I'm so happy people liked this story that I decided to just keep going, as I have still so much inspiration for the storyline!
Jonathan Christopher Wayland was pacing up and down the corridor, passing the door to Clarissa Fairchilds room every 4 to 5 seconds and giving it a quick glance, as if there was going to appear a magic sign that would tell him what to do. He sighed as he corrected himself in his head. His guest room. Not Clarissa Fairchilds room. Because that would implicate that he wanted her to stay there for a longer time, right? He shook his head. Clarissa had been here for -he checked his watch again- 2 hours and 47 minutes, and up till now he wasn't sure that she would make it through. The poison The Circle uses was tricky and there were only a few people on this earth who knew how to treat it. Jonathan was one of those people, as he had encountered it at numerous occasions as he helped a lot of enemies of The Circle.
He was throwing his knife around from one hand to the other restlessly as he was thinking about everything he had done in the past few hours to save her life. After years of training the movements were effortless, the knife a prolonging of his arm. The rhythm of his movements and the feeling of the wooden handle always calmed him down. He shook his head for a second as he thought about the irony. The years of training by The Circle had made him one of the most skilled knife fighters of the entire organisation, but those years had also disgusted him so much that he used this skill as little as possible in combat. His use of guns was like a personal statement to his enemy that he did not need them at all, that he owed them nothing. And yet, the only thing that would calm him down when he was really stressed or worried, were the routine movements with his knife.
He stopped in front of the door, thinking of all the times he had encountered her. His goal had always been clear: killing her to weaken The Circle, in the hope of putting an end to their list of victims that always kept growing. Every second in the last 3 hours, he should have been in doubt: saving her life (which was the ethical option) of not doing anything and letting her die (a practical solution that would possibly save innocent lives). He knew he should have been in doubt, but he wasn't. He hadn't been for a second. Because the moment he had seen her so vulnerable, passed out in his arms after apologizing to be there, he knew he couldn't do it. After studying her for months, he knew so much of her yet at this moment he realised he didn't know anything. He had known she was beautiful, smart, fearless, fast, precise, and without a hesitation once she had chosen her target. All qualities that made it even easier to see her as the enemy, as some cold-blooded criminal. But in all that time he had never seen her as today: fragile, afraid, confused, in pain. It was the first time he had seen her as a human being, and the second he realised that, he knew he would never be able to go back to before. He put his hand on the doorknob, taking a deep breath before he walked in. She was still unconscious, her body covered with bandages and ointments, her face pale but peaceful. Earlier, he had picked glass shards out of superficial cuts and had put a corset around her ribcage to support her broken ribs, all the while wondering what she had been through in the past hours. He had made a mental note to ask her if she woke up, together with about a hundred others questions he wanted to ask her. Why did she come to him? How did she find him? What was she planning?
He sighed as he thought about possible answers, most of them not very much to his liking. He was well aware that she could be spying for The Circle and be the death of him, but he had already made his decision. He would wait until he could hear her story. Afterwards he would decide what would be his next move. He stepped closer to the bed, to check her vital parameters and to check the bandages of her different wounds. He touched her as if she was made of glass, so differently than how he had perceived her until about 3 hours ago. He checked the wound at her side again, approvingly mumbling to himself. He hadn't closed the wound yet, since the flesh had been weakened by the poison, making it impossible to stitch it nicely. After his treatment the skin had recovered enough to be stitched up, and he decided to close the wound now while she was still sedated. His hands were working meticulously, trying to make the scar as small and neat as possible and he wondered why he was putting so much effort in everything for her. He looked up to her face for a second, whishing she would wake up and talk to him. Which leaded him to think about how she would react if she found him in a position like this, touching her without consent. He smiled for a second: he was pretty sure she would try to strangle him.
Sooooooo, next chapter will be about what happens when she wakes up! What do you think/wish that will happen?
xoxo N.
