Chosen

Chapter 28, Feeling Peatry Today

It was so quiet, almost like I was dying; hearing a chair scrap across the ground next to me I figured I wasn’t dead yet.  Wait, if I wasn’t dead that meant that I was theoretically still at that random guy’s house. 

Immediately opening my eyes, my pupils began to adjust to the sudden brightness around me.  Realising I was still collapsed at the table, I remembered falling asleep; relaxing into my sore form a bit.

‘I see you’re finally awake, care to explain why you are in my house’?

Freezing with shock, I lifted my head off the table, feeling a wave of nausea pass through me.  My head felt as if a thousand pins and needles were being jabbed through my skull.  The guy now walked over to sit opposite me, his eyes so much more gentle than what I had expected.

Composing myself, I didn’t know if I could talk without losing whatever remained in my stomach from my last meal.  ‘Ah, hi’?

What kind of an idiot breaks into someone’s house, cuts up their hand then wakes up the next morning saying hello?  Cursing myself, I slithered to the corner of the table, leaning against the hard wall now behind me.

‘You have five minutes to explain why I shouldn’t call a mental hospital to have you enlisted because from what I have seen; you are in need of serious help’.

Okay, maybe this guy wasn’t as gentle as I made him out to be; now remembering my hand I looked down at it, seeing that it was tightly wrapped in a thick bandage with me feeling no pain at all.

‘You helped me’?

My realisation made me so much more confused?  Was this guy on my side or Mrs Kingsmen’s; my mind seemed too fuzzy to concentrate on what was right and what was wrong.  Didn’t Hunter say I would have to convince this guy to trust me, did that mean I’d earned his trust?

The man’s eyes seemed to show sympathy for me now, ‘I couldn’t leave you to bleed to death on my kitchen table, what kind of a doctor do you take me for?  Now are you going to answer my question or do I need to make some calls’?

Staring at the man still confused on what to say; he soon got up to walk over to his phone; ‘wait!  I came here to find you; I was told you were a doctor’.  The words were out of my mouth before I even had a chance to think them through.

The man now paused, taking a seat back in front of me.  ‘Couldn’t hack your hand off without me, I’m guessing’?

Sitting still for some time, I did feel a lot better now.  Looking at my hands in my lap, I guessed I’d be on my way to a mental institution if I didn’t give this guy some answers, ‘I ran away; Hunter said to find you’.

This man looked concerned for my welfare now; maybe I had told him too much information.   ‘Hunter, hey’?

Could I trust this guy, his eyebrow was now curiously raised; a puzzle solving expression clear on his face.  ‘Mrs Kingsmen…………’

Those two words seemed to answer all his questions as he now got up from the table, walking over to his cupboard to sit a cup down on the counter. 

‘You know I figured when I retired, that place would be in the past but it seems like I’ll never get away.  Let me guess you’re one of their…………employees……..’

Nodding my head, I watched as the doctor set his kettle to boil; tipping a generous helping of coffee into his cup.  ‘So that thing in your hand was a tracker then, I’m guessing; how long had you been running’?

This man was good I gave him that, his stance was stiff though as if expecting trouble with what I was about to say.  ‘A few hours maybe’? 

My head was still fuzzy to understand exactly where I was and even what time of day it was, ‘I took a car and drove to the Post Office and then walked, or well ran here’.