Zachary

Chapter Nine

Another chapter. This one's a quickie.

Sorry for the late upload. School started for me...blahblahblah. It sucks.

But I'll try my best to upload as much and as quickly as possible.

Pinky swear.

xo.

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CHAPTER NINE

I know I fell asleep after that, but for how long, I wasn’t quite sure.

It must have been a pretty long time because I woke up to my father gently shaking me and telling me that it was time to go. I had missed lunch and dinner duty.

I would have slapped myself on the head for sleeping the whole day if it wasn't for the pain that throbbed through it whenever I moved.

I was so angry with myself. I had missed the whole day volunteering and any chance to see Mercy or Zach again. I didn’t want to go.

I closed my eyes tight and pretended not to hear my dad as he was trying to wake me up.

“Nikki...,” my father softly whispered as he gently shook my arm. “Hun, come’on. Get up. I know you’re awake.”

I shut my eyes even tighter.

“No,” I mumbled into the pillow. I pulled the covers up over my face and buried myself deeper and deeper into the blankets. Whoever this bed belonged to was super lucky. It was probably one of the most comfortable things I had ever slept on.

I heard my father sigh as he pulled the covers off my face.

“Nicole, stop acting like a two year old. Now get your ass out of bed.”

I heard the impatience rising in his voice and I quickly obeyed him, to avoid any trouble. I pulled the blankets away from my body and opened my eyes. I was still in the same room that Zach had carried me into earlier. Everything looked exactly the same, except the color of the light streaming in from the one window on the wall. Instead of the brightness that was coming through it earlier, a dull reddish hue was gleaming into the room, turning everything orange. From this, I could tell that it was somewhere around six o’clock.

Even though my whole body was screaming that it wanted to stay warm under the covers, I managed to pull myself out of bed. As I stood up, I got extremely dizzy. My dad had already walked out of the room, and I slowly started to follow him out. I got to the door way and my dizziness got the better of me.

 I closed my eyes and started to sway. I reached for the door frame to steady myself, but grabbed onto a human arm instead.

My eyes shot open in surprise.

Zach had gripped onto my arm and was looking at me, with concerned, wide eyes.

“Are you okay?”

I was too stunned to say anything, so I simply nodded instead. He helped me to steady myself and then he let go of my arm and the electric feeling where he had touched me, vanished.

“Is your head okay?” Zach reached out and was about to touch my head where my cut was, but he pulled his hand back before it actually touched me.

“It’s been better.”

“I figured.” He laughed quietly and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it already was. “Have a nice nap?”

“Yeah, actually I did. I needed that. That bed was the best.”