5. HOW DO I MAKE YOU FALL FOR ME?

BASH

       Just one and a half kilometres. If I make it to one and a half kilometres or at least one kilometre, I can get help. The pain is excruciating. I was shot just above the chest. He missed it, and he is coming for me. I couldn't run more. I couldn't fight him. I could see the lights of the resort I visited this morning. So close yet so far.

     I dragged myself to the cottage I spotted twenty steps away. There is no one here except for the wooden logs. I can't use my right hand as the bullet pierced on the right side. I can't fight a murderer who intends to kill me at any cost with my left hand. But I waited for him to enter so that I could knock him down with the log.

    I heard the creaking sound of the door. But it wasn't the killer in the red mask who walked in but a teenage girl. I don't know why she entered an abandoned cottage in the middle of woods in a baby pink pyjamas. She did. She wasn't shocked when he looked at me. She looked as though she was contemplating whether I was real or not.

    She walked toward me slowly. And suddenly, she removed her shrug exposing a sleeveless t-shirt on fair skin. She is so thin. She nervously reached to me and gave me her shirt without even saying anything. I haven't believed in God in my twenty-one years of life. But now, I want to believe he sent her for me. Because she is acting as though she knows that there is an injured man in the cottage.

    She held her T-shirt against my wound. "You should stay awake." She whispered. I would say she has a sweet voice if she is not carrying so much melancholy in it.

      "You will die if you stay here," I said, gripping her elbow tightly. "Run when you had the chance." I coughed again, and more blood splattered out of my mouth.

       "I can't be more dead than I already am," She whispered as though she was saying it for herself.

       But I can't let her stay with me in this house. The killer will come and she will die too. My grip on her elbow tightened. "Go and call for help. One kilometre here, you can see a resort. Tell the guard that a Mr. Merrick is in danger. Run."

      I pulled my mom's chain around my neck. And gave it to her. She held it with her tiny trembling hands. She looks like a kid to me. In one way she is. "They will recognise if you show them this," I told her.

      She didn't speak anything. She stared at me with her glossy eyes. Her bow-shaped lips quivered, and that's all the reaction I got.

       "Run," I yell at her so loudly, forgetting that I could catch the killer's attention.

      She stumbled back at my outburst. "Run, girl."

      She slowly got up and pressed the T-shirt which was now wet with my blood to my wound. Then she did the most unexpected thing. She pressed her lips to mine gently for three seconds. Three fucking seconds. And I was at the edge of a breakdown. It feels like my last kiss.

      "Hang in there." She said and rushed out.

       But while leaving she left a pocket knife in my hand. Suddenly I wasn't thinking about my life. I am thinking about the girl in pink pyjamas.

      The front door opened with a bang after five minutes. I tried getting up but failed. My knee was bdly injured during the fall after I took the bullet. But I tried.

      The man with the gun walked in. I laughed at his attire when my bloodied body had no ounce of energy. "I would prefer a different outfit if I were you," I tell him. I speak every word with everything I have. It was fucking difficult.

        "I would shut my mouth if I were you." He said with a harsh tone. It was oddly familiar. Where did I hear it?

       "Any last wish?" He asked me, pointing his gun towards me.

       "Yeah. Go and change your attire. My ego hurts to die in the hands of a guy in clown clothes."

        Why did I say that? I have no idea. I should be begging for mercy.

        I couldn't see his expression because of the mask. But I am sure he got offended. He was going to pull the trigger. But someone hit him on the head from behind. I took the opportunity to lunge forward and thrust the pocket knife into his neck. It's funny how I thought I couldn't move but the moment I got the chance, I jumped on my supposed to be murderer. My desperation to live was astounding.

        It was my first kill, and so was the girl standing before me in nothing but a pant and a bra. I looked down at her shivering hands. She held her T-shirt and huge stones dropped from them onto the floor beside the dead man.

      She picked the large stones and tied them to her t-shirt to attack him. She was crying looking at the person.

      "Hush, sweetheart," I said, taking her in my arms. "He would have killed you too if he was alive," I told her, stroking her head.

       She held onto me as her life depended on it. And I held onto her as if my life depended on her. With her help, I walked out of the cottage. And soon, my guards arrived for me. I thought I only blinked and in the meantime, the girl disappeared along with her jacket and my mom's silver chain which has a maple leaf locket.

       At that second, I promised myself that I would find her again. I wanted to know about her so badly that it became my life's only goal. What is she doing there at that time? What does she mean by that when she says she can't be more dead? Why did her eyes seem so lifeless? What is her story? What is her name?

                                                                    *

          Now she is sitting across me, sucking her lips in and enjoying her cold coffee. It has been six fucking years and I yearned to meet her, touch her and know her. I couldn't comprehend my feelings toward her back then. It was curiosity sometimes or gratitude. But I think of the shortest kiss in my life every damn night.

       She didn't even recognise me now. I looked different back then, and I was coughing blood whenever I opened my mouth. So it is normal. Still, I wondered if any part of her yearned for me like I did for her. It is highly impossible but I like to entertain that idea because she is still wearing my chain.

      'Do you think about me whenever you touched the locket?' I wanted to ask. Instead, I said something else.

       'Take the deal. It is the best you could get in our current situation."

       She crossed her hands across her chest. I started to like that pose of her. She seemed like a lioness, and I wanted to do nothing but goad to pull her claws out. Her eyes are still the same- hauntingly beautiful and yet, lifeless. I saw her when she was angry, I saw her when she was being sarcastic but I never saw her smile. Are you still dead?

         "Why are you helping me?" She asked me.

        "I am in a hurry," I told her.

         She is not going to buy it. 'Why would she when you acted the way you did when you first met her? Questioned my inner-self.' Her running away from the marriage has become a headache for our family. But I can't question her choices. It led her to me again.

          She shook her head. "I am not buying it. Maybe I am desperate but not foolish. Tell me why you are doing this. You clearly hated me when you saw me for the first time."

        Oh, how I wanted to tell her that is not hate but anger.

        "Okay, how many tables are here?" I asked her.

        "Ten, why?" She answered and questioned at the same time.

        "That's why I am hiring you," I tell her. "You know your manager, Dafne has begged us to make you stay and explained how you have prevented the frauds happening in the online app you guys are working. You are an asset. I am stealing you."

        She is still suspicious.

        "By terminating me?" She questioned.

       "Would you have helped me if I hadn't? I don't know another fraud analytic team whom I can rely on whenever I want."

       "What makes you even think that I will be there whenevere you want?"

       Good point. I really prefer the girl who stared at me without talking in the woods.

        "Because your sister's life is on line. If I cancel it, I can always," I lean toward her with determination, "Arrange it back." I tell her.

       She frowned, looking at the file I gave. Good, she is contemplating. It is a progress. In the meantime, I took my sweet time to check her out. Her brown hair is longer than it was when she was sixteen. It crossed her waist. She has bangs tha covered her forehead. I am sure she looks cuter than she already is if she smiles. She has slender fingers and an elegant neck that will soon bear my marks. Just you wait, sweetheart.

     "I need some time." She said.

    "Take as much as you want. But tell me your decision before the dawn of tomorrow."

     She raised her eyebrow at me. "I would if you cancel the wedding before the dawn of tomorrow."

      "Hang in there, sweetheart."

       Her eyes shot up when I said that. That's all the confirmation I need to know that she is still not over what happened that night.

      "You will hear the good news," I added. "And one more thing. If we do this, it stays between us. You are not supposed to tell your sister that I stopped her wedding nor you should share with any of your colleagues that I hired you."

     "Cancel the wedding first. We will talk about it later."

       Her gaze held mine. I can't wait to make her mine. But how the hell do I make her fall for me in less than one month so that I could start unravelling her, removing every layer she built around her so that I could get her naked, body and soul?

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