The Hunter and The Prey

Weakened

Chapter Twenty Five

Weakened

Gunfire amplified all over the place, but all the bullets collided to the foes. Chaos was starting, men run for cover as undetectable snipers showered them with bullets. Deril was shot across his chest and he was falling; Chasen grabs Natalie to escape the place. A fire was shot coming from Deril, in their direction -it was going to hit Chasen in the chest area, but the bullet hit someone else. Everything seems to happen in slow motion. There was blood coming from Natalie's dress and in her mouth. She was gasping for breath as they both stared at the wound in her chest.

"No... no... help... SOMEONE!" shouted Chasen all over the place; he didn't care about the retrieving enemies, escaping the men in camouflage shirts. "Stay with me... do you hear me... keep your heart beating... live please..." he begs at the wounded person he was carrying.

"Chasen buddy!" called someone as he carried her to a place he didn't know in his panic state, to bring her somewhere where help is waiting; they should save her, his prey, his life now.

"Help me...," he begs at the person in front of him. He was close to losing his mind now as the blood keeps dripping out of Natalie.

"Come on then, follow me, move!" shouted the soldier as Chasen was close into shocked at what's happening. They zigzag their way, bypass fallen bodies, ignore the staring soldiers as they loaded Natalie in the track and rushes to a nearby hospital. Someone in front was requesting a plane just in case they needed to transfer her in a more advance hospital.

The medic team was frantically stopping the bleeding as they travel fast. She was gasping terribly as her consciousness was slowly slipping away. Chasen was desperately pleading for her to hold on. "Please sweetheart, don't leave me," he cried. It was the first time he shed so much tears in two decades. He was in disarray, defeated and savagely ripped from his own body. "Please, I love you and I'm sorry for everything... come back to me...," he murmured on her ear. Don't make her as payment for everything... please... God I beg you...I'll change...please... just...please, he prayed desperately for the first time in his life for a long years now.

Three of his SEAL II buddies were blinking in astonishment at Chasen's state as he keeps begging and crying for the girl he wanted to hurt from the first to come back to him. His face held all the burning misery of a man who lived watching all his love ones leaving him for good. A couple of times he squeezes his temple tightly while gasping like a wounded person -no, not a wounded person; they heard him moan before when he got shot on his shoulder -the sound wasn't even close. His moan right now was graver like all the despair in the world was suddenly in his shoulder. Who would ever thought of him in this beyond terrible when Chasen never showed any weakness for the past years they had known him?

His parents just arrived in Rio waiting for the plane containing Chasen. They didn't know what happened, but the soldiers assured them that Chasen was not harmed. What they don't understand is the presence of a medical chopper in standby as if it was waiting for someone who desperately needed medical attention. Then a small plane landed and all the people in it scrambled to get out of the plane. There was someone lying in the stretcher with IV and oxygen masked attached to a familiar person. It wasn't their son, but Chasen was holding her hand as he paces together with the medical team. The hospital in Manaus hadn't had the equipment needed for a major operation like this. They loaded Natalie on the chopper and they flew her to a more equipped hospital. The other soldiers beckoned the parents to follow them. But what they saw shocked them, Chasen was in a worst fixed and he was crying while he holds Natalie's hand. It was the first time they saw him crying for a long time now.

As soon as they joined their son in front of the operating room, Chasen hugs them tightly, for he needed someone's support right now. He couldn't stand anymore what's happening to him. He can't stitch himself; he had difficulty maintaining his composure to calm himself. He was going to lose his mind if Natalie won't survive this. It's all his fault and he couldn't stand if she was the price for everything he did. Not now he changed dramatically. Not now he learned to love her... care for her... protect her...