Yellow Hibiscus

9. Guardian angel

When Alayna regained consciousness, at first, she couldn't move a single part of her body. Not even her pinky, no matter how hard she tried. Everything felt heavy and a little numb, especially her eyelids and it took great effort to open them.

"Euhr..." was the first and only sound she made when the bright daylight, which fell through a window to her right, struck her pupils, and Alayna immediately held her arm and hand in front of her face. At least her reflexes still worked and had made her senses and limbs come back to life quite abruptly; brutally even. What came next wasn't any gentler: a sharp, lingering pain in her abdomen, and with it, the memory of being stabbed by Harold Meachum. And Alayna couldn't make sense out of any of it. Because, first and foremost, wasn't Harold dead? 

Well, okay, no. Stupid question, he clearly wasn't. But how came that to be? Had he never died and only ver convincingly faked the whole ordeal? What about the cancer? Or, maybe, had he only temporarily been lifeless? And if so, how did that work? No, no, that sounded delusional, and the brunette shook her head as she quietly tried to make out the tiniest shreds of common sense in that story; only to notice that there wasn't really any. Maybe Rand Enterprises had been in some financial trouble and Harold contract holder of a substantial life insurance. That was the single most logical explanation Alayna could come up with, and as she lay there wondering, a nurse walked in, greeting her cheerfully.

"You're up, Miss Crane! That's great news!" a somewhat short woman, probably in her late twenties, with big, bright blue eyes, greeted her patient.

She had short ebony hair, a round face graced with a handful of freckles, and when she smiled, very easily noticeable dimples; a very kind and tender expression, and with it, a wonderfully soothing and calming voice.

"Well, not quite up yet, but awake at least," Alayna replied, trying to smile as well to not come off as rude or grumpy, but she was rather uncomfortably hindered a little by the pain just below her stomach. Whichever muscle she pulled, so it seemed, there was no way getting around feeling at least an odd twitch.

"Don't strain yourself," the nurse said, "You are part of the lucky percentage of stabbed people in whose case no organs were hit. Your wounds were quite superficial and the bleeding easy to stop, though you did lose a considerable amount of blood."

Alayna took a deep breath. She would never have thought to think so, but she was really relieved to have been stabbed with a letter opener. Well, at least so instead of a kitchen knife or some other kind of murder weapon with a longer or larger blade and higher kill count.

"Good thing your mysterious guardian angel was on guarding duty," the black-haired said teasingly.

"My what?" the brunette wondered.

"The man who brought you in," the nurse replied, "Tall, dark, and, I dare say, quite dashing... Well dressed but a little... Weird. Seemed to know you but said he couldn't stay."

"Ward..." Alayna muttered underneath her breath and, as she did so, met the nurse's gaze as the latter was checking her pulse.

"So you do know him."

The brunette nodded, "A guardian angel indeed," she uttered, not daring to think what would have happened if Ward hadn't been there. 

How foolish had she been to go to the penthouse, simply because an unknown number had sent her the address and asked her to visit an old acquaintance. 

"Thank God," the woman now listening to Alayna's heartbeat and breathing sighed aloud.

"I feared he might have been the one who did this to you, and that I've let him leave... But really, he was gone before I could ask either his name or where he was going."

"Don't worry," Alayna said, her voice now a little stronger and firmer, "It wasn't him."

Once she was done, before she left, the nurse, whose name Alayna still didn't know, told her that, if she remembered anything, the smallest detail about her attacker, or even if she didn't, she should really go file a police report. The chemist silently agreed with a nod of her head, not exactly sure how to tell an officer that a, on the records, dead man, had, during a maniac episode, gone all stabby and tried to kill her, only so he could piss off his son. Even for police staff, that had to be somewhat extraordinary.

"Oh, I almost forgot," the women with the dark hair suddenly almost shouted out.

"I should give you this," she said, as she hurried off to her next patient, quickly reaching into her left pocket, handing Alayna a piece of paper, snow white and a little, almost unnoticeably, rough to the touch. The brunette immediately recognized the very particular feel of  Ward's note paper between her fingers; 125 gsm, cold pressed. The tiniest bit heavier than what most people would use, if they like to pride themselves with good quality letterhead. How peculiar he truly was.

"Ally," Ward's note read, though that was scribbled out multiple times.

"Alayna," he had rewritten, as if he had dared to think they were still, or again, as close as they used to be, before shortly after deeming himself unworthy of such loads of affection, as the clearly shaky lines across Alayna's name suggested much rather uncertainty and dismay than malice or rejection.

"I will explain in time. 

Until I can, please stay with your father. 

Out of the reach of mine. 

Wait for me, if you can. 

Be safe."

Though never exactly a poet, these lines were especially choppy and each read as if Ward wasn't sure whether or not he could, or should, add another. But the essential message was, unarguably, communicated, and, also because she didn't wish to push her luck with cheating death again, the brunette agreed that it would likely be best, for now, if she left New York to live with her father across the country for a while. And thought she did not know whether or not she would ever be able to come back, or what terrors her friend had yet to face, Alayna comforted herself with the thought that all would be fine. It always was... Wasn't it? All she'd have to do was to sit down and wait for Ward... Something she had become quite used to recently, sadly. Though this time, he'd be on time, even if neither actually knew when that would be exactly. 

And as Alayna read the black-haired's note again, and again, she smiled at his unmentioned but certainly intended promise to come get her, to be with her, as soon as he could. She could see the words, drafted there, in the unwritten.

"I will come. I promise. I care."