Heiress in Distress

•Chapter 37•

• Word Count: 1,465

I feel myself slowly coming to; my heavy eyelids keeping my vision obscured. The first thing that strikes my body is the wind; a cool breeze whispers by, leaving a trail of goosebumps on my skin. A quick shiver passes through my body.

Where am I? And why is it so dark?

Blindly, I feel the area around me; I'm on a grassy ground. What am I doing on a grassy ground? And then it all comes crashing back to me; the meeting at the warehouse, the bomb, Armin taking a beating-

Armin!

I push myself into a sitting position, but it's still dark.

"Armin?!"

No answer.

I go to rub my eyes, only to have my hands touching a peace of fabric. My fingers trace the material around my head. It's a blindfold.
Upon removing it, the glaring light of the day strikes my eyes in merciless jabs, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut again.

"Armin!"

He still doesn't answer and the unrelenting sunlight won't allow me a peak, let alone search for Armin.

I give my eyes a few more minutes to adjust to the bright light and then I find myself staring across a field at a children's swing. My instinct is to turn my head right and left, searching for a sign of familiarity and then it clicks. It's a park. The family park close to Armin's home.

The sound of groaning nearby has my ears perked and my heart shoved in my mouth. I freeze.

Another round of groaning makes me realize that someone might be in pain-

I find myself crawling towards the sound, "Armin!"

A pair of gym shoes stick out from just behind the roundabout, "Armin is that you?!"

He groans in response. When I stand over his body I notice 3 things; he's blindfolded too, his face is gruesomely puffy with colors ranging from red to purple, and judging by his inability to roll over from being face deep into them mud, he's still sore from the beating.

I attempt to gently roll him over, ignoring the increasing frequency of his groans, "You should've thought about this before taunting that man,"

The groaning continues, but this time it's accompanied my coughing and with every cough, his face contorts into a grimace as if the pain is magnified with every cough.

When I remove his blindfold, he immediately shields his eyes, "Turn the lights,"

I attempt to lift him up but he shoves me away, saying that it's too painful for him to move a muscle.

My hands rest on my hip in exasperation. It occurs to me in this moment that Aurick has dumped a few miles away from their home, which makes no sense. When my eyes fall on the discarded blindfolds -another oddity- I'm forced to think that it may not actually be Aurick.

I'm daunted to even begin wondering who it might be.

Another groan from Armin has him rolling to his side in attempts to stand up.
He does it slowly, cautious about his wounds. He's on his stomach first, then on his knees, and when I help him to a standing position, he shakes his head, "Can't do it,"

"Why not-"

He steadies himself near the roundabout and sits on it gently, "I feel like puking,"

For the first time since I've regained consciousness, I notice that Armin needs medical attention. There's no way we're taking him back home like this.