His Halo is a Lie

I push my doors open, and the familiar creak echoes through the apartment. My coat comes off next, but just as I stretch my hands to place it on the hanger, I freeze. 

Something isn’t right in here. 

As an Emergency room nurse, I have learned how to pick up even the smallest detail because that might just be the difference between a dead and living patient. Applying it to my everyday life is easy, because I am almost always the only person I let into my space.

The coat hits the floor in a whisper as I let it go, then place one foot after the other, pushing further into my apartment. It is a tiny space above a bookstore, so it should take only a few minutes to cover every inch of it.

I can smell the perfume, rich and strong, with every step I take.

“Who is here?” I call, my heart thumping hard against my chest. “You better run away now while you have the chance. The cops are already on their way.”

Silence.

With my trembling hands, I pick up the base bat that never leaves the side of the door. I walk to the kitchen first, finding it empty. But I know that there is someone in the house with me.

Giving the living area and the open plan kitchen one last sweep, I edge towards my bedroom. 

That is where I find it, my window broken with shards of glass on the floor.

“Oh no!”  I groan, my fear forgotten for a second as I calculate how much it will take me to fix it. I don’t have that extra cash lying around to spare.

My fear gets replaced by rage as I stop by the door of the last room in the apartment. The adjoining bathroom. I nudge it aside and step in, my blood boiling and my hand about to hit the base bat on the head of anyone I find inside.

But I stop at once, my eyes widening in surprise, when I see the crumpled form inside my bathtub, red crimson everywhere.

Okay. Maybe crumpled isn’t the best word to describe it, because this man is everything but that. My bathtub can barely contain his tall frame, with his long legs dangling by the sides, inches apart from each other.

He is bleeding.

The bat falls from my hands at once as I rush over. I notice him clutching his stomach, so I go there first, attempting to pry his hands away. 

A groan slips from his lips. “You’re back.”

"Who are you?"  I whisper, using my hands to block the bleeding, just as my eyes scan every surface of the bathroom, searching for the first aid box.

His eyes fly open, and I almost jerk back from their intensity. Two pools of icy grey eyes stare back at me in the dimly lit bathroom, framed by the most perfect features I have ever seen in my entire life.

And that is saying something since I see a number of men stroll in through the hospital doors every day.

“Aren’t you supposed to treat me first?” He regards me with a lazy expression, like he isn’t in so much pain. Anyone with that wound will be. 

“You broke my window!”  I mutter as I move, grabbing the first aid by the sink and returning to his side. I will have to stop the bleeding before I get him out of the tub. “That poses you as a threat to me, and negates whatever treatment I might have given you. I could report you to the cops right now.”

"But you won't."  His speech is getting slurred, and I can see him struggling to stay awake. "You need me alive if you're going to have a case."

His confidence scratches at me. 

My hands reach for the switch next to the tub, but he stops me at once, his bloodied hands on top of mine. But that isn’t what gets me pulling away.

It is the sudden jolt of electricity that travels up my arm.

“No lights,” he whispers, shaking his head.

“I can’t see in the dark.”

“No light, Maya.”

Great! He knows my name. I don’t know how to feel about that.

Nodding, I move towards his wound, gasping when I see exactly what it is. 

"You should have gone to the hospital!" I snap, but he is already falling asleep due to the gradual loss of blood. I can't carry out a transfusion in here, and even if I could, there is no blood, and I am sure as hell not donating to a bloody stranger, even though I am type 0.

Without any anaesthesia, I administer pain killers and get to work, shrugging off his tuxedo and black linen shirt. I try not to stare too long at the tattoo covering every skin on one arm, as I use a pair of pincers to retrieve the bullet. The clang echoes through the walls of the bathroom as it hits the sink. 

After patching him up, I give him another bout of painkillers and, with great difficulty, move him into my bedroom. He falls back into the arms of sleep the moment his back hits the bed, leaving me in the dark and the strangely gaping silence. 

A tuft of jet-black hair from his perfectly sleeked hair teases me. I reach out to push it back, my hand lingering a second too long. I find it difficult to breathe, my heart hammering against my chest as if trying to claw its way out.

“Don’t touch me,” he whispers drowsily. “You shouldn’t touch me.” 

Catching myself, I grab a pillow and stretch out on the floor. The chill hits me immediately, but there is nothing I can do about it since the stranger is using my only quilt. 

I don't know when I finally fall asleep, but the next time I open my eyes, I am the only one in the bedroom, now on the bed, with the quilt covering me. 

And the only evidence that someone was in here, that it wasn’t all my imagination, is the mess in my bathroom.