A loud thud resounded through the entire apartment, touching even up to the second floor of the apartment where the sleeping figure of the woman now laid comfortably on the bed.
She laid inhumanly still on the bed. Her body was lying as straight as a log of wood with both of her hands placed on each other, resting on her lower abdomen. One would think she was a corpse if it weren’t for the regular rise and fall of her chest, an indication that she was still breathing perfectly.
Another thud reechoed, pulling the young woman out of her light slumber as she jolted out of the bed with a gasp.
With her emerald green eyes opened wide, she clutched her chest as she tried to steady her jagged breathing. Beads of cold sweat donned her forehead and atop the bridge of her nose.
She softly ran her hand up and down her chest while counting backwards like her therapist had taught her as a kid. Overtime, she finally had her breathing under control. Leaning back carefully against the headboard, she closed her eyes before moving her hand gently across the left side of her ample bosoms.
She languidly fondled a particular area as though she were soothing an ache there. Memories she was struggling to keep bottled up began coursing through the darkness behind her shut eyelids.
For some reason, these recent days, her emotions were sprawled out all over the place. She felt like the treasure chest of secrets she had buried deep within the immurement of her past was slowly opening. It was as if someone was searching for the key to open it. The key she had drowned in the deepest and darkest depths of her mind. Someone was trying to get a hold of it.
‘But who?’ Was the important question.
As those thoughts ran through her mind like the Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt, her brain spiked up with the reminiscences of the events that occurred the night before and instinctively, she turned her head sharply towards the direction where the man had laid previously, only to discover that she now laid in his previous position.
With deeply furrowed brows, she took in her position and saw that she had been placed on the bed, whereas the man that had been there was nowhere to be found.
“Mr Kale?” She called out quietly as she gently stood up and walked towards her bathroom. Gingerly, she knocked on the door still softly calling his name but hearing that no response came from the other side, she opened the door and looked around before shutting it again.
“Mr Kale?” She kept calling out as she carried out her search around the entire room, ranging from her closet to even going down the hallway and back to her room.
‘He was nowhere to be found,’ at this realisation, she plopped back down onto her bed, her heart pounding in her chest as she remembered the sight of the injury the gun had left on his arm.
When he had lost consciousness and had collapsed on her, miraculously, she had no idea how, she had been able to carry his muscled body into her room.
She had searched through his phone, which thankfully had no security lock whatsoever-something that was still surprising her, seeing how secretive he appeared to be-and she had stumbled upon his physician’s contact info.
Before the medical personnel had arrived, she had been forced to administer first aid when she noticed that his condition was worsening and for some reason, it ached her heart to see him in such pain with cold sweat acting as a penumbra over his feverish body.
Ultimately, the male physician had arrived and had taken over from her while she served as an assistant. He had been given an injection which induced anaesthesia and as if the doctor had already known he had lost quite a lot of blood, he had brought along bags of pints of blood.
After few IV drips and blood restoration, he was starting to look less pale and soon enough, his health status was restored to something close to normal. But he still looked a bit pale and weak and the physician had recommended at least a whole day or two days’ rest, so it baffled her to wake up to find him gone.
Heaving a tired sigh, she laid back in bed and let the events of the previous night engulf her. Her mind ran through how her actions had been nothing less of frenzy, how she had without hesitation, ripped off his clothing to somehow stop the incessant blood flow.
She closed her eyes and the images of the countless tattoos that had adorned his wrists up to his shoulders, leaving his torso bare of any ink, flitted across her mind. She hadn’t seen his back to know if it was also decorated by any of the indelible paintings.
Vividly behind her closed lids, she could picture the midsized scar that ran from the bottom of his lower lip down to his jaw. Its existence had been enshrouded by the slight stubble covering his jaw that if you were far from him, you wouldn’t notice the scar, but because she had been close enough to count even the littlest specks of freckles that dotted his nose and cheeks, the scar had been revealed so prominently to her.
She could only wonder where he had gotten it from. Some people would say its ugly existence marred his sinisterly flawless face but to Emerald, it was a beautiful indentation. It only added more to his roguishness.
He was still beautiful.
Her eyebrows were tightly bunched together when she thought back to the gunshot. Since she had moved into Gramercy, there had never been a case of a gunshot. One of the reasons she had moved to such neighborhood was in fact, for its promising security and tranquility.
It was unlike some neighborhoods in Manhattan that were chockablock with people and it was as if she had been fated to live here because she had scored a really affordable house all to herself, rather than having to live in a leased apartment with loud or nosy neighbours. She couldn’t have been more chuffed.
So, for such an incident to take place in all her years of residing in the neighborhood, it was quite strange and suspicious and she couldn’t help but wonder why Mr. Kale had been the only victim. They could’ve shot her as well but they didn’t, thankfully.
‘Could he have been somehow acquainted with the shooter?’ She mused.
But before she could dwell further on her hypothesis, she heard another loud thud. Snapping out of her thoughts with her eyes opened, she shot out of bed, only to hit her head against the dark wooden single-planked book shelf that was constructed over the headboard due to the abrupt movement.
With a stifled groan, she crawled out of bed before slipping her feet into her black plush slippers while rubbing her now throbbing forehead.
She bent down and reached for the weirdly heavy yet defense efficient metal equipment beneath her bed-a golf club. Luca, her mother’s boyfriend, had given it to her as one of her birthday presents the year before and since then, it had already served its purpose twice.
Logan had been the regular victim of the special club the two times it had been wielded, since he didn’t seem to learn his lesson to not sneak into their house as early as 2a. m in the morning under the guise of wanting to surprise them.
If the intruder turned out to be Logan this time again, she was determined to use her weapon to draw blood. She would gift her one year old golf club with the exquisite taste of blood.
With that thought, she quietly made her way out of her room, grateful that she had had all of the furniture including the doors and their hinges changed to prevent any creaking noises. It was both an advantage and a disadvantage since if real burglars should actually break in, she wouldn’t hear them coming but it was her house. She knew the whole place like the back of her palm so it wouldn’t be a problem at all.