Chapter 4: Feedback Loop from Hell
Eleanor
“Wake up!”
I heard a soft seraphic voice whisper in my ear. My eyes were shut so tight that I felt my facial muscles itch.
“Wake up! Run he is coming”
My eyes cracked open like a crocodile hiding in a muddy swamp. I was lying on the cold tarmac bleeding from the head. It was dead quiet except for a roaring engine with an approaching head light from far and I knew what was coming. I got off my feet and fell back on my ass then got back up again hissing in pain while dragging my right leg. I had a higher chance of capturing lightning in a bottle than out running him. But I tried anyway even though it was too late, the biker wearing all black with a red helmet tried to swerve and avoid hitting me but I kept going where he didn’t want me to go the first tire missed me by an inch but the second one knocked me in the air and I hit the tarmac again, I could smell blood, gasoline and burning rubber before passing out.
“Wake up!”
The voice sounded familiar not because I was hearing it for the third time but familiar like someone close, someone I had grown up listening to. Someone who was not my mum. I waited for the second voice.
“Wake up! Run he is coming”
My head couldn’t decipher whose voice it was and so I woke up again, bleeding from the head in a dark street with a broken leg broken and ribs. I struggled to get up and fell again. It was dead quiet except for the approaching roaring engine and headlight with the rider in a red helmet. This time I didn’t attempt to run, I just froze right in front of him and the more he approached the clearer it got, his bike his boots and physique. He had a snake tattoo on his right hand. What was my brain trying to tell me? I shut my eyes and waited for the impact. And for the third time I got knocked in the air and dropped on the cold tarmac, the dump smell of tar mixed with gasoline and blood hit my nostrils. Before passing out I saw him slide on the tarmac creating sparks, the back of his jacket had a snake coiled around a sword. Was he a doctor? Before I could see more details everything went dark.
“Is she awake?”
This time it was a deep melodic male voice. There was a lot of beeping, the air was cold and fresh. My back was not on the tarmac, it was not cold and dark. Even with my eyes shut I felt light struggling to penetrate through my blepharons. I patiently waited for the second voice.
“She is back!”
When I opened my eyes I quickly shut them from excessive light, my iris was still adjusting to the light how long had I been out? I opened my eyes slowly. I was lying on a hospital bed in a white room, tubes connected in my mouth nose and throat, I felt pain all the way from my head to lower abdomen, my ribs were on fire and my legs were hanging from the ceiling with bandages all over them same to my right hand. A smiley beautiful nurse removed the oxygen apparatus from my mouth and all the other tubes.
“Welcome back mum”
I cleared my throat before mumbling a faint “Thank you” she covered me up to the neck.
“She is all yours” she said on her way out and then he appeared.
My heart was thudding in my ribcage. That was what my brain was trying to warn me about. Knox Hale. I had never met him but his face couldn’t escape me. How deceitful could fate be? I was running away from Axel only to end up in the hands of his greatest nemesis and certainly the man who had a hand in the murder of his brother Damon. The Blood reapers and iron serpents had been at war since the dawn of time and if he knew who I was then probably I had jumped from the frying pan to the fire. His presence unsettled me, it got worse when he bolted the door behind him and walked towards me. Towering at 6,3” it was hard to imagine he was only twenty-eight years and he had accomplished what most mafia families couldn’t. Taking the Iron serpents on top of the organized crime food chain.
Knox was ruggedly handsome with tousled black hair. His eyes were calm and cold, brown irises darting in his milky corneas. And then the feature that stood out the most, a serrated scar that ran from his left eyebrow to his chiseled cheekbone. He didn’t look like he ever smiled a lot, there was a tattoo of a skull around his neck and the rest of his body was tattered beautifully, and the magnum opus of the artist were serpents on his bulging fire arms.
“Hi, welcome back. Do you know what happened?”
Still too shaken to answer, I couldn’t find my voice instead I just nodded in agreement. He poured a glass of juice and adjusted my bed to a more comfortable position. Retrieved the small folded patients table and set it right in front of me then served the juice with a straw.
“Please, drink up. I’m so sorry about the accident. I tried my level best but” he paused looking sad, a look that until then I didn’t think he possessed. Apart from charisma, dominance and dangerously intelligent genius level intellect, Knox’s reputation was painted in ruthlessness, impulsivity and his inability to show any vulnerability, mercy to him was weakness and there he was looking remorseful for almost killing me? Was it that stupid dream again.
“I’m I dreaming or you’re real?”
He raised his gaze wearing surprise like a second skin.
“No this is reality. You’ve been in a comma for a month”
Then my fucked up life hit me back like a tsunami. All the memories of my three days on the run swarmed back.
“My purse. It had…”
He fished it out from the bedside table.
“No one opened it I swear, everything else that was on your body is in there” he handed it to me, “My name is Knox, you’re in my house until you get back on your feet you’ll be part of my family that’s the least I can do. Rest for now I’ll see you later”
Ooh thank God. He didn’t know who I was. But for how long? Knox almost killing me aside, I had this urge to avenge Damon’s death. I had taken my enemies lightly but from the look of things they were willing to kill me too just to get to whatever that chain led to or whatever it was and I had no option but to play their game and I had no intention of losing in fact my motto is “Natus pro vincere” for hundredth time I carefully looked the chain and then I saw it.