THE BORROWED HEART

Point of View: Isla Corvane She ran directly towards my car. Not walking. Didn’t stumble. Rushed."Out of the darkness and the downpour and directly into my headlights as if something was pursuing her. I matched on the brakes so forcefully. My heart beat faster. For one dangerous moment, I believed I had struck her. She then placed both hands tightly on my bonnet, and I could see her face through the rain-streaked. A female individual. Hair as dark as night stuck to her cheeks. Mouth ajar. Eyes open and frantic, filled with an emotion I instantly recognized from my years of working in hospital emergency rooms. Fear. Sheer, untainted fear. I opened the door and came out into the rain. "Hi, are you alright?" Did anyone. She held hand tightly. She used both of her hands to hold mine so tightly that I felt the bones pressing against each other. She was shaking intensely. The type that originates from a more profound place. Somewhere an individual cannot manage. "Kindly." Her voice was not loud enough. "Kindly, you need to" "Okay." I had a calm and even tone, just how I speak to anxious patients. "You're fine." I have you. "Let me know what’s" She inserted something into my hand. Tiny. Chilly. Sharp and intense. She wrapped my fingers around it before I could glance down. "Make sure they don't find out." She held my hand more tightly. "Don't let him , you have to listen to me, there's little time, you must focus" "I'm focusing intently." I was present. Every part of me was alert. "Kindly let me know." "What is your name?" Her mouth was ajar. Then the illumination emerged. They rushed over the road from somewhere behind her, and she turned around; the sound she produced , that faint, shattered sound , pierced through the rain's noise. "Negative." She murmured it. "Not at all, not at all" "Hold on." I took hold of her arm. "Hold on, please , converse with me." Please share your name with me. "Inform me what" She broke away. She dashed back to her vehicle without glancing at me once more. The motor thundered. The tires shrieked on the wet pavement and then she vanished, red brake lights consumed by the night. I remained in the rain with her imprints still hot on my wrist. And she dropped something tiny and cold tightly in my hand. The other vehicle reduced its speed. I ought to have returned to my vehicle. Secured the door. Pushed away. I was twenty minutes away from home, drenched, it was past midnight, and none of this concerned me. I remained still. The car stopped perhaps thirty meters in front of me, at the location where the road bent nearest to the cliff's edge. The lights remained illuminated. The motor continued to operate. The entrance opened. A man was excited. From my position, his face was not visible to me. Merely his form. High. Serene. Walking slowly next to the road while holding a small flashlight in one hand, he checked slowly as if searching for something particular. He discovered it. He bent down. Lifted an item. Flipped it once in his hands. Place it in his coat pocket. He then got up. Glanced up and down the street. For a brief instant, the torchlight swept toward me, and I pressed against my car door, holding my breath. The beam continued onward. He returned to his vehicle. Departed. Serene as ever. Not quick. Not quick. Simply a man on a dim path heading to a destination. I remained in the rain until I could no longer see his taillights. I looked down and opened my hand. A flash drive. Tiny and dark with a narrow opening along one side as if it had been dropped forcefully at some time. No tag. Nothing indicated what it was or to whom it belonged. I looked at the spot where the man had squatted. I looked at the vacant road where the woman's vehicle had been. I returned to my vehicle. Secured the door. Increased the heating to its maximum setting. My hands were shaking and I wasn't the type to have shaky hands. I had kept them calm during tougher times than this. Amid crash teams and attempts at resuscitation lies the profound silence of a room when no further action can be taken. My hands remained steady. That was the one thing I could always rely on. They were trembling now. I placed the USB drive inside my jacket pocket. Ignited the engine. Returned to the road. I promised myself that when I returned back home,I would think of what to do next. Twenty minutes later the radio cut into a song I wasn't listening to. " emergency responders attending to a car that has fallen off the cliff edge on the seaside road between" I stopped my vehicle. The driver, a female, has been declared dead at the site. Police have identified her as Vivienne Ashford, spouse of" I switched off the radio. I remained beside the road in the dark with the heater on and the rain pounding the roof, unable to budge. I was unable to move since I understood. I had previously known the name. I realized instantly when the man knelt at the roadside, grabbed something, and concealed it in his pocket without notifying anyone. Without pausing. Without performing the one essential action that any good person takes when witnessing someone in distress on a dark roadway. He did not assist her. He strolled to the brink of that cliff, grabbed something, and departed. And now she is gone. The lady with the panicked eyes and shaking hands and the overly firm hold. She lay lifeless at the area where a slope formed by fallen rock material at the base,twenty minutes back, while I sat here holding tightly whatever she had pressed into my hand, having seen the man who could have been the last to see her alive walk away as if it meant nothing. I need to call the authorities. I was aware of that. I knew how to choose the right vein, the correct dosage, and which question to ask when a patient entered the emergency room barely able to breathe. I knew what I was supposed to do. I took my phone. Place it back down. Picked it up once more. I wasn't sure if it was important. The man had checked the road in both directions and I am not sure if the man had seen me or not. I only knew that a woman had rushed toward my car in the rain, and handed over something to me, and now she lay dead at the mountain edge where a man had stood just moments before and then left. I put my phone in the car's dashboard storage and drove back home. I said to myself I would think clearly in the morning. I couldn't sleep. I laid in my bed, looking at the ceiling while hearing the radiator thump, and remembered the noise she produced when those headlights located her. "Negative. No, no, no." As if she was already aware of their importance. At 3am in the morning, I stood up, opened my sock drawer, and placed the USB drive within it. Under the socks. At the furthest rear. I said to myself that I only need one night. A single evening for reflection. I said to myself that in the morning I shall have clarity. Three days later there was a knock at my door. I opened it. And the reality I believed was part of the conclusion to exist completely. The man in my entrance was tall, had dark hair, and cold grey eyes, and I had recognized his face from every news channel over the last three days. The mourning spouse. The strong individual was reduced to humility by defeat. Cole Ashford. He looked at me as if he were already aware of everything. And prior to my ability to talk, prior to my ability to inhale, prior to my ability to do anything whatsoever, he stated: "I'm aware you traveled that path." "My wife mentioned that she talked to you." He stopped briefly. "And I am aware you still possess it."