BURN THE TRUTH

Episode Thirty-two

Velda woke up to the pungent smell of hospital disinfection, invading her nostrils. The room was silent apart from the beep-beep sound that indicates she is alive. She slowly opened her eyes, squinting in an attempt to sharpen the blurred images before me. Every thought is high definition. As the blinding light slowly subsided she slowly took a look around her surroundings. Her eyes took in every ray of light and without a doubt, she knows she has been out too long.

The captain glanced around and took in the deserted, blue and white colour schemed hospital bedroom. The room was pristine clean and gloomy. Typical hospital bed, IV and monitors beeping. The place looked nothing like a room where a patient should be motivated to get better. If anything the murky room was making her even more nauseous. Or perhaps the room seemed distorted because of her condition.

There on the side table was a ravishing blooming banquet of flowers which seems to be the sole appreciative thing in the room. The flowers were a dancing rainbow as if the sun ray and music had found a new way to blossom together.

How long has she been here? She shut her eyes, trying to remember what had exactly happened. Then it all hits her with a bang. The memory of it all starts to occupy her thoughts.

Out of impulse, her hand travels to her head, pressing the throbbing area on her right temple. She felt the bandage and flinched at the pain. She tried to get up, but her body was engulfed in pain as if objecting to her decision to stand up. She lay there pathetically, waiting for the pain to wash away. Staring at the ceiling, illuminated with white fluorescent light before her face, she turned to the area where one of her crew, Carter, lay asleep. How pathetic! She sighed.

"Hey, detective" She called "Carter!"

The young man quickly rose from the couch, vibrant for a person who has just been called out of his nap. Carter rushed to her aid.

"Captain, are you awake? I will call in the doctor," He uttered hurriedly and rushed out of the room. Velda sighed and relaxed back, waiting for some help from the hospital staff. She still didn't know how she got there, who brought her there, or how long she’d been there. Or perhaps, who made the call? Oh, no – Asteria. Is she safe?

Her series of questions was interrupted as a doctor accompanied by some nurses rushed in.

"Detective Velda, you're awake?"

"It's a mystery I'm also trying to understand" Velda returns and the doctor gave an amused smile.

"We're happy to have you back," The doctor let out. She watched the doctor do a couple of things while Carter watched in enthusiasm, his eager eyes travelling to and fro from the captain to the doctor.

"Where am I?"

The doctor turned to her, closed the file he held and passed it to the nurse next to him. "You're recovering at the NCA General Hospital. You had a very serious bullet wound on your chest. And a few blade cuts and some minor injuries. But fortunately, it seems you received proper first aid before the medics arrived"

"Huh?" Velda tilted her head quizzically.

"Whoever treated you was good. One mistake and you'd have bled out"

Velda peered intently at the image lingering in her mind. The last thing she did take in before she finally outed was the blurry vision of a man, perhaps in a fight with her supposed shooter.

As though she remembered something, she turned to Carter. "Asteria?"

"She is fine. She has been with Louisa" Carter said reassuringly.

"How long have I been out?"

"Just a couple of days, eighty-one hours... Twenty-six minutes to be exact" Carter revealed before going through his cell phone.

"It's a miracle you're yet alive, Detective. I shall leave you to rest" The doctor said before leaving.

Velda's eyes shifted to Carter as the door closed, "Hey, Carter. Who called in the crew?" She asked as the young male nestled his phone into his pocket.

"We have no lead on that. Though, I did receive a text message from you" His words had her inner voice churn through the possibility of them, which came out more confusing, and made no sense. Her cell phone was right in her home office, there was no way she did make it back to it.

"You are likely mistaken," She said.

Carter reaches for his phone and in a few seconds, he shows her the screen. "Look, that was your message. It says; come to my house, now. Just that single line, and when I did call back you weren't answering. I drove to your house only to find you unconscious, I had barely brought out my cell phone when the sound of the emergency crew crammed the place. They weren't sure who made the call" Velda's eyes repeatedly scanned the message, she was certain she wasn't the sender, yet the problem remains – who did?

"I tried tracking the line it had come from except it was a dead end" Carter notified and ducked his phone back into his pocket. "Clyde is working on the case, but there is yet not much information about the men or who had sent them. Louisa analysed the footage from your door and still not helpful as the faces weren't visual"

"How many bodies were they?"

"Three," He returned.

Velda tried to move but a sharp, pulsing pain laced through the left side of her head. "You need to rest, Captain," Carter advised as he watched her struggle.

"Call in Clyde, I need him to stop the investigation," She said as she relaxed her head.

"But why, Captain,"

"It's better he doesn't know”

EIGHTY-TWO HOURS BEFORE

Velda hurried to grab the knife before the unexpected bang of a trigger being pulled reverberated through the room. The knife clattered to the ground as Velda collapsed to her knees, clutching at her gushing chest.

The moment Velda's body finally touched the chilly floor, her eyes dipped to reveal the location where she had been shot – right on cue, the sound of Milo crashing through the window into the space seized the attention of the gang, windows shattered, spewing glass shards everywhere. He descended against one of the men in the process and immediately others charged at him.

“You... you bastard!” An angry voice came.

Milo had expected it, anticipated it, and in the moments after landing he let his body relax. Though not for long as they came onto him. Milo hit the nearest in the V under his ribs where the sternum ends. It paralyzed his diaphragm and he gasped and doubled over. Others took steps forward, crowding him and in a blink, all went loose. Milo banged together the heads of two men with harsh force and allowed them to stagger backwards–

And swiftly he grabbed a gang’s wrist with his left hand and held the man’s gun hand against his chest, the gun caught under the jacket and Milo hit him twice more with his right, square in the nose. The male sagged and the young man shoved him away.

They tackled him, yet he was like a choir leader collectively handling every track being brought forth, a clean shoulder-to-shoulder hit that arched another’s spine. The gun clattered from his hand and skittered under the cushion.

“f**k, you guys make so much noise,” Milo let out disgustingly. One kept coming, driving his leg but was abruptly stopped halfway before Milo yanked back with his right forearm, snapping the man’s neck like a tree branch.

The young mechanic had only turned before he tumbled, dodging a bullet in the process and then slides across the floor, and swiftly he drew his pistol. The knurled grip felt at home in his palm, the trigger biting into the calloused pad of his first finger. It felt all too comfortable in his palm as if he was the master of it. Milo rolled aside as another’s leg swept out to catch him and there he fired two shots upwards in two directions, their bodies dropped down and Milo’s third shot took another in the head.

He leapt to his feet and immediately dove for the stairs as the men filled the air behind him. Straight away he fired another shot upwards into the arm of the man who was about to release a bullet from the stairs, his piece clattering to the ground and Milo dived with his legs, shoving the male behind him off the stairs. And then he bounced past the injured one only to come upon another with a clear sharp blade, he tried to shoot but exhausted his pellet.

Milo’s head moved side to side in a quick reflex as he dodged this rapid throw of the blade and between the movements he forcefully smacked his right palm against the man’s face, shattering his nose, and a swift swing while holding the stair rail took him off and brought him back to the stairs behind the man and off he sent him across the stairs to the living space.

“I'm gonna make you regret this!” The supposed leader of the gang roared to him as he reached the corridor where Velda lay. Bleeding.

“Let's see which one of us makes it out alive” Milo challenged. But the man immediately shoots, two shots of bullets tears through the line of Milo’s face – but he was quick enough to dodge them, one striking a side wall, and the other shattering a beautiful gilded mirror.

“You will pay for that,”

The word had barely escaped Milo’s lips before he moved, he did not try to stop the gun; he rolled his hand under the man’s wrist, drove the man’s arm over and back, and pulled him backwards and down before he smashed an elbow into the side of the male’s skull, the soft spot high on the temple. And watched as he fell to the ground, – and then Devyn rushed into the house.

The young man moved to the side of the gang’s view “Worn out already?”

“Who do you work for?!”

“I'm afraid that question will be kept for later”