Calm Wanderer
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(AKJ) Chapter 20 - The countdown started
🕑 Added 2023-11-20 21:06:32 +0000 UTCDamovotsk, Molkovia, Earth.
Demian's P.O.V.
“I'll be relying on you.” He said with a smile on his face, trying to remove the tense atmosphere. Nodding her head at his words, a slight upturn of her lips slightly cracked her stoic exterior for a brief moment before she resumed her poker face. Her examination apparently finished, she grabbed a few medical supplies from her bag and explained the following process.
“I'll deal with one wound at a time. I'll first clean and bandage the one on your side because that place has the most risk of lethal hemorrhage. Then I'll clean and bandage your shoulder injury. It doesn't seem like the bone was hit, so it's not all bad news. After that, I'll just clean the rest of the superficial wounds.”
As soon as she finished talking she took a pair of scissors from her bag and used it to cautiously cut his shirt off, before taking the fabric and taking it off from his still bleeding upper body. Once she was done, she started her work of cleaning and bandaging his wounds, while the young man asked in a surprised manner.
“So, no-Ugh!-stitching or taking out the bullet from my wound?” A small smile appeared on her face at his words but she did not stop her ministrations as she answered his question. “That's only in movies. Your shoulder wound may lead to an internal hemorrhage depending on the damage inside. So I'll need to take a look at it in my office.”
“As for taking out a bullet? Unless you want to bleed to death, otherwise I'll just leave it inside your body. At least for now.” The simple explanation made him understand how much movies could lead to misunderstandings and even potentially fatal mistakes. “Never tr-Ugh!- trust movie logic! Go-Fuck! Got it!” Grunts of pain kept escaping him as she was dressing his injuries as delicately as she could.
“Alright, you should stop talking for now, you're distracting me.” “Sure.” He replied before keeping silent while enduring the painful process. After a few minutes, Adeliya was finally done with patching him up, leading him to let out a sigh of relief and say. “Thanks, Aunty!”
Looking at the mature woman who looked unaffected by the whole situation, Demian could not help but have some doubts. The image he had of his Aunt was of someone soft and kind, but now... As if she felt something, the woman stared into his eyes, letting out the gentle smile he was used to, alleviating his misgivings.
'Whatever. Everyone has secrets and I'd be a hypocrite if I blamed her while having huge secrets myself.' He thought while returning the smile. Suddenly thinking of something, the young man exclaimed. “By the way, should we take care of the... corpses?” The word left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he had to mention it.
Nodding her head, Adeliya said. “I'll get some large plastic sheets to put them in.” Not commenting on that, he nonetheless let out a question, his voice laced with uneasiness. “Do you think the cops are coming?” He did not voice out the rest of his thoughts, but from the woman's facial expression, he knew she understood.
Shaking her head hesitantly, she replied. “I'm not sure. It's not likely though.” Thinking for a second, he said. “They'd be here already, otherwise, right?” “It's not certain. But yes. With all the noise we made, someone would have called them already, and they'd have arrived.”
“That makes sense.” “There's another reason.” Feeling curious, he gazed at her, waiting for her following words. “If Petrovich is behind this... attack... then he would’ve used his influence on the police to grant him a 'free pass' time window. That way, even if he injured or killed someone, there'd be no repercussion.”
With a doubtful expression, he questioned. “Isn't it a bit of a stretch? I understand that corruption is everywhere, but we're talking about the head of a public hospital. Would he even have enough influence to block the cops from intervening in a shootout?”
With a knowing smile directed at him, she answered. “Yes, he would. Especially if it's only for an hour or two around here. In any case, nothing is certain, so we shouldn't waste more time.” She left those words as she went back to the 'storage' to get what she needed.
Pondering on what he could do to help for a few seconds, he thought about something. Turning toward Sera who had not uttered a single word for a few minutes, his mind finally registered the twitching hand held in his own, while his focus turned to her shivering body, making her current state of mind quite clear to him.
Squeezing her hand softly, Demian's gentle words resounded. “We're all fine, Sis. You can relax.” Cocking her eyebrow, she replied. “No, you're wrong. Mom is fine. I'm fine. But you're not fine. I... I'm your big sister. I'm the one supposed to protect you but you... I... I'm so useless...” The last whispered words preceded a few tears rolling down her fair cheeks.
Letting out a sigh, the young man softly chided his older cousin. “The fact that you can't shoot people doesn't make you useless, Sis. If I didn't have the two of you to care for me, I'd have bled to death already. You know, I can't SEE myself living without you.”
That dreadful joke still drew a small smile from his uneasy cousin. Feeling the petite woman squeeze his hand back, he heard. “Your joke is terrible, Dem. But I think I needed it.” Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she added.
“I'm sorry, Dem. I just feel frustrated about... everything. I just need time to... Deal with things.” “Sure. Take as much time as you need. In the meantime, could you help me stand up? I'd like to see if those guys have their car keys hidden somewhere. We might need to get rid of it later.”
The woman bowed her head slightly in assent, before standing up and holding out her hand to him. Taking it, Demian started the painful process of getting up, the main culprit being the wound on his side making itself remembered.
Gritting his teeth to not worry Seraphine more than she already was, he finally stood up and, not wanting to waste time, he decided to keep the woman's hand in his and moved toward the two corpses lying in their own blood at the penthouse entrance. As the horrible scene came into full view, the young man felt a feeling of disgust rise inside him, forcing him to turn his head to the side in order to feel slightly better.
'God! This is worse than I thought... Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.' He thought after the vision of a dead man with a hole in roughly the middle of his face entered his eyes. While trying to calm his restless emotions, he caught the sound of his Aunt returning, right before her voice reached his ears.
“What are you doing, sweetie?” “I'm looking for their car keys. I assumed we'd need to get rid of it. Now that I think about it, it'd be best if we transported the... bodies with it. It'd be less risky, don't you think?”
Feeling much better, or less worse, the young man let go of Sera's hand gently and started slowly crouching down. “Wait a second, Dem!” “What's up?” “We'll put them on the plastic sheet. It'll make less of a mess.” “Sure.” Waiting for a few seconds for her to set the sheets in the corridor, he then positioned himself at the feet of the guy he shot multiple times in the torso.
'Let's keep the worst one for last.' He thought, while mechanically taking the latex gloves and the beanie she held out for him. His surprise could probably be seen on his face as she immediately explained. “The gloves are to avoid leaving any prints. The beanie has the same function but for your hair. It's not a perfect solution, but since we don't know how much time we have, it'll have to do.”
Nodding his head to show his understanding, he started to put on the gloves and beanie, asking a last question before they began their macabre cleaning. “Shouldn't it be a surgical hat instead of a beanie though?” Cocking her eyebrow with a 'are you stupid' look, she answered. “Have you ever seen anyone walking around with a surgical hat on his head? You understand that we need to get outside to get rid of the bodies, right?”
Realizing that his question was pretty stupid, he replied in an embarrassed tone. “You're right. With everything that happened, I've got a hard time thinking straight.” Shaking her head at his admittance, she retorted as she started to reach for the corpse's arms, waiting for him to grab its legs. “It does take some getting used to. But you're doing pretty well for your first time. You can be proud.”
A few muffled grunts of pain escaped him as he bent over to grab the man's ankles and he lifted the guy in tandem with his Aunt before setting him on one of the plastic sheets. 'Thank God for my improved body and mind, or I'd have passed out from lifting that fat dude. Damn, that hurts like hell.' He thought, noticing the bandages on his shoulder and side turning a darker shade of red, while the rest of his upper body was drenched in sweat.
Taking a few deep breaths to cool his body, his Aunt's last words suddenly hit him, prompting him to exclaim. “Wait a second! What did you just say?” He stared at her in confusion. To which she responded with a teasing smile. “Did I say anything?” Freezing for a few seconds too surprised for any coherent sentence to escape him.
Chuckling at his reaction, the mature redhead added. “Before you ask, no I never killed anyone.” Letting out a breath he never noticed he was holding, Demian replied in confusion. “I mean... It's hard to see you as a ruthless hidden killer, so I was kinda surprised.” Shaking her head, she responded. “You don't have to be a killer to see dead bodies. Now, come help me get the second guy.”
Pondering silently as he helped her pick up the more... damaged body and set it down on the other sheet, the young man finally commented. “Weren't you worried by Petrovich? I'm not a therapist, but you seemed very anxious when we talked about him last time.”
Bowing her head briefly in assent, she started to close the plastic sheets on the corpses while answering him. “I was. Both because you three were targeted and the fact that I understand how those types of people think. They're capable of anything and I was afraid of what would happen if we fell into his hands.”
Once she was done wrapping them up, she turned her face toward him and added. “To be honest with you, I'm still worried.” Glancing at the cold corpses on the ground, she continued. “Don't think that those two were important to Petrovich. You can find that kind of vermin everywhere on the street. People with no morals and ready to do anything to make a quick Ruble.”
After a few seconds of silence, the woman shook her head and said. “Forget it. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Shifting her gaze in his direction, she instructed. “Let's focus on the current situation first. We need to clean the blood in the entrance and then we'll...” Her words were suddenly cut off by a ringtone echoing in the now silent corridor.
The two froze for a second in shock, before they simultaneously stared at the one-ear corpse wrapped in plastic. “Fuck!” “Damn it!” The two cussed at the same time, understanding that an invisible countdown started, one that could lead to their deaths if not handled well.
