Brandon’s POV
My head felt like it was being slammed against an empty can. My eyes were heavy, and my lips felt cemented together, despite being dry and cracked.
My entire body was screaming at me; I should have taken it easy on the alcohol, but I was convinced I was going to die, but it turned out it was not the case.
The big man up there was probably biding his time, maybe he did not have enough coal to burn me and was waiting for coal delivery. With much struggle, I carefully lifted my heavy eyelids till they opened and I was greeted by a stunning pair of brown eyes.
I was just as captivated as I had been the first time I saw them. They stared at me, and I stared back; they were swollen, but not as swollen as they had been before. I noticed a sense of relief in them; they were presumably relieved that I had awoken, but also irritated by me.
Then it occurred to me that she was meant to be outside the house, I locked her outside with her obnoxious new lover.
How did she get in? I instantly tried to lift my aching body, but she grabbed duck tape and placed it over my mouth, much to my surprise. My foolish head stung as I stared at her, aggravating the problem. What in the world was she up to?
Clearing her throat repeatedly, she said “I was outdoors with Nestor because I got my period yesterday,” She caught my attention, I froze and stopped fidgeting.
“While you were here wasting your last hours so that I could get my stupid revenge, I was busy getting my idiotic period,” she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
I felt like a complete jerk; I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t keep my gaze on her; I was a jackass.
Realizing that I was not going to say anything she said, “Brandon, the insemination failed, I failed you, and Nestor was simply trying to make me feel better. Yes, we were awfully in an intimate proximity, but he was simply being a friend,” she explained as she averted her gaze.
I slid on the bed, humiliated. I wasn’t sad because she did not receive her period; instead, I was disappointed because I acted like a jealous adolescent when she needed me. Because of my folly, I would have died without understanding the truth.
She got on top of me, and I looked at her, puzzled, as she removed the duck tape from my mouth. I had nothing to say, I was very much ashamed.
“Do you want to eat something?” She inquired further. I stared at her incessantly. She continued, “You didn’t eat yesterday.” She kept her gaze on the floor, she couldn’t look at me anymore.
She was more dissatisfied with my actions than with her period, I could tell. Worse yet, I was still unable to communicate with her. She tried to get up but I stopped her by holding her hand.
“Please accept my sincere apologies,” I stated. But I couldn’t tell if the apology was for my actions or her menstruation.
She merely nodded and attempted to stand up. “It is still possible for us to inseminate you?” I began without hesitation. She yanked her hands away from my palm and stood up swiftly.
“Thalia?” I begged her.
“The pointless revenge has come to an end! I’m not expecting a child! You blew up all the plans! Brandon, it’s over! It’s over!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her cheeks.
I tried to stand up, but the ridiculous cords attached to my body prevented me from doing so. I hissed and yanked them off, following her to the kitchen where she was preparing breakfast.
“Thalia, just slow down a little,” I said. She took a step back and offered me a mug. “It is for a hangover?” she said. Despite the fact that she was enraged, she was still concerned with my well-being.
“I was thinking about it all night. Brandon, Josh is already prepared to self-destruct; we don’t need to continue with the revenge.”
“I know you’re upset with me, but there’s a good chance Josh will survive the storm and live happily ever after,” I said.
She responded, “Not without testicles.”
“He can still adopt,” I said. She came to a complete halt and frantically glared at me, trying to figure out what I was saying, but she came to a complete stop when the door opened and Nestor strolled in.
“Destiny is the new password,” he said. Thalia glanced at me as if she knew what Destiny meant to me, but I knew she didn’t or did she?”
“The jerk is finally awake,” Nestor announced and began clapping; the moron had lost all respect for me. I tried to speak, but he interrupted me. “You’re much worse than Josh.” Thalia instantly moved in between us as I gripped my hands into a fist. “Don’t even consider it,” she said.
“Please ask the Buffon to leave my house!” I yelled.
“So you can send Thalia back to hell?” he inquired
“I made a mistake,” I said, forcing Thalia to burst out laughing. She laughed so loudly that I couldn’t help but glance down in embarrassment. Tears were streaming down her cheeks by the time she was finished.
“I swear I’ll never mistrust you,” I said.
“Am I your girlfriend? Maybe I misunderstood the invitation to your house?” She asked.
She caught me off guard with her question. Nestor had a smirk on his face, and they were both waiting for my response, but I just chuckled and turned away.
“Next time, get your feelings in order,” she said solemnly before continuing to prepare breakfast.
“What feelings?” I inquired.
They looked at one other and shrugged as if they knew something I didn’t know.
“Let’s not trade in those seas,” she said emphatically.
The kitchen fell silent; I was a complete loser who had messed up everything, but I was not about to quit on her, I made a promise to her and I was going to fulfill it until my dying breath.
I was familiar with the seas she was referring to, so I planned to return to them when she was off guard. I needed to re-establish Thalia’s smile, but first I had to deal with a problem.
“Nestor, put your ugly ass to work, go and wait for me in the helicopter,” I said, “I need to see someone.”
“Brandon I told you, there is no more vengeance, and remember you destroyed everything,” she added.
Nestor cut in, “I still have the backup.” Thalia looked in his direction pissed while on the other hand I felt compelled to hug him.
I had forgotten that I had given him my extra copies. “See, I always have a backup,” I claimed as I started walking away, but suddenly came to a halt and turned around.
“How did the two of you get into the house?”
Nestor responded, “Your hacker.”
I took a deep breath and walked away, not wanting to ask for more information. Poodle needed to set up a new system.
I was certain it was the ineffective Feathers who agreed to hack me. I couldn’t figure out why the jerk insisted on residing in the country where he was wanted for criminal prosecution.
I moved over to my closet, then realized I’d switched rooms, and memories of what I’d done to Thalia’s clothes knocked me down, so I sat down. Nestor came in and inquired about our plans.
“Why didn’t you chase me down faster or figure out the incomprehensible passcode?” I screamed at him. He looked at me with his eyes wide open.
Thalia walked in with the breakfast and slammed the tray down on my lap,” she asked. “Could you perhaps lend me some money?” she asked.
“Oh, the clothing!” I inquired
“No, I’m relocating,” she said.
I smiled, knowing that she would only leave me over my dying corpse. Nestor had his ridiculous blank face on when I looked at him.
“You should be the mature one in this arrangement, act like one,” I replied as I set the tray aside. She began to object, but I immediately walked to the bathroom, showered, and dressed.
Thalia was not going anywhere, I was going to deal with her later. She was probably acting out because I had hurt her. Josh was still on the chopping block with or without her orders. It was his useless sperm that failed to fertilize her beautiful eggs and brought the mess.
Once I finished I called for Nestor, who was still in the other room, undoubtedly chattering about me. “Aren’t you supposed to eat first,?” He inquired, but I ignored him and instructed him to carry the hangover remedy Thalia had prepared for me outside.
As we walked to the plane he asked “Sir, I believe we should have taken Thalia with us wherever we are going?”
“She’s not leaving; she wouldn’t dare to abandon me,” I said with such assurance.
“She’ll eventually tire of your nonsense and run away,” he added.
“I’ll track her down,” I declared before providing him an address, which he had no information about, and commanded him to start the plane. The trip was calm, and we arrived at the old building in hours.
When we landed, he refused to stay in the helicopter when I told him he had to. I became enraged and yelled at him.
I didn’t like it when he behaved like my spoiled little brother. Yes, he was very resource full most of the time and came in handy but ours was supposed to be a business partnership.
In order to keep him busy, I ordered him to go and buy a pregnancy test and I quickly walked away before he could protest.
I walked into the building and pressed the twelfth-floor button, which sent me to my ex-lead scientist, Dr. Wilson. I entered the office without knocking, which made him leap up as if he had seen a ghost.
I can’t say I blamed him; the last time he saw me, I was a lump of grey pale stuff, draining my body of bloody clots, but thanks to sleeping in Thalia’s cleavage and eating her food, I’d kept some color and freshness.
“Mr….. Fraser? You are….”
“Yes, I’m alive, you lying son of a bitch, I beat the time you gave me,” I screamed at him.
He quickly scrolled to where I was standing, trying to confirm I was fresh… “You’re supposed to be buried, sir,”
He placed his stupid stethoscope on my chest, still surprised. “You should be dead, you should be dead, you should be dead, you should be dead,” he continued to repeat.
“Would you please shut up!” He was starting to frustrate the life out of me, so I yelled at him. Because he was intrigued as to why I was still breathing, he swiftly ordered me to sleep in his disease-ridden bed and began performing further tests without my command.
“Did you manage to find some help?” He inquired, “Did you hire other doctors to find you a cure?”
“No, I didn’t hire anyone, and I’m not undergoing any treatment,” I said.
“But why are you breathing?” he inquired, as he inserted a needle into my body.
I screamed, “Ouch! Your estimates were erroneous!”
“No, you only had a few weeks to live; those altered red blood cells were too much; they were either going to clog your arteries or starve you of oxygen,” he stated solemnly, “We merely said a month so you couldn’t threaten to end our careers.”
I stared at him, speechless, thinking to myself, “What a bloody bastard.”
“I’m taking these to the lab and doing my analysis. Something is wrong,” he kept saying. He acted as if he actually wanted me to die.
He asked me to wait in his office when I stood up but that was not to happen. He had already misdiagnosed me, so it was not a risk I was willing to take.
I followed him all the way to the lab, where he told his lab rats to stop doing whatever they were doing and handed my samples to them. While he worked on my blood samples, he offered me a bottle to pee in.
I was hoping and praying that the results would all be negative and after what seemed like an eternity. That was the only way I could explain why I was still alive. But the expression on his face said it all.
I knew it was bad news when he asked me to take a seat and I remembered the day I was initially forced to take a seat and given the bloodied news.
He pondered, “Should I start with the good news or the bad knees?”
With a straight expression, I said, “Bad news.”
“Your cells are still mutating,” he replied after clearing his throat.
I locked my gaze on him.
“The good news is that the replicated cells do not appear to have increased; are you sure you didn’t take anything by mistake?” he inquired.
I said, “No, I only take painkillers,” but he was unsatisfied. According to him, something had changed; I should have run out of white blood and become vulnerable to all diseases.
“What have you done differently? Diet? Exercise?”
“No, I just stay in bed the whole day and play with my tablet,” I explained. I remained silent, and he simply stared at me, perplexed.
“So you’re claiming that I’m not going to die?” I asked.
“No, you are dying, and I can still give you weeks to live, but something has postponed your death; I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s as if time stopped and a month hasn’t passed. Something froze, and I’m curious as to what it was.”
Without thinking I said “Thalia,”
“I beg your pardon? What is a Thalia?”
“A Who,” I said, “Thalia is the name of a girl I met.”
“You met a woman?” he inquired, raising his eyebrows.
“Something like that, but she’s just a friend, and I’m assisting her with some things.”
He grinned, much to my annoyance; I could see he had a lot to say but he kept it to himself. He sat down and inquired. “Tell me about this Thalia; do you two live together?”
“When did you decide to pursue a career as a therapist?” I screamed at him, he was so irritating.
“I’m simply trying to figure out what’s going on,” he replied.
“Your work is scientific, therefore assemble a team and begin looking for a cure or treatment once more; I assume you did not discard all of the data?”
“No, everything is fine, but the fact that you are alive means we made a mistake and are back to square one.”
“Your information is right, and yes, Thalia might be the reason why I’m here; she gave me hope. As a result, put that hope into medicine.”
“Ooh, I see but that’s difficult; if it’s love at work here, I recommend spending as much time as possible with that person,” he explained. One thing I admired about him was that he was honest and always went for the kill without faking it. With a defeated chuckle, I let out a sigh.
“Okay, let’s put it this way: if you’re willing to contribute funding to my research regardless of whether I find a cure while you’re living or dead, I’ll take your offer,” he explained.
I grew quiet and stared at him; the fool wanted notoriety for my condition, and if he discovered a cure after I was long gone, he’d make a fortune. But I had nothing to lose. I wanted to be alive for my Thalia.
I stood up and told him it was a done deal, handing him the key to his new lab’s hidden location.
“What happened to your vacation home on the beach?”
“Thalia lives there,” I stated.
He smiled and said, “Congratulations!” We’ll need a lot of time if our little bloom can keep those cells silent. But I’m curious, is it because of the sex or something else?” he inquired.
I would have fired him on any other day, but I merely put on a strained expression. I said, “No, it’s her smile,” and walked out of the office. I found Nestor waiting for me.
“Have you purchased the pregnancy test kit?” I asked.
“Yes, sir, but this will simply exacerbate the situation.”
“I did my research and discovered that some women can menstruate for a complete year and yet deliver a baby,” I replied.
“Sir, pregnancy is a period of nine months?” he stated.
“Whatever,” I replied.
