Love In The Time Of Pandemic

Chapter 9

The problem with Gordon is that people seem to flock to him like bees to honey. He attracts all kinds of maniacs and stalkers – people who think they are in love with him, but who are in fact, just crazies. I have spent a lot of time in the past few months dealing with this disturbing power of his. I do not enjoy dealing with it, I admitted to myself, as I sat there on the ground, trying to stop the severe bleeding from this random person's stomach.

Cellie had pushed the knife pretty deep into him. I didn't expect that of her. She was stronger than she looked.

I hated the smell and sight of blood, but you wouldn't know that about me.

"Sharon, Sharon!" I heard someone calling my name. I looked around, but then realized it was Cellie. She's conscious again. That's a good sign, I think. Judy had gone out to search for the sole medic in our group, the only doctor who stayed behind to help us out. The rest of them were enticed out by the government to help their military and their supporters. Damn them.

"Cellie, thank God, you are still alive. You are so stupid. Why didn't you warn one of us about that stalker? We would have disarmed him no problem. Now you are bleeding all over your mother's..." Gordon shushed me. I realized I should probably not tell her that she was bleeding a lot. I shut up. I wasn't really good at dealing with people. But that wasn't something Gordon minded. He was always there to rescue me. His goodness is what attracted me to him first, the reason I started working for him.

Gordon kneeled down on the ground next to Cellie, and took her hand in his.

"Darling Cellie, why did you have to do that? Why did you have to take the knife instead of me? Why do you disregard your life like that?" He bought her hand over to his lips, and even despite the blood on them, he kissed them as if they were the sweetest things out there.

Despite her wounds, she still swooned. Even I was finding it hard not to melt into my combat boots. Thankfully, I had a very good poker face, or at least I thought so.

"But I wanted to do something for you. I haven't been able to help you at all. I wanted to do something big, and go out with a bang. You know me." She smiled.

"You are not going to die." Someone behind us said. It was the medic, Akbar. I wondered how he could make such a pronouncement without having even touched her arm.

"You sure?? But she's sleeping quite a lot." I said. Gordon gave me a look that said, shut up, you idiot. Sometimes, while panicked, my tongue runs away with itself.

"It's not her blood." Akbar said.

He pushed me off the man who was bleeding profusely as well, and said, "Nothing can be done for this man. But you need to make sure that you capture this girl. She's faking her injury."

All of us stood there, confused. The man who had been bleeding on the ground gave a bloody cough and stopped moaning. He died.

Cellie, on the other hand, stopped pretending.

She got up off the ground, and stripped off the blood pack that was taped to her arm.

"This would have been fun, if you had let me playact for a bit longer. You are no fun."

Akbar and Cellie looked at each other with daggers in their eyes. They obviously didn't like each other.

"Was that all, Gordon?" Akbar said, as he ignored Cellie, and walked off back out in the rain, without waiting to hear from Gordon.

"Why were you pretending, darling Cellie?" Gordon said, as if he didn't care either way.

Cellie laughed. "Just once, I would like to surprise you, Gordon. Just once I would like to have the upper hand over you."