Unlikely Ordeal

Chapter Fourteen - Grasp

Aimee fell to the ground, clutching her left arm; she was bleeding profusely with each passing second.

"Aimee! Oh my God!"

Lord rushed over to her and held her in his arms, while Gary lay on the floor writhing in pain.

The burly men started to approach them, but gun shots had come out of nowhere and hit them in both their backs.

Gary was swiftly dragged away by the arm by an unknown person.

As he touched Aimee's face, a hand landed on Lord's shoulder.

"We'll take this shit from here, and make it so you're not involved."

Lord turned his head to see Reuben, the Boss' nephew with two of his men in black business uniforms standing on either side of him.

Reuben was taller than Lord, in his early thirties, with reddish brown hair, olive orbs, and fair skin. He was level headed, mature, and secretly kind to all of the men who worked for him and his uncle.

Lord was no exception.

"Thanks for giving me a call," he said, as he walked in the direction of the truck.

Lord returned to Aimee, who was still groaning in pain. "No problem."

Reuben knocked on the truck. "How many?"

"Twenty is my best guess."

The man shook his head with a soft smile. "That fuckin' Gary really did it this time. We won't involve the cops. We can solve this matter on our own."

"How so?" He asked, without looking up.

"The families of all these girls are important people. We'll all be in deep shit if word of human trafficking attempted by one of our men gets out." Reuben answered.

He gestured for his men to open the truck, and untie all the girls.

"You'll all go home, I promise." Lord overheard him saying.

His eyes returned to Aimee, who was still clutching her arm. Tears ran down her cheeks, as a pain she had never known before thumped hard and fast where the bullet had hit.

"Reuben."

"Hm?"

"I won't be going any farther from California."

Reuben's eyes grew serious, but there was an underlying sympathy there.

"You're finally gonna tell him?"

"Yes."

"And she's going back to San Francisco, huh."

"Yes."

Reuben approached Lord, and punched his shoulder. "Look out for yourself, kid."

"I will."

* * * * *

Lord had put Aimee in the passenger seat next to him as he drove with the keys he had taken out of Gary's pocket.

From the corner of his eye, he could see that she was fighting back the urge of screaming in pain.

"There's a gas station up ahead. Can you hold on a bit longer?"

Aimee nodded. "I ... I can try."

Lord looked at her for a moment, and returned his gaze to the road.

Slowly, he reached out to his right, and took her hand in his.

She squeezed it slightly.

Before long, they were at the gas station. Thankfully, there was a drug store next to a 7-11.

He parked a ways away from the store, ran as fast as he could to it, and was out only three minutes later with shopping bags.

Lord unstrapped Aimee from her seat and carried her to the very back of the car.

He shut both doors behind them and propped her up against the window.

His hand went to his shirt as he tore a large piece from it, which he promptly rolled up and put in her mouth.

"This is gonna hurt a lot." He explained.

Lord took out the contents from the plastic bags, and went for a tweezer.

Aimee widened her eyes.

She knew what it was for.

Lord touched her cheek with his fingers briefly, before gently taking ahold of her arm, rolling up her sleeve, and digging into the open wound with the tweezer.

As he struggled with the bullet, she bit into the cloth hard, and gave out a muffled scream.

Tears gathered in her eyes as he began to disinfect, and clean the wound with alcohol, cloth, and anything else he could find.

When it was done, he began to sew up the gaping wound.

Aimee moaned at the pain as the tears finally rolled down her cheek.

Lord bit his bottom lip, as he tried to finish fast without hurting her any further.

Aimee touched his knee and smiled with her eyes.

Lord smiled back, as he did the last stitch.

He took the piece of cloth from her mouth, and began to bandage up the wound.

"No need to thank me." He said, just as she opened up her mouth.

Once he finished, Aimee weakly crawled over to him, until their noses barely touched.

Lord was taken aback by this.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Aimee caught his lips with hers in a soft kiss, as her eyes closed.