3.

Grace was sorry for acting like she did, but she couldn't help being nervous. And she hated people putting their hands on her. 

“May I help you?” The woman asked, and she looked up at her, realizing that she had been staring at the counter for a couple of minutes or so.

Clearing her throat, she offered the woman who was staring at her from behind the counter like she was two-headed a small smile. "Huh, sorry. I would like to grab a hot cup of coffee.” That was all she could manage before a clap of thunder in the distance roared behind her, and she ducked, grabbing the counter so hard her knuckles turned white from holding it too much. 

Shaking violently, she started to hyperventilate, her throat closing in on her. She heard the woman rush around the counter to her, and then she heard the doorbell sound again as the door to the coffee shop opened.

They must be getting another customer, but she was here displaying her innermost insecurity right in the middle of the day because the loud sound of the thunder had triggered her fear. When she heard it, it sounded like the bat her husband would usually swing around, crashing things around the house when he was in one of those horrible moods. 

Ex husband! Her brain amended, right before it started to shut down as well. When would she start to get that into her thick skull anyway? He wasn't her husband anymore. She had, after all, gotten him to sign the papers and had them processed. 

“Are you all right?” she heard someone ask her, but she wasn't sure if it was a woman or a man. Her body was in a space she couldn't feel or recognize right now, and when she tried to open her eyes, everything around seemed dark, like they were not there, and she was back where she had always been, in that dark little room her husband liked to lock her in when he couldn't be bothered about beating her up. 

Oh God!

She had indeed left the ass behind and come all the way here, but he sure was a ghost behind her head even here, several miles away from him. 

“Miss, are you all right?” someone asked again, but she was still shaking. 

It was surprising how she was here in this state and could still think about all the things she was thinking about, but she didn't mind. Maybe that would help pull her out of the way she was right now. If not, she was done. 

By now, she wasn't clutching hard the counter anymore, but on her knees with her hands covering her hair. 

What had suddenly happened to the clear blue sky she had noticed, right before she entered into the coffee shop anyway? 

She knew it was the month where they got rain for the most part, but she wasn't expecting a three sixty rotating change in the weather, rolling from bright to misty in a blink of an eye. 

If it had given a sign of some sort of possible rain, maybe she wouldn't have been this startled, but now she was, now people who didn't even know her yet, people who didn't know her name or anything about her, knew this about her. They could tell she was having a panic attack that was brought on by something they probably could guess.

These strangers now knew her secret, and they probably knew she had been abused. They probably would want to find out more about her with this. 

Suddenly, she felt herself being hoisted up from the floor she was kneeling on, and she heard someone say. "Don't bother calling the ambulance. I'll take her.” 

In a panic mood, but unable to open her eyes, she started to struggle against the person that had lifted her up and was now running with her toward… well, towards somewhere. 

She knew it was a man, because of how strong he was to lift her up that easily and ran with her. She also knew he was a clean man, because of how good he smelled, and he could smell the aftershave from him. 

Something about him felt familiar, but most importantly, something about him felt safe. 

For a moment, the man must have thought that she was having a seizure because he doubled his pace until he was outside. She could tell because of the fresh breeze that bit her on the face. The rain was so near now, and she calmed a little, but damn, she couldn't still get her eyes to open, neither could she say anything. 

She realized she was lying against the seat of a car, and then she heard the slamming of a door, then there was a brief silence, and then another slamming. The car soon started, and she felt it began to move. 

“Fuck, this is messed up.” He said, and that was the last thing she heard before she fell into oblivion.

Well, she did fall. 

*** 

Noah parked his car in front of the emergency ward, before rushing to the back of his car after getting out himself. 

The woman was still unmoving since they got to the car, and after her seizure, which was strange, seeing as she should have gotten over her panic attack. 

He had gotten to his truck when he glanced back inside the coffee shop to see Charlotte running around the counter and the woman on her knees, having a weird panic attack. 

Noah was a doctor, well, a surgeon, but this was weird. A panic attack was supposed to have ended when she felt the warmth of his arms. He was no psychologist or anything, but he knew what he knew. She had been around long enough to hear them speak and even felt her surrounding, but he lost her as soon as he headed for his car, feeling her have a seizure and then going limp in his hands. 

Quickly, he dragged her out of the car by putting his hands under her armpits, then he lifted her into his arms and ran all the way to the front of the emergency room where some nurse came running with a bed. 

Something was badly wrong with the woman in his arms, he could feel it down to his bone. It was something off, something dark, something that could swallow her whole if care wasn't taken. 

"She needed attention immediately." He shouted as he laid her on the bed the nurse rolled toward him. 

“Yes, Dr. Roberts.” One of them said and then he followed them as they rolled her away. 

He wasn't sure who she was, or where she had come from, but something was for sure. Whoever this woman was, she needed saving! 

She needed to be saved