanket wrapped around my frame, holding some clothes.“Good news,” she grins at me, “there are some clothes one of my friends left here after staying the night, and she is about your size. So, if you don’t have an issue with pink,” she hands me the large pink t-shirt she’s got bundled in her hand with a wry quirk to her lips, “and basketball shorts,” she hands me bright red basketball shorts, “then these are yours.”I squint at the combination and comment, “You know, I don’t mean any offense, but who on earth wears this combo even to bed?” The t-shirt is fuchsia with cute, squiggly sheep jumping over a bright green patch of grass. It is truly an assault on the senses, and the less said about the shorts the better.Estelle snorts, “She’s a bit into the eclectic side of fashion. You want me to try and find something else?”“Oh, no,
255. Brain Injury
“Follow me,” I’m being instructed as soon as I enter the quaint little house through the doors. I take a brief look around, my newly deepened senses getting acquainted with the new surroundings I’ve found myself in, and there's nothing to complain about. The lavender and cream scent that emanated from Estelle permeated every available surface of the house and then some, along with the intermingling scents of the cut flowers artistically arranged in various cute vases on almost every available flat surface, one vase each, and the smell of firewood burning in the fireplace. The wallpapers are mauve themes, the skirtings are white, and the floor is made of polished hardwood, and the house lighting is ambient. There is a window seat near the large window I failed to see from the outside, and the wall next to the window is covered with a bookrack. I squint at the old-looking books, trying to see if there are any names on the spines. Some have names, but a lot of them are nameless.Interest
254. Cover
I try to see if there are any materials lying around in what seems to be the backyard of the house, but there are only flowering plants and herbs, neatly grown in flowerbeds and growing heartily, all over the yard. It’s not fenced or gated, and while to me that looks like a bad move security-wise, I guess the residents of this quaint little house do not think so.It’s actually a cottage, by the looks of it, and extremely old-fashioned at that. Blue in color, freshly painted, with white windows and doors, as well as a black tiled roof that had an opening for a chimney.Smoke is coming out of the chimney, and the glow of evening lights emanates from behind the white curtains that had been put behind the windows. It looks homely, and surely someone living in a home like this would not turn away someone needing help, would they?I desperately wish I had something to cover myself, but sadly there is not, so I try to use my hand. Never have I felt this humiliated by a circumstance, and I h
253. Woods
There's something wet on my face. That is the first thing that registers in my mind when I start to gain consciousness from the sea of darkness that my being had been submerged in. The wetness is cold, cold enough to shock me into the real world from wherever it was I had been before, where darkness was a constant. The second thing I register is pain. It's the kind of pain that you would expect to overtake your body after extensive surgery done by some amateur medical professional after a rather terrifying car accident. I feel like I'm cut up and being sewn off raw, with needles pricking onto my skin from everywhere all at once. The wetness starts to increase, and soon enough through the pain, I realize that this had got to be water. What kind of water, I'm not sure. But judging by the force of the icy drops colliding with my skin, I feel like it's rain. Why am I being drenched by rain? Why do I feel so hurt? What's going on? I do not know, but I have been through enough harrowin
