“…”
Carrie looked at him in disbelief, “What do you want?”
What do you mean cuff him.
“Cuff him,” Rafael put the handcuffs in her hands.
Carrie felt a sudden weight in her hands, so heavy that she couldn’t hold them. She looked at him blankly, and then, after a few seconds, she came back to her senses and tried to throw the handcuffs away. Rafael’s voice fell on her ear, “This is the place where I locked Paige up back then. She also used these handcuffs. It was here that she took one pill at a time, then two at a time, until within a few days she had reached the dosage of five pills at a time.”
He had only taken the same amount as Paige had.
Hearing this, Carrie’s eyes reddened as she stared at him.
“I know, Temple in Heaven and you both think that I owe Paige, but in fact, I’ve always felt that I was right.”
He laughed self-deprecatingly, “But for some reason, it seems that I’ve been carrying a burden for all these years, and since you appeared, this burden has become heavier and heavier.”
“…”
Carrie’s hand holding the shackles froze, her fingertips digging inwards.
“Come on, or else later, you won’t be able to control me,” he continued, his low, husky voice almost sounding like a coax.
“You have an injury.”
She looked at him, unable to bring herself to do it.
Rafael looked down at her.
She had red eyes for him.
While her fingers fidgeted with the shackles, he took the initiative to hold out his hand, and the shackles were immediately placed on his wrists.
A vague pain spread through her body.
Rafael couldn’t tell if the pain was because the medicine was starting to take effect or because of the beating he had taken. He told her, “Press the button on the wall again.”
“…”
“Carrie, don’t make me carry this burden in front of you for the rest of my life,” he said.
“…”
Carrie’s heart skipped a beat. She looked at him and backed up to the wall, step by step. After hesitating for a few seconds, she pressed the button on the wall.
The chains stretched out at once, and Rafael was pulled away as a whole, stretched into a “big” shape, with his arms and legs straightened, leaving no room for him to struggle.
He let out a gasp.
Carrie clenched her fists. She walked up to him and said with red eyes, “If you can’t hold on any longer, just let me know.”
He stood there, all disheveled, his face bruised and swollen, and even the hospital gown was crooked. He stared at her and smiled, “It’s okay… uh…”
Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through his chest.
He then understood that the slight pain just now was not a sign at all, not even worth mentioning. The pain of TP1314 was incomparable to any other pain, coming swiftly and fiercely.
Rafael’s eyes widened suddenly, and he clenched the chains on both sides, as if there were worms eating his internal organs, gnawing inch by inch through his chest cavity. Nerve pain radiated from his head to every part of his body.
Almost instantly, he broke out in a cold sweat.
His willpower was being eaten away little by little, and his vision gradually became blurry.
It was as if he had returned to his childhood, to the Deleon family garden, where the children were using water pistols to drench him. He hid, he called for help, but no one came.
He couldn’t see anything clearly, and the water dripped into his mouth and nose.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe at all.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Rafael clenched his chains tightly, and the veins on his forehead were bulging as if they were about to burst.
“Rafael? Rafael? Take your medicine, I’ve brought it.”
The voice sounded like it was close by, but also like it was far away.
Rafael had not yet recovered from the suffocation, and now his whole body felt like it was being burned. The burning fire bit through his skin and ate away at his bones, the pain so great that he almost fainted.
“So, this is what it feels like.”
So, this is what suffering is like.
So, he really does owe Paige.
Something was brought to his lips.
He could no longer see anything clearly, but a clear voice told him that if he ate it, the pain would go away.
He tilted his head, letting the sweat blind his eyes, and closed his lips tightly.
“Rafael!”
Carrie was very worried when she saw him delirious in pain, and reached out to pinch his chin, forcing the painkiller into his mouth.
Rafael tilted his head painfully and forced the painkiller into his mouth.
The next second, he spat out the pill.
“Rafael!”
Carrie was on the verge of tears.
What was he doing? Was he so fearless of death?
The chains swung back and forth with Rafael’s movements. Rafael opened his eyes as hard as he could, letting the sweat drip down, and looked at her in his hazy vision.
Her face looked a little blurry like it was covered in a layer of light. He wanted to see clearly, but he couldn’t make it out.
“Carrie,” he called out her name unsteadily.
“…”
She anxiously looked at him and went back to twisting the painkiller bottle in her hands.
“Don’t hate me anymore.”
He said each word with all the strength he had left.
“…”
Hearing this, Carrie froze in her twisting of the bottle and looked at him blankly, ‘Why… why are you taking this medicine?’
Why?
There are many reasons.
“I’m afraid of the burden on my shoulders, afraid of having a gap with Enrico, afraid that… you will hate me forever.”
He said in a hoarse and indistinct voice. Suddenly, a new wave of excruciating pain surged towards him like a wave. He screamed in pain, “Ahhh…”
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
It hurts so much that I want to die.
“…”
Carrie looked at him, tears silently falling.
After a long time, the bottle of painkillers slipped from her hands and fell to the ground, rolling away.
The entire cold interrogation room was filled only with Rafael’s cries of pain. He was in so much pain that he kept tugging at his chains until he could no longer hold on and he stood there, fainting.
His hands and feet were bound by chains, and he stood there lightly, as if he had no life left in him.
…
By the time Paige had grabbed the painkillers and chased after him, Enrico had already driven off in a car that sped off like an arrow.
Paige drove in panic to catch up.
Enrico drove fast, so she also pressed the accelerator to the floor and used the technique he had taught her to catch up with him.
The road was wide and quiet, with no other cars.
Soon, the car in front began to behave erratically, twisting and turning on the road, slowing down while also racing across the road.
Just as the car was about to hit the large tree by the road, Paige found the right moment to crash into it, pushing past the passenger’s side of the other car and forcing it to stop.
The two cars collided, emitting smoke.
The doors were all deformed by the collision.
Paige climbed from the driver’s seat to the back, got out of the back seat, rushed to the front of Enrico’s car, and pulled open the driver’s door.
The seat belt had already been undone by Enrico, and he did not look like he was suffering from any side effects of the medication, nor was he acting crazily. On the contrary, he was lying on the steering wheel in a particularly calm manner, as if he were taking a rest.
Only the shaking hand that was still holding on to the steering wheel betrayed his current state.
“Painkillers, take them quickly,”
Paige did not care about his recklessness, and pulled his arm, trying to force-feed him the medicine.