KILL OR DIE: "REMEMBER YOU TO NEXT LIFE"

THE PARTNER IN CRIME

Keith laid back down on her bed, and covered her body with the blanket while she stared at Darren who was busy checking her vitals and plugging them on her medical records. After he was done with everything, he gave her one last look and excused himself.

“You shout get yourself some rest now.”

“Thank you doc, for helping me out”, she said genuinely, but Darren only gave her a brief smile.

“Well, it was my offer to take you out, so, you could say I wasn’t really helping.”

“So why did you offer to take me out anyway?”

Darren stopped staring at the medical records in his hand and looked at Keith a smirk on his lips.

“Let’s just say, it’s a man’s nature to take a beautiful woman out”, he answered, and meant what he said, though said it in a hilarious tone. Keith only looked at him, and let a confused face out.

“I’m your patient, Doc”, she answered, putting a great amount of emphasis on the word ‘doc’ to stress their doctor-patient relationship.

“Not for long”, he answered meaningfully, and Keith gave a small smile, understanding what it meant.

“Good night, Doc”, she said and closed her eyes to get some sleep.

Darren only looked at the clock on the table that read 3 : 03, and left with a smile on his face.

Keith can see nothing with her eyes closed, but she could perfectly hear the door opened, and closed right after and she immediately opened her eyes back.

Thoughts starting to fill her head once more, while her conversation with her Dad flashed at the back of her head.

~You ever remember hearing a news about a woman, left-handed and on her 20s gone missing?

~That’s the case you were investigating. A total of 30 missing women from year 2000 to 2018, all in their 20s, and are left handed. You were solving that case.

From year 2000?

30 women disappeared and not found for 18 years, and the suspect was never found?

Questions started filling her head the more she thinks about the case that’s been seeking her attention.

Like a closed door with a sign that says, ‘do not enter’, only flames the burning desire to open the door and see what’s hidden inside, she’s more curious about the case now that she knows a piece about it.

Only women are being kidn*pped, in their 20s, and left-handed. What does that supposed to mean?

It cannot be by coincidence.

The suspect is really targeting left-handed woman. And what does a left-handed woman differ from a right-handed woman?

Another angle of the case surfaced on her mind.

And if that suspect is particularly targeting left-handed woman, that will need a day of observation to determine whether the target is left-handed or not.

Damn! If only I had not forgotten my memory, I wouldn’t go back to square one.

She mentally swore at herself in disappointment.

She’s lying on the hospital bed, inside a patient’s room, at a hospital, but her thoughts wandered beyond the dimension she’s in. her thoughts all programmed to work like a detective despite of the memory lost.

“How deep are you diving?”

A voice dropped on the swamp of her thoughts like a drop of water, stirring everything in her mind and looked at the door slightly opened where the man walked in with flowers on his hands.

Despite an unknown man walking in her room, Keith’s face turned sour the moment her eyes landed on the flowers on the man’s hand.

“Am I supposed to know you?”

“Yup. You are definitely supposed to know me, but I was told you lost your memory. The name’s Kevin, your partner in crimes. Elsa has Anna, Tom has Jerry, and you have me”, the jolly man blow his line off with a smile and sat smoothly on the chair, leaving Keith in a mental shock of what just happened.

“That was a deadly rhyme just now. But you’re my partner? I had a squeaky partner like you?”

Kevin’s mouth dropped open in amazement, and his hands soon joined it and clapped several times as he stared at Keith.

“Your Dad was right. You lost your memory, but you’re the same Keith. ‘This squeaky person is gonna be my partner’? You said that on my first day at the department. Words are scrambled, but exactly the same. That’s amazing”, he further said and continued to clap his hands which irritated Keith and shoved his hands away.

“Stop s******g your hands, dammit!”

“Oh yes! You hate it every time I clap. And guess what? I made sure to bring you flowers which you hated the most”, he said raising the bouquet of flowers back into view while Keith only stared at him with a dead expression.

“Are you really normally like this? Or are you just acting up because I can’t remember how you act like?”

“Come on, Keith. We’re not called Twin K for no reason!”

“I can’t survive a day with you, that I’m sure”, she said pointing at him while he brushed his shoulders and fixed his hair to stiff upwards like a Rockstar.

“Good for you! Because you survived 5 years with me. I mean, to say it right, you can’t survive a day without me”, he corrected. A remark Keith thought of ridiculously and closed her eyes feeling a great headache coming.

“I can’t survive a day without a kid like you?”

“Yezzir! First of all, I buy you meals three times a day because you don’t cook on workdays. Same goes for day-offs, which you only sleep the whole day, so I go to your house and cook for you. See? I’m pretty much an all-around helper. But don’t be mistaken, I’m a badass at shooting”, he said and formed a g*n with two fingers of his hand, blowing it.

“Someone get this impersonator out”, was the only words she can say out of defeat when the door opened and Darren walked in.

He stopped right in front of the two and gave Keith and Kevin a plain stare, and stared down at the medical records in his hand in displease. He silently checked up on Keith without a word, while Kevin looked at him sharply.

It went on quickly, and before Keith knew it, Darren walked out of the room without a word.

‘’What the f**k is wrong with him?”, Keith mouthed in confusion after she has noticed the cold treatment while Kevin followed the doctor with his stare until he was out of sight.

“You know him?”

Keith gave Kevin a straight bored stare on the face with his question.

“He’s my doctor”, she answered logically and Kevin only nodded with it.

“You said you’re my partner for 5 years, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“So you must know something, at least something that I’ve told you.”

“Like a secret?”

Kevin clarified with a childly word for “confidential”. A sigh has once again triggered out of Keith’s mouth, but she kept it because she needed to ask something.

“Yes, a secret. Did I ever a tell you a secret?”

“You did. Like, you have a secret door to your house?”

“I know that. What else?”

Keith stared at him, waiting for an answer while Kevin stared right at her with the same serious face.

“Well, I know you use every opportunity you have to squeeze out an information. And you’re doing that now, but I can’t give you anything. Your Dad told me I can’t tell you anything about the case”, Kevin told her directly which caught her off guard. Anger rushing through her veins and her hand quickly went to her back, grabbed a pillow and threw it at Kevin which he caught on time.

“I thought we were partner for years. You’re betraying me now?!”

“It’s an order from the head of the department. You should get discharged early, I’ll tell you everything there is for you to know”, he said with a plain smile which irritated Keith and gave him a death glare.

“So why are you here in the first place if you’re not going to help?”

Kevin looked at Keith seriously. His face showed a lot of disappointment and regret, something Keith was quick to notice.

“That’s why I told I’d go in there. Why did you have to take my place? You wouldn’t be in that kind of state right now”, he said scolding her, but scolding himself at the same time.

Keith was lost out of words for a second, her eyes unconsciously landed on the mirror and saw her reflection. The first time she had seen her face after she woke up. Her hand slowly rose and touched her head with a bonnet. It had slipped her mind the entire time, while she slowly took it off, it revealed her bald head.

Seeing her face, hairless was a new sight to see. But she could see how Kevin stared at her, plain, but his eyes tell everything. Very much, he was beating himself as if he was the reason why everything happened as it is today.

She quickly covered her head back so it wouldn’t bother him, but the awkward tension is very much on both their heads.

“I figured you’d be bored staying here with nothing to do, so…”, he said and slowly took a paper bag with something in it. She only stared at him, waiting for the real thing to come out so he can have a look at what it is.

“I brought you this”, he said and took out a dartboard. Keith unconsciously stretched a smile on her face which Kevin was expecting to see.

“I’ve seen that kind of reaction coming. You’ve always liked darts. At least you’d have something to entertain yourself while you’re locked on this boring room”, he said and started pasting it on the wall himself.

“Were you like this before?”

“Like what?”

“Visiting me in the hospital when things get bad?”

Kevin went back to his seat with a smirk on his face. The conversation is getting warm compared to the awkward atmosphere a little ago. Though she could not totally recognize who he was, she felt comfortable talking to a squeaky person like him.

“I cannot say I’m used to doing these. Because I’m not used to seeing you all beaten in a hospital. For five years, I’ve seen you get shot five times, and on the hospital 2 times.”

“So I get shot once a year?”

“That I cannot tell. But I could clearly count, you were shot five times.”

“Did you ever got shot on operations?”, she asked curiously. Finally, the case is off of her mind. She started asking questions, and even Kevin is liking where their conversation is going. Except when she asked the last question, Kevin let out a forced smile and stayed quiet for some seconds.

“Nope, I haven’t”, he answered. Keith exclaimed in amazement by the answer he got. Fair enough, he should be a real badass on shooting as he said it, in her thoughts.

“You’re the man!”

“No, I’ve never been shot, because you take all the bullets”, he told honestly, which she wasn’t expecting. The awkward atmosphere that disappeared for a minute, gradually resurfaced, and a lot more awkward now.

“You call that a man? I call that stupidity”, she replied, but it only made him chuckle.

“You say that every time you get shot. And now, your head is cut open and stitched close. We’ll find whoever did this to you, Keith.”

“You haven’t found the owner of the other car yet?”

“Do you really believe everything was a mere car accident? You know it very well, you went there to chase that motherfucker, and the next day you’re found in the hospital. There’s more to this than it looks like. And I’m not going to stop until I find him.”