ELARA POV
The night was so short, maybe because I was still riding the happiness of everything between me and Kael.
The warmth of what we shared had not dimmed for a second, and that pleased me.
It felt like I had a purpose now, always eager to get to work.
Even though I knew Raya would push me to wrap up the experiment, and even though the CEO kept sending messages reminding me that my time was running out, I still did not care.
I got into the car, so happy that I was going to see him again today.
The weekend had felt impossibly long, like it never wanted to end.
I drove as fast as I could, but New York being New York, I was soon stuck in a massive traffic jam that showed no sign of clearing.
I checked the time.
Even though I was still early, I was so eager to get to work.
I tried honking and weaving my way out, but it only irritated the drivers around me, who were also stuck and waiting.
I decided to sit patiently when a delivery bike came speeding past me.
It was moving so fast I was immediately scared it would hit someone, and just as I feared, I heard a scream from somewhere ahead.
I jumped out of the car.
As I ran toward the sound, I was hit unexpectedly by one of the car doors swinging open.
I grabbed the door in fright and looked up to find a small girl climbing out of the back seat.
“Why are you coming out?” I said to her.
Just then her mother rushed out, scooped her up, and pulled her back into the car.
“I am so sorry.
Please, she won’t do it again.
Thank you so much for holding her back,” she said to me as I nodded and kept moving.
I rushed toward the accident to find that a few drivers had gathered while others were simply staring from their cars.
The woman lying on the ground was pregnant.
She looked weak, and her belly was visibly swollen.
I knelt beside her and leaned close to check her breathing.
I looked up at the crowd around her, and some of them had the audacity to be pointing their cameras at her face.
This world.
What was it becoming?
“Why are you filming her instead of helping?
Call a doctor.
Do something,” I said to them as they seemed to snap back to their senses. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Call 911!” I yelled as a woman nodded and immediately began dialing.
It was the same woman who had thanked me for holding back her daughter.
I began performing CPR on the pregnant woman, hoping to stabilize her breathing.
No obstruction, nothing obvious.
I knew getting an ambulance through this traffic would take too long, so I looked at one of the larger men standing in the crowd.
“Please help me carry her to my car.
I need to get her out of here.
She is in danger,” I said as he immediately nodded.
The delivery bike had long since disappeared while I had been performing CPR and everyone else had been watching.
He lifted her carefully, and I rushed ahead to open the back seat.
I started the car and tried to reverse out, managing to plead with a few drivers to make way.
I got to the hospital, and of course, the one thing I had not thought about was that I would not be allowed to leave until a family member arrived to sign the necessary documents.
Since I was not related to her, there was nothing I could do on that front.
I sat down there, feeling frustrated.
My kindness had a habit of complicating perfectly good mornings, and it always irritated me.
But I knew I had to stay.
This woman had already been through enough, and at that moment, I was the only one there for her.
I sat for more than an hour.
When I checked my phone, I had a message notification.
But it was not from Raya.
It was a spam message.
Not a single call from her.
“She didn’t even bother to call me.” On any other day, she would have been ringing my phone and yelling at me for being late.
Why hadn’t she called?
I decided to wave it off.
Not long after, the woman’s husband rushed in with bags in his hands, looking panicked and relieved all at once.
“Thank you so much,” he said immediately, rushing toward me.
“I feel so relieved knowing that you stayed.
I was terrified you would have left her alone,” he said as I shrugged.
“I couldn’t do that.
I know how it feels.
I had to stay with her.
I am late for work as it is, so I don’t have much time to explain everything, but she is going to be okay,” I assured him as he nodded and waved me off.
I rushed out, got into my car, and managed to avoid most of the traffic on the way back.
I parked in my usual spot.
When I stepped out, I was extremely late.
I was supposed to be at work by nine, and it was now noon.
Only God knew what Raya was going to say to me.
I was probably going to get a very public scolding.
I was just about to step in when a sudden, violent headache hit me.
“What the hell is going on?” I had felt something like this before.
I had felt this kind of pull before.
Something was not right.
I looked down at my hand and saw it had gone red.
It had never done that before.
I blinked hard, and when I looked again, it was back to normal.
“What’s happening to me?”
I decided to push past it and act composed.
I opened the door and stepped in to find the lobby, which was always packed in the mornings, nearly empty.
Everyone was clearly in their designated assignments.
Except me.
I rushed toward the reception, and the woman there looked at me with a strange expression.
“What?
Why are you just getting here?” she said as I frowned.
“I was late.
Sorry, traffic, some things that came up,” I said.
I was about to walk past her to clock in when she called me back.
“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying to you, Elara.
What I mean is, why are you trying to clock in twice?” she said, and my stomach dropped instantly.
“What?”