The Bodyguard ✔

Chapter Thirty-Five

It's my fifth day in the hospital.

My dad has returned from China and it was such a relief to see him again. I've told him all about how Lucas may be involved in a human trafficking mafia and how Frank managed to save me and my friends. I may have not mentioned that I was drugged, ran through the woods, barely clothed, while experiencing a bad trip and completely voluntarily jumped out of my window just one day later.

Although my dad's happy I'm okay, because I truly feel like I'm okay, it's visibly clear to me that he's under a great amount of pressure. I could tell from our conversation we had earlier this morning:

"Dad, are you okay?" I ask, while he's been sitting on the bedside from the hospital bed I'm laying in, staring out of the window for the past seven minutes.

"Yeah, of course. I'm just happy you're unharmed, kiddo." He looks at my shoulder brace and corrects his sentence. "I'm happy you're alive at least." His melancholic sigh worries me.

"Dad, I'm fine." I think he feels guilty about that business trip to China, leaving me alone. Well, not alone: I had Frank. And he turned out to be quite useful after all. "Dad, I think this whole situation was unavoidable. I think it turned out for the best. If you hadn't left, Frank wouldn't be the one keeping an eye out. I don't know about you, but I can't immediately imagine you punching a pumped up twenty-something gloriously in the face."

He straight off starts laughing and oh, how I've missed hearing that. Hearing my dad laugh is truly the best sound in the world. 

He changes position, so he can face me more comfortably. Slowly, his smile fades. "Giselle, honey, sometimes I ask myself..." The serious and sad manner of his tone doesn't appeal to me. "Since Jenny died... I don't think I've been doing the best job."

By hearing my aunt's name, a knot forms in my stomach. She was like a mother to me, after my biological one left me. She was so lovely and good. Her death still saddens me. "Dad, I think you've done the best you could, really." I take a deep breath. "I've had some pretty awful moments the couple of days, and I don't really feel like wasting anymore time on negative emotions."

I take my dad's hand. "I'm not sure why, but despite everything that has happened, I feel okay. I feel more than okay, I feel alive."

My dad nods.

He understands.

We sit in silence for some time, until he stands up. "I'm going to make a couple of calls, if you don't mind. I left China in quite a hurry, as you can understand."

"Yeah sure." But before he leaves the room, something comes up in me. "Dad," he already dialed a number, but grants me his attention nonetheless. "Yes, honey?" I hold my breath for a moment before telling him. "I'm probably going to regret this, but I think I want to go back to school."

***

It's somewhere in the afternoon and I'm seriously getting excited about going back to school. It has been a while, but I'm excited. I'm walking in the hallways of the hospital, as I have done a couple of times these past days. Being in one room the whole time can be boring.

When I reach the stairs, I decide to go all the way down. Let's see if there's anything interesting on the first floor. But as I'm descending stair by stair and leaving behind floor after floor, I regret my decision. I've definitely lost my good shape by laying down most of the past days.

Well, there's no going back now, if you want to spare yourself the torture of going back up right away. Going further down it is. Luckily, this is a hospital, and it's not considered an abnormality if people look exhausted.

As soon as I reach the first floor, I find a comfortable chair to sit in. I have a good view at most of this floor. It's quite an open space, with lovely blue chairs everywhere. On my left, you can find a couple of assistants, who look like they never stop talking to people. Right of me, there's a cafeteria and right ahead, the entrance.

This is the same hospital I was put in after I got first abducted and, in a mysterious way, found. The same hospital in which my aunt Jenny died.

Before my mind can slip away in the memories of my life's misery, a stranger takes place in a chair next to me and introduces herself as a welcome distraction. "Hi, how are you? My name is Sharon." Sharon has brown hair, tied up in a youthful-looking knot and modern-looking angular black glasses.

I answer her smile with one of mine. "Hello, how are you? I'm Giselle." She looks like the vivid type, a caffeine-addict maybe, but her face still appears calm. She must be in her early twenties. "Awch, how did that happen?" She points at my arm while displaying a look of pain on her face. "Ehm," I hesitate for a moment. "I got shot in the back of my shoulder." Sharon lifts her manicured eyebrows in a surprised manner. "How did it happen?" I look around for a bit.

What should I tell her? Where should I start?

"Friends of mine and I were lucky enough to escape from some really bad people." That makes it simple enough. But Sharon doesn't look satisfied. "These bad people, did you know them?" I laugh a bit unpleasantly. "I knew a couple of them, unfortunately." Sharon nods "That must've been hard... but how did you manage to escape? Did you have help from someone else?"

I start feeling a bit baffled by her sudden storm of questions. "Yeah, ehm," I quickly take a glance at Sharon's coat, which is fold up on her lap. "I called my bodygu..."

I spot a device, a cellphone or something, almost falling out of a pocket. I grab it before it can fall on the ground. "Sorry, but it almost fell on th..."

As I want to hand it over to her, I realize that the device isn't a cellphone: it's a recorder. And it's recording right now. Sharon's eyes grow big as the rest of her body freezes. I'm confused with Sharon's reaction and with why she has a recorder.

"Sorry, I have to go." She snatches the recorder out of my hands and heads for the exit with big steps. She vanishes so fast, I'm left behind very confused. Was she deliberately recording our conversation? I look at her while she almost reaches the door that should lead her outside, until she abruptly stops.

She's facing a man whom's posture I can spot from any distance now.

He looks calm, nobody would notice something out of the ordinary with him, but Sharon looks scared.

She looks like a small child handing over her candy, when she has to hand over her recorder.

Frank leans in to say something close to her ear, after accepting the device, and leaves her standing still and fixed, six feet before the exit, while he nonchalantly walks away.