“I want to also apologize to you about your daughter. I failed to protect her… so am resigning from my duty as her bodyguard. I want to also send my apologies for what had happened to your wife, maybe if you hadn’t met me, she’d still be…”
William suddenly hugged him, cutting him of. Derik eyes widened. It was the least response he had expected from William.
William spoke softly in his ears. “You did nothing… wrong.”
“You won’t be burning on the stake along with the rest of your kind. Seeing that you saved my daughter’s life, I think it’s only fair I let you keep yours. You can keep your job too, both at the task force and as my daughter’s bodyguard. There is no other officer I know of who’s more suitable for that job. So let’s call that even…” William beams a smile at him.
In all of Derik’s years of working with William, he had never seen William smile to anyone before, not even to his own daughter. Seeing William smile at him made it contagious that it also made Derik to smile back at him.
He wasn’t expecting an apology or a thank you from William. He knew that was never going to come out of William. Seeing William smile at him made him feel that was worth more than his apologies or a thank you.
“Thank you!” William finally whispered to Derik’s ear.
Derik stood there staring with his eye opened wide and wild. He felt his heart melt as he stood there with his arms to his side as he was being hugged by William. His eyes were shaking. Tears rolled from his check. He quickly cleaned it off with his hand. “Natasha is going to be alright…” Derik said to him.
William nodded his head at him with a smile. He patted Derik on the back and said to him, “See you around…” Derik walked away with a smile, he left the room. For him, that was his best moment.
Just then the doctor whom they had all been waiting on finally came out from the operating room. They all rushed to him the moment he came out. They all bombarded him with question which he could barely make out a word from all the questions that were being thrown at him all at once.
“Let’s all stay calm… they are all going to be fine.” The doctor said trying to calm them down. “First of all, Alex suffered a minor heart injury from the knife that was stabbed on his chest. He sustained a little injury on his heart from the cut. The injury could have proven fatal if he hadn’t been rushed here quickly.”
William interrupted him. “What about my daughter, is she going to be ok? When do I get to see her?”
“All in due time…” the doctor responded calmly. “Your daughter is fine. We have successfully been able to stitch up her chest. She suffered a severe bone fracture on both her wrist and feet, because of the rod that was pierced into her arm and feet. Her bones had been completely crushed and separated. Rapture that severe cannot heal with time. So in other words, your daughter will lose control of both her hands and feet. She will no longer be able to make use of them. I suggest amputation at the moment.”
The room was suddenly quite.
“There is nowhere am going to let you amputate my daughter. There has to be another way.”
“If this is not done… this will impede the rate with which your daughter will heal. For now Amputation is the only remedy I can think of for the both of them.” The doctor said regrettably.
“Something can still be done…” a voice spoke from the entrance.
They all turned in that direction to see Frank walk into the hospital with a couple of file in his hands. Then he came and stood amongst them while they all waited in silence to hear what he was about to say.
“We can accelerate the healing and growth rate in both their body system. In other to achieve this, we have to carry out genetic transmutation on both their DNAs and then introduce a shifter’s cells into their genes. This will accelerate their healing rate.”
They were all silent for several seconds then William glared at him. “What you are saying in simple terms is that I should allow me daughter be transformed into a shifter?”
“---exactly.”
“I will be throwing away every I stand for if I let my daughter become one of those things.”
“Sir, it’s the health and wellbeing of your daughter we are talking about. Do you want to see your daughter sit on wheelchair for the rest of her life? Do you really want to amputate both her arms and feet?”
William was quite for a while like he was taking a moment to process everything Frank had said. Then he said, “you said it already, transforming a human into a shifter is a risky experiment. I wouldn’t want to be risking my daughter life at risk.”
“The experiment had succeeded twice. What could possibly go wrong?” frank said with full confidence.
After another brief silence, William asked “when do we begin?”
“We shall commence as soon as you have them brought to the lab.”
* *
Derik walked out of the hospital. He was full of smiles on his face as he walked down to his car. For the first time he felt like he had done something that was worth it.
Things are going to be different from here on out.
He walked up to his car. When he had entered, he plugged in the keys to start up the engine but then his phone started buzzing. He froze for a moment looking over the phone, he wondered who could be calling.
He picked up the phone from where it lay and then he looked over it. Horror crept over him when he saw the name “Murphy” on it.
I don’t understand…
He felt his body quivered. He had never saved Murphy’s contact on his phone. How come someone was calling his phone with the name of a dead officer displayed over his phone?
He felt nervous as he picked the call. Placing the phone gently over his ear, he uttered a soft Hello. But then he heard nothing –only a cold silence from the other end. He knew someone was listening at the other end. Then the call ended. He felt a cold shiver go down his spine.
Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of something sitting at the back seat of his car from his rear mirror. Quickly turning to see what is was, he saw a map on the seat with five locations marked on it. Fear gripped him when he quickly realized whose map it was.
What is Murphy’s map doing at the back of my car?
The End!
“Let me assure you of one thing,
everything out of the ordinary in this story can simply be explained if only you open your mind.”
---Jeffrey Ogochukwu
The story continues in Wet Touch: Book II {Faces behind the mask}
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chidiebere Jeffrey Ogochukwu started writing when he was fifteen. As an introvert, writing story books was his only real way of expressing what is on head without making eye contact with anyone. He spends most of his time day-dreaming of his next plot in his story. He is committed to seeing that one day, he entertains million of readers across the globe with his piece of writing.
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