Chapter 37: Chapter 37
Chapter 36:
Sanaya’s P.O.V
For a few seconds, I just sat in my seat, looking at the glass dumbfounded.
The red liquid trickled down the glass pane of the driver’s side window in a slow eerie manner. I watched the path of the red droplets without blinking. Was I supposed to do something? My mind was completely blank, devoid of any thoughts or feelings. My hands and feet seemed glued into place...like pieces of lead. There was something else also trickling down along with the blood. Some things…that did not belong in the window pane.
I couldn’t hear anything except for a white noise. My vision blurred. The red becoming hazy before it came into sharp focus.
A scream went up in the air, followed by another. And that was when my brain finally kicked into gear.
I fiddled with the handle to the car door before swinging it wide open. I almost jumped out, only to be jerked back against the seat thanks to my seat belt. My hands felt disconnected from my entire body as I struggled yet again with the seat belt. When I was finally able to break free, I jumped down from the car and tripped on my heels, falling face first on the concrete road. I felt my palms get scratched but I dusted off and rose from the street.
Several people were also rushing towards the car and I was relieved to see that the security guard from ReefWood was one of them. He was an Incubus, a very low level Incubus but an Incubus none the less.
Rounding the car with my heart in my throat, I stumbled on something on the other side and tripped once again, this time managing to break my fall using my hands. Once again I could feel scrapes but this time my attention wasn’t on my hand.
Lancelin was lying on the concrete a few feet away from me. His eyes were closed and his blood poured out of his mouth in slow droplets. And then I saw it, the gunshot wound. It was a shot through the heart…or at least that’s what it looked like. His shirt was stained dark red and it had spilled onto the ground. The pool of blood was fast expanding as he bled to death. It was his hand that I had tripped on.
“Lance!” I whispered, unable to find my voice.
“Lance! Lance! Lance!” With each time I called his name, my voice grew stronger as I crawled to him and shook his shoulders lightly, careful not to touch any area that might have been affected by the shot. “Open your eyes! Lance! Look at me…please! Can you hear me?”
I shook him a few times as my vision blurred once more, this time with tears. I looked around at the crowd that had gathered all around us. Everyone was standing shocked, as far away from us as possible so they didn’t get involved and yet close enough to take out their phones to record the images.
“Someone…help.” I called out desperately. “Help! Please…” I clutched the lapels of Lance’s jacket with both hands, watching helplessly as his face drained of color. “Please…stay with me…Lance…”
“Ms. Johnson!” The security guard came rushing to my side. “I’ve called Mr. Billard; he’s on his way with Ms. Verborg. They should be arriving any minute now.”
I tried to process his words but they seemed to be coming from the other side of a fog. I shook my head to clear it. This was not a time for me to go into a shock!
“Hospital…” I told the guard. “We need to take him to a hospital…do you know?”
I wasn’t sure if I was able to make him understand what I meant. I knew what I was trying to tell him but somehow I wasn’t getting my point across. How do I make him understand!
“Yes, I know the hospital that is specialized in treating Incubi. Her Highness built it several decades ago. I’ll set the address on the GPS, but first we need to get the Sire inside the car.” By some miracle, the guard was able to understand me and give me a solution.
I nodded at the guard and scrambled out of the way as he helped steady Lance’s form. With much difficulty, I was able to regain my senses enough to stand up and help him pick Lance’s form off the ground. We got the back seat door open and the guard hauled him up onto the sweat as I lifted up his legs. Maybe it was because he was unconscious but Lance seemed to be weighing a ton.
Lancelin was tall, so it was impossible to fit all of him inside the car without folding his legs. There was too much blood and it was everywhere, on the ground, on the car and on my hands. But what I was more worried about driving to the hospital as the guard punched in the codes on the car’s GPS.
“I’ll need a d-”
“Sanaya!”
Never in my life had I felt so much relief upon seeing Acelin and Amber. They both pushed through the crowd and came rushing towards me as several guards in black uniforms went straight to the people who had taken the photos and snatched their phones away to check them thoroughly. Amber went straight to the guard and began questioning him.
“Sanaya!” Acelin wrapped me in his arms in a tight hug. “Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Lance!” I told Acelin desperately, pointing towards the car with bloody hands. “Lance isn’t supposed to get hurt! How? Why? Lance!”
“Anyone can get hurt, Sana.” Acelin cupped my cheeks to calm me down. “We’ll get him to the hospital safe and sound and he’ll be standing in front of you in a couple days like nothing ever happened.”
“Help him…”I begged Acelin as my lips quivered and tears blurred my eyes once again.
“Of course.”
The next few hours passed by in a blur. Acelin, Amber and I drove to the hospital with Lance. I wasn’t allowed to travel with him so Amber drove me in her car while Acelin drove the car Lance was in. We parked in the basement parking of the hospital and several doctors and nurses were already standing there, waiting for us to arrive.
Lance was transferred to a stretcher and immediately whisked away to the operating room and I think someone told me that one of the doctors was a powerful healer mage who could easily bring people back from the brink of death. It gave me some form of relief, knowing that Lance was in good hands.
I was sitting outside the operating room with Acelin and Amber on either side of me as we waited patiently for the doctors to report about Lance’s condition. I had recovered from my shock a bit more so I was aware of my surroundings, but I just felt completely numb inside. The only thing I wanted was for Lancelin to be alright. If I could trade my life for his then I would in a heartbeat. And that was when I realized that I should’ve told him I loved him when I had the chance. I shouldn’t have waited for so long.
“Sana, I know it’s going to be difficult for you to recall anything, but you have to try to remember for Lance’s sake, okay?” Acelin told me after a long time. “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
I nodded, trying my best to remember the events without suffering a breakdown. I shuddered as I remembered the sound of the gunshot, a fraction of a second before the window turned red.
“Lance was about to take me to some dimension…Sanctium, I think.” I tried my best to recall. “He said he needed to get something from his office first, before we went there, so we headed to ReefWood HQ first. But as soon as he got out of the car, he was shot. I didn’t see anything or anyone, but I really wasn’t paying attention. I just heard a shot and it all happened so fast…I just…I think I was in shock.”
“So, you heard the shot first?” Acelin asked with a frown. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.” I told him instantly. “There is no way I would mistake that.”
“I see.” Acelin looked thoughtful for a few moments before he got up to make a phone call.
Amber and I held on to each other for comfort as Acelin paced the length of the hallway. There was a small glass window on the door to the room from where I could see the doctors and nurses running around but we couldn’t see what was happening to Lance and with each passing second, my worry grew.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity later, the doctors came out of the room covered in blood as the nurses whisked away heavy, dangerous looking instruments from the room.
“Doctor?” Acelin came to stand in front of them as Amber and I joined him a second later.
“Mr. Eustein is out of danger.” We all sighed in relief as the doctor said so and my knees almost gave buckled under the weight of the relief.
Amber held my hand and took me to sit down on the waiting area as the doctor continued to speak. “The bullet was made of a special poison to incapacitate him but it won’t have any lasting effects on his body. Thankfully, it missed any vital organs and we were able to extract it from his body without harm. He lost a lot of blood so we had to give him an immediate transfusion but he is better otherwise. However, we had to give him high doses of sedatives so he’ll be asleep till tomorrow morning. And he does seem to be a bit-“
“Thank you, doctor.” Acelin cut him off and shook his hands. “For looking after my little brother.”
“It’s my duty, Mr. Billard.” The doctor smiled and left to get changed, but not before informing us that we could visit Lance but only after a couple hours have passed so his wound doesn’t get infected.
Acelin came to sit on my other side and wrapped an arm around my shoulder reassuringly as I laid my head on his shoulder. Together, the three of us sat quietly outside of Lancelin’s room, waiting for him to wake up. Although I felt physically and mentally drained, I couldn’t fall asleep in fear that I’d wake up to a nightmarish world where Lance couldn’t be saved.
I don’t know how long we just sat there quietly, holding on to each other and I finally thought that maybe everything was going to get better now. That was until I heard Amber’s voice.
“Oh, shit!”