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But, first, seeing as how he was going to die anyway, I might as well check his pockets for a wallet or something—not so I could know who he was, but so I could get myself more gas and get home.
He wore jeans. I checked the back pockets for a wallet first and found nothing, so I then carefully reached into one of his front pockets. His jeans had gotten bloody, too. It was kind of gross. I didn’t know what happened to him, but all this blood couldn’t have been from me hitting him.
As luck would have it, my fingers clasped a wad that felt like cash in his front pocket, and I pulled it out and counted it quickly, still leaning over him. It was enough to get a full tank of gas and then some.
“Thank you, random bloody guy wandering the road at three in the morning,” I whispered as I stuffed the money into the waistband of my fuzzy shorts. “Good luck dying, or whatever.” I was about to get up, to leave him and secure my place as one of the worst people ever, but before I could straighten, the man moved.
Or, more specifically, his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. His grip was strong, and his hand was so large it circled my wrist and then some. His eyes had cracked open a hair, and his cracked lips spoke, his voice dry, “Help… me.”
“Me?” I asked, and then I wanted to smack myself. Of course he meant me.
“Up,” he whispered, and then, without letting go of my wrist, he struggled to get to his feet. He basically used his grip on me to help anchor him, and he practically pulled me down with him as he stood up—and once he was on his feet, his frame almost collapsed on me.
I had to use my legs to brace against him. The way he leaned over me, it occurred to me then how big this guy was. Well over six feet I’d say, and my initial assessment of thick and muscular was definitely on point. He was the opposite of me: a manly giant.
A manly giant covered in blood from a strange wound on his stomach.
He muttered a single word, “Car.”
Seeing as how he was giving me no choice, I pretty much had to help him to my car. I was, unfortunately, in it now. Let’s just hope he wouldn’t press charges or anything.
Let’s just say it was a slow process. Averyslow process. Once we reached the passenger’s side, I struggled to open the door for him while still supporting his weight, but I managed. The stranger dropped into my car, groaning as he sat back.
I stared at him for a few seconds, and then I shut the door and wandered over to the driver’s side, wondering what the fuck I was doing. I’d just hit this guy with my car. I was going to leave him for dead, and now here I was, helping him—though he’d given me no choice in the matter.
My parents were going to kill me.My car didn’t look dented… it looked like he literally went up and over my car since he was so damned tall, but I wouldn’t be able to tell until I got it under some light.
My eyes were wide as I got into the car, slow to buckle my seatbelt. Out of habit, I told him, “Seatbelt.”
All he did was groan and mutter, “Drive.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you put your goddamned seatbelt on!” I pretty much shouted this at him, my nerves completely fried after tonight, and I got the man to roll his head in my direction and stare at me, his blond eyebrows furrowed. We had a mini staring contest until I managed to add in a whisper, “Please.”
The man rolled his eyes, but he did as I asked. One hand held the wound on his gut, while the other went to pull the seatbelt strap over his body and click it into the holster near his hip. “Now drive,” he told me, each word coming out labored and coarse.
I hit the gas, but the car revved up and didn’t go anywhere. When I kept doing it, wondering why the hell it wasn’t moving, the guy pointed to the shifter in the center console.
“Oh, right.” I’d put it in park before I’d gotten out and checked on him.
I put the car into drive, and then we were on our way, though I had no idea where we were going. I picked up my phone and asked it directions to the nearest hospital. We were a good twenty minutes away from an ER.
The guy took my phone out of my hand with a strength he shouldn’t be capable of, being so pale, cold, and bloodied. He hissed out, “No hospitals.”
“No—then where am I supposed to go? The mall? Guess what—they’re closed too. It’s three in the morning, dude, and you’re bleeding out in my car. You need a hospital—” The rest of what I was going to say died in the back of my throat when he dropped my phone into a cup holder and slammed that same hand on my collarbone.
His fingers twisted the fabric of my shirt, and he pulled me closer to him, leaning me over the center console as he glared at me. “No hospital,” he growled out, more vicious this time.
“Okay, okay! Sheesh. Rude,” I huffed once he let me go. Driving to nowhere in particular since I didn’t know where to go, I took a hand off the wheel and rubbed my shirt, where he’d grabbed me. I hope he didn’t get blood on it…
As it turned out, grabbing me so violently and growling that out like an animal took too much energy. He passed out after that, and that meant I was going straight to the hospital to drop his sorry ass off, and then I was going home. With any luck, I’d be able to slip inside the house, get back in bed, and pretend I’d slept the entire night away, and my car wouldn’t have as much as a scratch on it.
But we’d see.
The drive to the hospital felt longer than my three-hour drive to the middle of nowhere. I pulled up to the ER’s door and parked the car. I rushed inside, momentarily blinded by the brightness of the lights inside the all-glass building.
Someone else stood at the front desk, talking to the man behind it. It sounded like he was trying to get his friend, who was seated somewhere nearby, in sooner, to which the man working kept saying, “We’re full right now, but like I said ten times before, as soon as an intake room opens up, we’ll bring him in—”
But the other guy wasn’t having it, hence the one-sided argument.
