Page 3 of Before the Bond
One, two, three, four.
The grass’s moisture soaked through my socks. The ground dug into my knees.
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.
I tilted his head back, lifted his chin, and sealed my mouth over his. The scalding heat from his body went through me, but I ignored it. I breathed into him. Watched his chest. Waited.
Nothing.
Come on.
The dread built with every second he made no response.
One, two, three —
Not this one.
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.
Not this one.
I pulled my mouth from his face. I was ready to resume the next round of compressions until an enormous force hit my palms. A heartbeat.
One enormous, shuddering beat that moved up through my hands and into my arms and made me flinch.
Then there was another. And another. Strong and rhythmic and powerful enough that I could feel it against my own sternum where I’d been leaning in. Not a weak flutter. Not the tentative restart of a heart trying to remember its job. A full, driving, absolute beat — like it had always been there and had simply chosen this moment to announce itself.
I pulled back to check his pulse and breathing again.
That was when his eyes snapped open.
They were red.
Bright, red irises stared straight at me, penetrating through the growing darkness around us.
The moment his eyes opened, every part of him oriented toward me. Not to the yard or the trees or the fog — to me, specifically.
Normally, I would ask the patient questions. If they were okay, their general orientation, any physical sensations… But I merely froze.
Relief swept through me without warning. Every part of my body trembled. Tears welled up in my eyes.
There was something else there, too. Something that landed in my chest like the answer to a question I hadn’t known I was asking — and underneath it, stranger than anything else, a feeling like recognition.
The only thing that snapped me out of it was what happened next.
The man leapt forward.
In a split second, the world spun and my body pressed against the ground. Firm hands gripped my wrists tightly.
I looked at him. The man was right above me, fully pinning me down.
A shaky gasp escaped me. My heart raced so fast I could hear it.
Despite the cold grass pressing against me, the only thing I could feel was the irrevocable warmth radiating from my patient-turned-assailant.
“W-what…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
I knew for a fact that people who were unconscious didn’t always act rationally. Many experienced delirium and some were more defensive than others.
