CHAPTER 2- SIX DAYS LEFT
1120 Words
SIX DAYS LEFT
I didn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, Victor’s voice returned.
You have one week.
By four in the morning, I stopped trying.
I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the photograph on my bedside table.
Mom stood behind me, both arms around my shoulders. I was missing one front tooth and grinning while she laughed at something outside the frame.
I traced the edge of the picture.
“What would you do?” I whispered.
The photograph offered no answer.
By six, I had showered, changed, and tied my hair back for work.
When I entered the kitchen, my father was already there.
His eyes were red, and an untouched cup of coffee sat in front of him.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “Victor can give you a good life.”
I stopped.
“You sold me.”
His jaw tightened. “Don’t say it like that.”
“How should I say it?”
“I made an arrangement.”
“With my life.”
“I was trying to protect us.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“From the debt you created?”
His fingers tightened around the cup.
“You think I wanted this?”
“I think you wanted to gamble.”
“Elena.”
“You kept losing and kept going back because you thought one more game would fix everything.”
His face darkened.
Normally, that would have made me quiet.
Not today.
“You didn’t even ask me.”
“I knew what you would say.”
“Then you knew I would never agree.”
He stood so quickly the chair scraped against the floor.
“You don’t understand what Victor is capable of.”
“Neither do you, apparently, or you wouldn’t owe him almost four million pesos.”
His hand lifted.
I froze.
For one second, I thought he would hit me.
Instead, he lowered it.
Maybe because I was staring at him.
Maybe because something in me had finally changed.
“I’m going to work.”
“Six days left.”
I looked at him.
“You’re counting for him now?”
He said nothing.
I left.
At the hospital, I buried myself in work.
Medication rounds. Charts. Vitals. Patients.
Anything that kept me from thinking about home.
It worked until my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A message appeared.
Six days, Elena.
My stomach dropped.
No name.
None was necessary.
I stared at the screen until the words blurred. Victor had been inside our house only hours ago, yet somehow he already had my number. The thought made me feel watched even inside the hospital.
I deleted the message and shoved my phone into my pocket.
“Everything okay?”
I turned.
Maya, another nurse on my floor, stood beside me with a clipboard.
“Fine.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“You look like you haven’t slept.”
“Feels like it.”
“Family?”
I hesitated.
Maya knew enough about my father not to push.
She handed me a bottle of water.
“Drink before you collapse and become my patient.”
I almost smiled.
“Thanks.”
The rest of the shift passed slowly.
By the time I clocked out, rain hammered against the hospital windows.
I checked my phone.
No ride accepted.
The main road was flooded, and the few available cars kept canceling.
I could wait or walk ten minutes to the next street, where public transport was easier to find.
I pulled my jacket over my head and stepped into the rain.
Within seconds, my shoes were soaked.
The shortcut behind the old pharmacy was darker than usual. One streetlight flickered above me.
I walked faster.
My father’s warning replayed in my mind.
You don’t understand what Victor is capable of.
Maybe I didn’t.
But I knew I needed a way out.
I could leave.
The thought made me slow.
Pack a bag.
Stay with Maya.
Find another place.
Change my number.
Then another thought followed.
What would Victor do to my father?
I hated myself for caring.
After everything he had done, some part of me still remembered the father who once carried me home when I scraped my knee. The man he had become was cruel, but the man I remembered was still buried somewhere inside him.
Maybe that was my weakness.
I kept waiting for someone who might never come back.
A metallic crash echoed from the alley ahead.
I stopped.
Silence.
Then a low groan.
Every instinct told me to keep walking.
Instead, I turned toward the sound.
“Hello?”
No answer.
I stepped cautiously into the alley.
Rainwater ran along the cracked pavement.
Then I saw him.
A man sat against the brick wall beside a dumpster, one hand pressed tightly against his side.
Blood covered his fingers.
My training took over before fear could stop me.
I hurried toward him.
“Sir? Can you hear me?”
His head lifted.
Dark hair clung to his forehead. His shirt was soaked through, blood staining the fabric near his ribs.
He looked too well dressed to belong in an alley like this.
And too badly injured to be alone.
“I’m a nurse,” I said. “Let me see.”
His hand moved suddenly.
He caught my wrist.
Hard.
I gasped.
His eyes opened fully.
Dark.
Sharp.
Dangerously alert.
“Don’t,” he said.
I tried to pull free.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I know.”
“You need a hospital.”
His grip tightened.
“No hospital.”
“You could die.”
Something almost like amusement crossed his face.
“That would disappoint a lot of people.”
“Then let go of me.”
For several seconds, he stared at me.
Then his fingers loosened.
I immediately pressed my hand against the wound.
He hissed.
“Who did this to you?”
His gaze shifted toward the mouth of the alley.
“People who will come back.”
My blood went cold.
“Then we need to call the police.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“No police.”
“Why?”
Headlights suddenly swept across the far end of the alley.
The man grabbed my arm and pulled me down beside him.
A black car rolled slowly past.
I held my breath.
He leaned close enough that I felt his breath near my ear.
“If they see you with me,” he whispered, “you become part of this.”
The car slowed.
And for the first time that night, I wondered if I had just made the worst mistake of my life.
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