Chapter 2 - Who is this unusual girl..?

Hermione was passed out the whole ride. Seeing the blood-drenched face of the girl, Charlie worriedly decided she needed to be stitched up as soon as possible. It would be bad she lost too much blood. Judging how far it will be to bring her to the hospital he speeds off towards his home instead, logically it was closer and he wanted to secure the wounds right away.

It was a Sunday night, Bella was in the kitchen preparing dinner and was in the middle of frying a chicken when suddenly she heard the screeching brakes of a car, followed by the bang of the car door.

'Hmm, did Charlie buy takeout again?" she pondered while flipping over the chicken to cook the other half.

"Bella, open the door. I need your help right now." Charlie yelled through the screen door as he securely held the unconscious girl in his arms unable to open the door by himself. Hearing him, Bella quickly turned off the stove and sprinted to the front door, it was the first time she ever heard him sound so urgent like that.

She halted when she saw a girl drenched in blood in Charlie's arm, snapping out of her shock she runs to open the door and help Charlie carefully carry her over to the couch.

"What happened to her?" she asked as they carefully laid down the unconscious girl on their couch. Staring at all the blood Bella became queasy but she held it in.

She was breathing hard as she noticed the large slice on the girl's forehead. Nausea starting to bubble up inside her as she looked away, she wasn't really accustomed to dealing with blood.

"Please get me the first aid kit, and prepare a basin with warm water and a towel," Charlie commanded, completely ignoring her question as he started examining the girl's wounds. Bella didn't argue as she ran upstairs almost tripping and grabbed the first aid kit from her dad's room. Returning to the living room and handing Charlie the huge metal box. She then headed to the kitchen to prepare the water.

When she was done, she carefully carried the plastic basin towards Charlie which he quickly took squeezed off the excess water and carefully cleaned the girls wound.

"It looks like this gash is the only critical one right now, she doesn't seem to have any injuries just a few bruises in her left arm and leg she probably tried to block her fall from this side." he speculated as he pointed at her injuries one by one. Once he was already done stitching her up, Bella asked again.

"So what happened to her?"

she stayed a safe distance, just in case she might throw up from the scent of the blood.

"I, uh... I accidentally hit her with my car.:

"I didn't see her.." he continued

"she just suddenly appeared out of the corner, standing in the middle of the road. When I saw her it was already too late." he cringed, as he took in the damage he had done.

Bella was surprised, her father could never hurt a fly even if he was a cop, she saw how sorry he felt for the girl.

She didn't want to dwell on the matter anymore, instead deciding to offer some help. "Do you need me to do anything?" she asked.

"Yeah, thankfully she doesn't seem to have as many injuries as I thought, so she doesn't need to be transferred to the hospital," he explained.

Which is good, but then he continued. "Just this obviously huge cut on her head, but experiencing a lot of accidents from just you alone, I'm pretty trained with these kinds of things."

"Here." handing Bella the towel. "Gently clean the blood and dirt off her," he instructed as he headed to the bathroom to clean the blood from his own hands.

Bella gulped as she stared wide-eyed at the girl.

"Sure…"

After a couple of seconds, she finally stopped staring and headed back to the kitchen to rinse off the blood and dirt from the towel. Changing the water in the plastic basin as well.

She brings it back to the living room and quietly pulled up a chair beside the girl. She was about to hold the mysterious girl's hand to clean her arm first.

But as soon as their skin made contact, she felt a sudden jolt shoot up her own arm which made her let go in shock.

"Whoa." she shuddered, surprised by the sudden tingling sensation that caused goosebumps to rise up all over her body.

It was like electricity but it wasn't a painful or prickly feeling, it was kinda... nice.

After shaking her head at the thought, she curiously stared at the other girl's hand before slowly grasping it again. She felt it again the "tingling feeling" shoot up her arm, but she was prepared this time. Deciding not to think too much about it as she exhaled the breath she'd unknowingly been holding as she begins to clean off the residue left from the girl's body.

Starting from the girl's arm she wiped away the dried earth and dirt, wiping from her hands unto her elbow, and then her legs, carefully swiping from her thigh down to her ankle. After she was done she went back to the kitchen to change water and quickly returned to the girl's side.

She was closer than before since most of the blood from the other girl was cleaned off already. She slowly studied the girl's face, looking at her stitches, Charlie had done a good job in closing up the wound. She was careful not to get too close to it, as she cleaned the other girl's face. She slowly patted the towel from the cheekbones down to her jaw.

She was carefully dabbing at the corner of the girl's mouth when she accidentally touched her lower lip, her breath hitched, she quickly pulled her hand away. She decided the girl was clean enough as she picked up her basin. She was about to leave when she finally looked at the girl for the first time without all the blood and dirt.

The girl was really pretty.

She couldn't help admiring the girl's features, after a few moments she suddenly blushed when she realized what she was doing. It was like for a second her brain was on autopilot. Quickly turning around as she heard Charlie closing the door from the bathroom and heading towards her.

Dropping her hands to her side, Bella looks at Charlie. Silently trying to her hide her unexplainable embarrassment. Luckily Charlie didn't notice.

He took a chair and softly sat beside Bella looking over at the girl.

"So, do you know who she is?" Bella whispered, careful not to wake the girl up.

He only shook his head.

"I don't, I haven't seen her around here before."

"I figured maybe she's from out of town, or maybe even new in town. Her clothes don't look like they're from around here." Charlie whispered back curiously.

"You think we should check out if she has an I.D or something?" Bella suggested.

Charlie nodded his head. So she turned back towards the unconscious girl, only noticing now that the girl had been gripping on to some sort of stick which Bella hadn't noticed the first time.

She tried to gently pry it from her fingers, but her fixed grip wouldn't let go so she immediately gave that up. Instead, she reached into the girl's pockets and felt a rectangular bulge under her hand, grinning on finding something she carefully pulled out a wallet.

Quickly, opening the wallet she was surprised yet again with how much cash this girl had.

"Hmm... UK currency."

Curious about why such a young girl would be carrying this much money. But deciding not to dwell too much on it, Bella skimmed through the different cards until she successfully found an I.D. slowly reading out the details so that Charlie could hear her.

"Name: GRANGER, HERMIONE JEAN /Address: someplace I don't know..."

"Hmm… She's from London. Maybe she did move here recently."

"So far it seems there are no other address or contact numbers specified in these cards," Bella announced as she takes a final look at Hermione's I.D.

Deciding to return the wallet to Hermione's pocket as it didn't really provide them much-needed information, rather it only made them even more confused and curious.

Bella slowly turned back to look at Charlie who was only silently listening to her.

"I guess we have a Ms. Granger staying over for tonight," she said, as she took the blanket Charlie had brought down. They didn't speak much. Bella felt that Charlie was still shaken by what happened. So she didn't want to bother him.

Gently covering Hermione with the blanket making sure she didn't get cold during the night.

Remembering that the first day at a new school would be tomorrow. Taking a final look at Hermione before excusing herself to freshen up, and head to bed for a good night sleep.

They didn't even get to have their dinner that night, completely forgetting about the chicken soaking in oil over the stove.