The Homecoming Bride

Chapter Eleven: Red Right Hand

CHAPTER SONG: "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

AN: New character introduced in this chapter! Inspired by actor Cillian Murphy, my recent binge of Peaky Blinders...and before seeing Oppenheimer again!

Emmy's head hurt, like her brain had been transformed into a nuclear bomb about to implode with the throbbing against her cranium.

She struggled to regain her senses, trying to remember what had happened as she floated in and out of semi-consciousness.

Where was she?

Was she alone?

Who had she been with when she was rendered helpless?

She didn't know if she even wanted to wake up or not. All she wanted was the pain to stop.

Her retinas began to scorch as she battled the darkness of her vision and felt the liquid salt of tears flow down her heating cheeks.

The ringing in her ears slowly began to cease as something soft and quiet floated like a cooling breeze, blowing away the high pitch tone torturing her eardrums.

Not just any plain unremarkable sound... the whisper of a tender, masculine voice coated in the gentlest devotion. However warped the words were as she tried to decipher what the voice was saying; she held onto it like she had been drowning in a sea of oblivion and had been given the possibility of rescue.

"Open your eyes, my love... my strong Emmanuelle. Please don't leave us again, I beg you. Fight it." The male voice, saturated with comfort and romance, held her fast in the purgatory having her captive.

The prickly sensation of the numbness leaving her body overtook every one of her nerve endings, allowing her to feel herself lying on a soft mattress, with scratchy sheets around her legs and abdomen.

The wrappings of bandages around her head for her presumed concussion made her more aware of her wound as she tried to recall what had placed her in this unknown bed.

She swallowed thickly, setting her mouth into a frown as she felt something soft slide ever so cautiously underneath her head, slightly lifting it up off the pillows cushioning her, the hard surface of a glass edge pressed to her chapped lips. Cold water leaked into her mouth, soothing the dry texture of her tongue, the liquid dripping down her esophagus.

Emmy recognized the sensation of a large palm and long fingers gently holding up her head enough so she wouldn't choke and her senses picked up on somebody else by her side... the familiar musk of pine and tobacco ash.

Somebody she loved hopelessly... for whom she would sacrifice her own life so they remained unharmed.

Her memory assaulted her subconscious with the explosive detonation of two bullets in the air.

The barrel of a gun aimed at her in the darkness.

The bloodstained face of the man she loved... the man who was to be her husband.

His name... what was his name...?

"Emmy... my angel. If you can hear me... listen to my voice. Come back to those of us who love you so. We cannot lose either of you, my darling." The gentle male voice continued, his tone slightly rising as she heard him repress the tears she could imagine flowing down his face.

She felt them drop onto her own cheeks, mixing with her own.

And the darkening black of her vision slowly began to lighten into blue. A foggy, rainy mist of blue.