Partners

15.

Soon enough, Casey had to leave, but she was hesitant about it. Still worrying that I wasn't fine. I made sure to show that I was capable of taking care of myself and convinced her to leave.

After conversation with Daren I felt a bit better. At least I knew that I had someone on my side. At least I knew that I had a piece of my family.  I sighed and turned back to the load of work I had to submit before the half year ended.

At least they can keep me distracted.

I started one of the assignments which was about drawing people. Half way through I noticed that the features of the main subject of my painting seemed familiar. Eyes, jawline even bruises on hands.

Oh my god I was drawing Elyssa.

I groaned and slammed down the brush.  I tried to distract myself from her and ended up drawing her. Great. I went over her face with white paint and we were back to white canvas.

I moved my hand through my hair and looked at it, hoping inspiration would hit me suddenly. But it didn't. After some time of waiting I got bored and picked up my phone.

I should text her.

No, I shouldn't. She... She... I don't even know why I am currently mad at her but I am mad. I didn't want to message her but I still opened the messages app and looked at our last exchange; it was the day I was running form headquarters back exit.

Hey, are u fine?  I pressed send before I could overthink it. I can't deny the fact that I worry about her. She was all over the place yesterday.

After looking at screen for few minutes and getting no answer, I sighed and closed the app. I really need to finish at least one assignment tonight or I am fucked. 

I got a big cup of coffee and put my hair up into a tight bun making the blood flow right to my brain. "Okay, I can do this, I can even finish 2 assignments tonight," I tried to hype myself up before I got to work.

I picked up a different painting the one that didn't require drawing human faces. I finished the outline and was filling in the details, when I heard a knock on my door.

It is dark outside and you are on the hitlist of multiple people. Do not answer that door.

I was afraid to breath in fear of making too much noise. I slowly put down my brush and moved away from the painting. There were some squeaky boards which I tried to avoid with every fiber of my body. The knock repeated itself, I was close to kitchen cabinet now. Few meters away from a knife.

As I opened the drawer and put my hands on the knife, I heard shuffling from behind the door. Whoever it was, they were done knocking. I gripped the knife tightly, and moved towards the door.

Suddenly, I heard groans, and loud noise of something hitting the wall. It went on for few minutes, I was frozen in my place too afraid to go close to the door but also too afraid to move away from it.

As the noise came to a stop and I heard footsteps going down the stair, I finally gathered the courage to get close to the door. With my knife, gripped tightly on my left hand, I slightly opened the door, light from inside the house shone on the one part of the hall.

I saw a bent down figure and as light hit them, it groaned and straightened the pose. It was Elyssa. "Didn't I fucking tell you to keep the door locked." She said as she tried to put her hands in front of her face, to block away the light.

I squinted my eyes as well trying to adjust to the half dark place. "What the hell happened?" I asked ignoring her comment. Elyssa chuckled as I got a clear look on her face. She had busted her brow, she was bleeding. "Jesus Christ, you are bleeding." Elyssa looked at me with confusion then looked at her hands. "Yeah, I accidentally hit a wall when I was aiming at that guys face." This made me look at her hands, and I barely kept myself from yelling out. Her left knuckled were bleeding like nothing I have seen before.

I opened the door even more and dragged her inside. Elyssa nearly lost her balance on the way in but managed to keep it together. "Wait, I have to go what are you doing?" She questioned me as I sat her down on the kitchen. "Did you know that your brow is busted? You probably have a concussion." I said and Elyssa moved her hand up to her brows and hissed as she touched the injury.

I took out first aid kit and looked at her hand. I pointed her towards the sink, and Elyssa complied without any remarks. I opened the tap and tried to wash away the injury, Elyssa was so calm during most of the bandaging of her hand that I thought she lost any sense of feeling down there.

"What happened?" I asked as I sat her down and cleaned the wound around her brow. Elyssa looked up at me then her eyes drifted away. "Well, some people were knocking on your door, and then were about to pick the lock. So, I kind of got into it to stop them. I think I did pretty great." She said with a proud smile.

Her expression quickly changed to pain as I put medicine on the wound. I offered an apologetic expression as I continued to disinfect it. "Thank you, for stopping them." I said as I put last band aid on her brow. Elyssa shrugged and leaned back on the chair.

I think she has a really bad case of concussion. She couldn't really focus on anything and was slurring on her words. "Well, I get to go." She said, now she was even wrongly using the words. AS soon as she got up she held on to the edge of the table, trying to balance herself.

"Woah there, you are not going anywhere. You have concussion. You need to lay down and have some medicine." I said as I rushed to her side. Elyssa shook her head but then held on to it. It probably hurt when she moved her head.

"Come on," I put my hands around her shoulder, helping her balance herself and just like that I got her in to the bed. She laid down and was mumbling something, I couldn't really understand what she was saying so I leaned closer.

"I need to tell you something. Something important." She said, I shook my head. "Maybe not now. You are not in the good state." I whispered and looked at her eyes, oh those ocean blue beauties. "Yeah, right, I feel like shit." Elyssa said and I chuckled. As I moved away from her, I heard her whisper one last thing. "I wanna go home,"

It was so soft, as if child was telling it. And it sounded so sad, as if she was lost, and have been looking for her home all along.