Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I awoke to silence.
Everything looked blurry and faded when I first opened my eyes, and the atmosphere was colder than it had been earlier. For a few minutes, I lay there, the sheets soft around me, trying to bring my mind out of a haze and recall what exactly I was doing there.
There was something I was forgetting, something that was supposed to be important but seemed far away. I blinked hard a couple of times, and then tried to sit up.
Bad move.
The pain which flared up in my shoulder was sudden and intense, hitting me so hard that it felt like someone had cut off my oxygen. I let out a heavy groan, my other hand coming up to cup the injury, brain woozy with pain as I managed to finally sit up.
I grit my teeth against the throbbing ache, feeling it become duller as I waited. It was then that I noticed my torso was uncovered except for my bra, the wound in my shoulder wrapped in layers of feather-light gauze stained red with my blood.
“You're up.”
I didn't look up, having recognized the voice as belonging to none other than Lee Taeyong. Such was the pain that I didn't even feel embarrassed at being half-undressed in front of him, and anyway, he had seen me in something close to that anyway.
“Where am I?” I asked, not raising my face as he drew up a chair next to the bed I sat on, the sudden loud noise making me cringe.
“Safe house,” he said, and from the corner of my vision I could see him lean forward with his elbows on his knees. “And if you're going to yell at me for undressing you, I had no choice. It was either that or risking infection in your injury.”
Slowly, I remembered the events that had taken place—when? The previous night? The night before? I didn't even know how long I had been out, but I had definitely lost some precious time, which for some reason, pissed me off.
“I wasn't going to,” I muttered, finally looking up to examine as much of the wound as I could. “How bad is it?”
“Just a flesh wound,” he said. “It managed to graze the top of your shoulder, but thankfully it didn't get your bone. I don't know too much about bullet wounds, but I think it'll be much better in about a month.”
I didn't reply to that, instead running my fingertips lightly over the material covering my injury. The room was bare except for the bed and a couple of chairs, which I guessed was a given since this place was probably not used very often. His blood red hair and the stains on the gauze stood out against the otherwise bareness of the room.
