The Agent
My head is killing me.
Pain throbbed through my skull like a hammer pounding on a nail. As I raised my hand to my aching head, I noticed an extra weight making it heavier to lift.
Bright light pierced my eyes when I cracked them open to inspect the object on my hand. The fluorescent glow was blinding, and I quickly closed them again.
Those pleather jacket wearing assholes better not have kidnapped and tied me up in some dirty ass basement somewhere. It’d be the worst mistake they ever made in their life.
Pinching my brows together, I braced for the light and opened my eyes again. I needed to get a lay of the land before I could plan a proper escape.
Rather than dingy walls and dusty floors, I was met with sterile white walls and shiny tile floors.
A faint beeping I hadn’t noticed before, too distracted by the pain in my head, echoed through the room.
My eyes followed the sound to an electrocardiograph machine, its screen alive with steady mountains.
The crease between my brows grew tighter as I noticed the IV drip beside it. I followed the clear tube down to my hand where the needle was taped against my skin.
“What the fuck?” I whispered. My fuzzy brain was struggling trying to figure out how I’d gotten here.
“Simone?” A voice like an angel’s penetrated through the perpetual beeping. “Simone, are you awake?”
Turning my gaze to the other side, I saw a blurred figure at my side. I instantly recognized the honey brown curls and light brown eyes. “Izzie?” I asked. “What…what are you doing here?”
“A good Samaritan called me and told me to come here as soon as possible. He said you’d been hurt.” She tilted her head. “You don’t remember…do you?”
I shook my head. The last thing I remembered was those scumbags slamming my head against the dumpster, standing over me with the worst of intentions in their eyes. Thinking of it made my stomach roll. But, I had no recollection of anyone swooping in and saving me.
The room door swung open, and a nurse in burgundy scrubs waltzed inside. “Ah, you’re awake,” she said as she approached my bedside. “How are you feeling?”
“My head feels like it’s imploding,” I replied.
She fiddled with the IV bag. “How would you rate the pain on a scale of ten, one being the least painful and ten being the most?”
“A nine, maybe.”
She replaced the almost empty IV bag with a fresh one. “We’ll push more ibuprofen to lower that number for you.” She checked over my vitals and made little notes on my chart. “The doctor will be in shortly to look you over,” she told us before heading back out the room.
“How bad was I hurt?” I asked Isabelle.
“Not as bad as you could’ve been,” she admitted. “The doctors suspect it’s just a mild concussion. There was nothing concerning on the CT scans. But, the police do want to speak with you.”
“Why?”
“Because you were attacked, Simone.”
“Oh, and they’re going to do something about it?” I scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
She frowned. “If they don’t catch whoever did this, they might try to do the same to someone else. Maybe worse. I mean, if that good Samaritan hadn’t stepped in-”
“I know,” I cut her off. “I might not even be here right now.”
The door flew open again. This time, the doctor was the one entering. He inspected the wound on the back of my head and flicked his bright light between my eyes. Based on my sensitivity to light alone, he immediately diagnosed me with a concussion.
“We’ll keep you for the rest of the night for observation and send you off in the morning,” he explained.
“Thank you,” I told him before he exited the room.
As he was going out, the nurse was coming back in. This time, she held a vase with a bouquet of flowers. “You have a delivery,” she sang.
Isabelle’s brows rose at the sight. “Who delivers flowers in the middle of the night?”
The nurse grinned. “Oh, trust me, it’s more common in hospitals than you’d think.” She set the vase down on the table near my bedside. “Enjoy. These are beautiful!”
The vibrance of pink, yellow, and orange petals were harsh on my eyes, but even with the irritation, I couldn’t deny the beauty of the intricate coordination. The colors nearly blended into each other, creating a small rainbow meant just for me.
“Have you told anyone else about the incident?” I asked Isabelle.
“Just mom. She’s on her way over, though.
” Raising a brow, she plucked the tiny card out from its stand and read the message printed on it.
“Simone: Sorry, I was late. I’ll make it up to you soon.
Sincerely, your secret admirer.” She paused, her head craning back in surprise. “Wait, are you seeing someone?”
“Give me that!” I snapped, harsher than I meant, as I snatched the card out of her hand.
I read the short text over and over again, replaying the events of the night in search of the missing pieces.
I had a faint memory of the seconds before I passed out.
Of men dropping like flies. But, it couldn’t have been…
“Isabelle,” I looked up at my sister. “You didn’t happen to see this Good Samaritan, did you?”
“No. I only spoke to them over the phone. By the time I got here, they were gone. I asked the front desk if they left a name or anything, but they said he just dropped you off and left.”
“He?” My brows creased again. “Izzie, what did he sound like when you spoke to him over the phone?”
“All I remember is he had a really deep, smooth voice. We didn’t talk long, but he definitely sounded worried.”
“Did the front desk say what he looked like?”
“They said it was a tall, Black guy. Wore dark clothing. Apparently, he rushed in and out so quickly that they didn’t get a great look at him.” She tilted her head. “When were you going to tell me you have a secret admirer?”
I shook my head at her question, unable to entertain that type of conversation right now. I stared at the array of flowers, the bright colors swirling together like mixed paint.
The man who’s been trying to take my life just saved it.
And I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why.