President's Daughter's Bodyguard-Chapter 116: Silence…

Chapter 116: Silence...

Theo didn’t answer Zack’s stupid statement. He barely heard his voice through the phone.

It felt like someone speaking from another life. Zack kept talking, offering another jet, telling him to stay where he was, telling him Zack would fix his behaviour.

But Theo hung up without a word.

He stared at the sky where the explosion still burned in the back of his eyes. For a moment he stood perfectly still, unable to even blink.

His chest refused to rise, his strong legs trembled under him like they couldn’t hold the weight of what he had just seen.

Then the shock broke...

A small, helpless whisper slipped out of him at first.

"Danielle..."

The whisper turned into a choked breath.

Then the breath became a cry.

And then he screamed her name so loudly that his throat tore. He screamed until his voice rasped and collapsed into raw sounds that barely counted as words.

Theo fell to his knees, his palms hit the dirt, clawing into the ground as if he could rip open the earth and drag her back.

He pressed his forehead to the ground, and water hit the soil in hard drops.

"No... no no no... Danielle... Danielle..."

Theodor pushed the sound out, but it strained and frayed, collapsing into a rough, embarrassing gasp. "Come back... please... come back..."

The memory of the explosion came back again and again. The fire and the sound...that sudden and so suffocating silence that made his brain turn foggy.

The jet fell apart like something made of paper. He saw her face in his mind. Her smile from minutes ago and laugh.

Danielle’s eyes when he asked her to marry him. He saw it all replaying like an evil loop that refused to break.

He slammed his fists into the dirt one more time.

"She was just here... she was just here..."

His shoulders jumped and his hands rattled against the ground.

There was no strength left in him, yet the grief was so heavy that it felt like someone had placed a mountain on his back, pushing him closer and closer to the ground until he could barely breathe.

Theo grabbed his own hair, pulling hard, trying to wake himself up from something that felt unreal. But the sky stayed empty.

Danielle was gone...and Theo couldn’t save her...another Bae’s situation...a failure...a failure...

"Aaaaaaah!" He screamed again, and this time it sounded like something inside him was starting to die.

A sound he had never made in his life.

He didn’t notice the steps behind him. He didn’t hear the rustle of men stepping out from the trees. Theo didn’t feel the presence gathering behind him like a shadow.

His grief was louder than anything else.

One man moved closer.

Theo was still on his hands and knees, panting, crying, shaking.

A cloth pressed against his mouth so fast he didn’t even flinch...losing Danielle-made him lose the awareness of his surroundings.

But then, his first instinct was to fight, to claw at whoever touched him, but his injured shoulder pulsed with more electrifying and stabbing pain and his strength slipped instantly.

"What..." Theo tried to speak, but the smell from the cloth sank into his lungs and made his vision swim.

He tried to push the man away but his limbs felt heavy, slow, and uncooperative.

Another voice whispered behind him.

"Hold him. He lost too much blood."

Theo’s head tipped forward.

His body leaned to the side.

The world flickered in and out like broken lights.

The last thing he managed to see was the dirt where he had cried moments ago.

Then everything went dark...

>__<

He woke to the sound of chanting.

His eyes opened slowly, as if lifting thick stone lids. His head throbbed, the pain pulsed behind his eyes, and his body felt cold. His shoulder burned in deep, steady waves that made each breath icy.

Theo tried to move but his arms refused, and for a second he thought he had died.

For a second he hoped he had...

But then lines of women stood around a huge fire.

They wore long robes that revealed most of their bodies. Their skin shimmered with sweat from the heat of the flames.

Their faces were covered with veils that hid everything except the curve of their mouths.

They bowed together, and their voices kept rising and falling in a rhythmic chant.

Theo blinked, trying to clear his vision.

His hearing sharpened slowly.

The chanting was low and heavy, like something really from the ancient times. Something that wasn’t from any normal world.

He swallowed, and immediately noticed how his throat felt so dry and bruised.

The women didn’t look at him. They formed a circle around the fire. They all were bare feet, stepping in the dirt in patterns that seemed practiced and ritualistic.

Theo forced his body to sit up but the pain in his shoulder pulled him back. He gritted his teeth and tried again. The world twisted sideways for a moment, then steadied.

He looked around him.

This was the mountain Argash had told him to come to.

The place he refused to go. The place they dragged him to instead.

A cold, heavy knot twisted just below his ribs, but Theo’s grief was still louder than his fear.

Danielle’s name was just stuck in his skull. Every breath he took felt piercing because it reminded him that she no longer breathed.

He pressed a shaking hand against the cold ground and pushed himself upright. His shoulder was biting him but Theo ignored it.

Then a shadow stepped into the firelight.

Argash.

And of course, he walked slowly and gracefully, his robe brushed against the ground.

His smile appeared before the rest of him did, a calm, satisfied smile that made Theo’s blood heat with anger.

Theo’s vision turned so clear for a moment.

His eyes locked onto Argash.

Argash looked down at him like someone greeting a guest who finally arrived at the right time.

"Welcome, Theo."