The Homecoming

Chapter 2

Consciousness came to him slowly. Cal's eyes fluttered, the harsh fluorescent lights prickling his eyes. A heavy weight pushed on his chest as he breathed, his temples throbbing as he grimaced and turned his face away from the bright light source. Vision focusing, he took in his wrist, the needle. Why was everything so blurry?

Beep... beep... beep...

Cal inhaled deeply again, lungs protesting and blinked once, twice, thrice to see past the haziness. He gritted his teeth as the throbbing slowly started to morph into a pulsing headache. White walls, the sterile smell of antiseptics and the rhythmic beeping of nearby machines invaded his senses and he intelligently decided that he was in a hospital.

His eyes shifted to the door as it opened, and a nurse entered with her eyes on the clipboard she held. She paused when she saw Cal siting up and approached his bedside. "How are you feeling, Mr. Grayson?" she said in a soft voice, which Cal deeply appreciated given his headache was worsening by the second.

"Where am I?" Cal's voice scratched against his throat that felt drier than Sahara.

"You're in Riverton General Hospital. You were brought in early this morning by some locals near a dangerous street."

Cal slowly nodded, mind struggling to comprehend. The last thing he remembered was getting out of his car and walking down 26th Street. Straight ahead for 500 meters... dark... a flicker of light... clattering. He reached up, feeling the bandages wrapped around his head. "What happened to me?"

The nurse glanced at her clipboard. "You were found in 26th Street around 5 a.m. The people who found you thought you had been mugged, but oddly enough, all your belongings were intact."

Cal frowned, his confusion deepening. "Mugged? But nothing was taken?"

"That's right, all of your things are in that basket over there," the nurse confirmed. "However, you do have a minor concussion due to trauma to your head."

Cal's mind reeled. If it was the killer who had attacked him, why hadn't they finished the job? Just hitting his head and then running away didn't fit their profile. For a split second, he considered the possibility that it might have been a random mugger who got scared and ran away. That alley in the 26th Street was notorious for petty crimes, after all.

As the nurse left to check on other patients, Cal lay back. The events of yesterday came back bit by bit as he mulled over everything. He thought of how focused he was then that he didn't notice someone creeping up on him. Or maybe it was the fact that the killer was skilled enough to move without a sound and attacked his victims when they least expected.

Cal could've had been one of them. Unease crawled up his spine and he closed his eyes as his headache intensified.

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Two days later, Cal was discharged from the hospital. He checked in with the management and was given back his things. Everything was intact just like the management (and his nurse, Clare) had mentioned, but Cal double checked everything again. He had just turned on his phone when a flurry of text messages and calls flooded in. Two missed calls from John, three from Karla along with texts asking if he's alright, and... Cal grimaced. Fourteen calls and more than a dozen texts from Elise. A wave of guilt crashed into him when he remembered where he was before he began chasing the killer like a madman.

Elise's wedding.

It had almost slipped Cal's mind, too driven, too invested with the intent to catch the killer. Too drowned in the marred past that he had marred his present as well. Elise would have been worried sick when she'd noted Cal's sudden absence. Her calls coincided with the time Cal had gone in that narrow street, about half an hour since he left Elise's side. Cal hadn't even left her a text, which he usually did whenever he had to leave early or leave his mother's side at an event. Elise did the same. It was a way for them to ensure each other that they're safe, ever since crazy happenings years ago. Knowing his mother's protective instincts, she'd have put everything aside, even her own wedding, to find Cal. Cal squeezed his eyes shut, his grasp tightening over his phone as he breathed in and out deeply.