You call this fate?

Chapter 41

A high strung silence rang for one loud moment as the rubble of the fallen wall settled, the truck's chipped white bumper grinning maniacally to the side, before black-clad shapes dispersed into our gathering. In ones and twos, the men soaked into the shocked cluster of Frank's followers, who saw them coming too late.

Muffled thuds filled the night sky, followed by grunts and bumps as they made short work of dispatching them.

But I saw this all only from the corner of my eye, registering it in that numbed centre of my brain whose business it was only to see, since my feelings, emotions, and all conscious thoughts were focused on one place and one place alone.

When I settled down beside him, I noticed he had moved to the side, hand clasped over his breast, as if he had attempted to get up and failed. There was a haunted expression on his face and his eyes were wide open, red-rimmed and bright, as they stared at me. His other hand instinctively reached towards my face, trembled for a moment, and then fell to the side again in a weak flop.

He opened his mouth to speak, but I shushed him immediately, pressing numb fingers against his lips. "Mr. Rodwell, don't," I said. "It's alright. Everything is going to be fine now. Help's here."

"Zara..." he mumbled under my fingers, lips moving as if in prayer. Suddenly, as one notices a bus barrelling down the road you are crossing seconds before it hits you, I noticed tears in his eyes. Giant droplets slipped silently down his cheeks, but others followed in quick succession, drowning said eyes in clear, quivering waves of desperation. "I am so sorry." A cough stopped him then, and he tightened his hold on his chest. "I am s-so very, very sorry," he sobbed. "Forgive me, please. Forgive me..."

"Shush, Alex, shush..." I soothed. "Let me help you." I reached for the end of my kameez again, ripping the cloth in one swift motion. "I am here. I am here, and so are you. Don't you fucking dare open your mouth again."

With trembling fingers, I ripped the cloth in two. Then I reached for him.

"No!" he said vehemently, pulling his face to the side and trying to scoot backwards pathetically. "Let me be! Let me-"

I grabbed his collar once again, reaching the limit of my already short patience. The bandages slipped from my fingers and fell in my lap. I pulled his face closer and stared into each bruised eye carefully. "Mr. Rodwell, you are hurt right now, and I don't bloody know what to do about it," I explained patiently. "I am doing what I can, what I know must be done, and I can do fucking well without you butting in with your crap. And," I said, tightening my grip on him. "I will not let you die, not matter what you say. You are stuck in this world, so deal with it."

After getting that out of the way, I didn't wait for his protests (or lack thereof). I just let go of his shirt, making his weak body fall a short way, gave him one last hard look, and then went back with the soothing bullshit, like nothing had happened. I was very good at pretending that nothing had happened.

"It's alright, Mr. Rodwell," I repeating, this line being the biggest gun I had in my comforting talk handbook. "Everything is going to be fine." I folded one of the pieces of cloth deftly into a pad and pressed it against his front, my blood-soaked fingers almost blending into his shirt. I picked up his limp, similarly-coloured hand, and exchanged mine for it. "Hold this down now, hard when you breathe in, light when you breathe out. Don't let go.

"I remember reading an article about sucking chest wounds," I continued conversationally, needing the continual flow from my mouth to bulwark my attention. "Apparently, you are supposed to hold some kind of an air tight material to the wound, holding down only three sides so that air doesn't accumulate in the chest. There is nothing around I can use like that. Nothing sterile at least," I added with a twist of my mouth, "so I hope a simple bandage will do till the medics came." I hoped fervently that I wasn't killing him.