Page 72 of Bossy Bodyguard

EMMA

My head hammered as I struggled to push my heavy lids open. There was a constant ringing in my ears and my face felt warm. Something burning made me cough, and I forced my eyes to blink.

I could see shattered glass and the tight belt around me, holding me to the seat. I looked beside me and let out a whimper. Zayed was bleeding from the temple and his eyes were closed. The car was burning. We had to get out.

“Z-Zayed,” I coughed out. I winced, pushing the button to unlock my seatbelt and fell on the ground. My legs were bleeding, but I could move despite the soreness in my body. I did not know what happened, but I was scared and needed Zayed to wake up.

“Zayed, wake up!” I tried to yell, but my voice was hoarse. Leaning up, I undid his seatbelt, his unconscious body falling on the roof of the car. I needed to get him out.

Crawling out of the small window, I stood up on my shaky legs and held his shoulders. “Zayed, wake up, please,” I gasped out, dragging his heavy body. I kept pulling, using all my strength. Elena will kill me if anything happened to him. Oh god, he was a royal. So not just Elena, but entire Azmia would kill me.

“Elena?” he sputtered, blinking his eyes open.

“Finally!” I kept dragging, and he was almost out of the car. “You need to wake up and call—”

“Now, that’s alright, little Emma.”

I froze hearing another person and turned around. My mouth parted into a scream, but the man in the black ski mask rushed closer and put a cloth on my mouth and nose, forcing me to inhale the burning chemical.

Groaning, I squirmed in his tight hold while he tried to quiet me. I tried to kick him, but my legs were still shaky from the accident. My head swirled, and I dug my nails into his forearms and tried to scratch him anywhere I could. Clawing his neck, his face, I heard a satisfying scream when he pulled back.

I fell on the ground, coughing as tears slid out of my eyes, and held a shard of glass when he tried to come closer.

“Stop fighting, little Emma, we are going home,” he cooed, and I couldn’t see his eyes through the tears and slashed at him.

“G-go away!” I tried to shout, wishing Cillian was there.

The smell of metal hung in the air and I noticed that the fire was slowly licking away at the car, its scorching heat making me sweat.

A yelp of pain coming from the man made me snap my eyes at Zayed. He was standing—no, barely standing and holding a dagger-like knife in his hand against the man who was possibly my stalker. My vision was getting hazy, my limbs shaking when I tried to stand up.

“I’m protecting you, little Emma!” the man yelled, pulling out a little pocket knife. It made Zayed grin, his lips bloody. It made me shudder to see him like that. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.”

How dare he call me little. Hurting me for months, the mental toll of looking out of the windows and closed curtains, the distressing feeling of always being watched just because he had some sick fantasy of me in his rotten head.

I tightened the broken glass in my hand, not caring that it cut my skin made me bleed.

I hated him. He had made my life a living hell, and I hated him for it. Killing my mother, my self-esteem, and making me live with fear day and night.

“Stop speaking to her, you delusional fuck,” Zayed wavered, but swung his arm out when the stalker tried to kick his leg.

They both fell. I didn’t care what happened to me as I let out a cry and forced the shard of glass onto him. He turned away, but I felt it gave way and sink into his skin when he yelled, pushing me off him with a tug on my hair.

“Emma, kitten, come on,” Zayed held my shoulders and dragged me away, lifting me up as the car burned, and I cried out.

“Let me kill him! Let me!” Even though I tried to scream, my voice was small, and my head was throbbing. Maybe I had inhaled enough chemical that it was making me unconscious.

“Sh, it’s okay. Calm down.”

Those were the last words I heard before darkness took me again.

Cillian

I walked the same hallway again and again. Pacing from one end to another. My black polished shoes—the ones she bought for me a week ago—padded against the marble white floor. The bright white lights were adding to the headache that the grim scent of medicine, cleaner and scrubs were giving me.

“Will she be okay?” Mia asked for the umpteenth time, sitting beside Summer, whose knees couldn’t stop shaking.

“The doctor will let us know soon, Princess,” James, her rich old boyfriend, said, then looked at me. “But it won’t help if you keep pacing like that.”

---