Richard arrived at his house and carried the unknown woman in as well. He lived alone except for his cook who had taken the weekend off. The house was fairly big but he never felt lonely and that was hugely because he rarely spent his days at home and his cook was also an excellent source of entertaining.
It was only in the last two months that he had stayed at home more often. His parents were in another part of the country and they barely visited him as well.
He put her down on the couch and used a towel to dry her hair and body. He then saw another problem; if he allowed her to sleep in those wet clothes then she would definitely get worse. He hesitated before finally getting his own shirt.
He tried as much as possible to not look while he pulled up her top. This was lame—he was lame. He was someone who had been in the cross fire more often than not yet to undress this strange lady had become an uphill task for him.
He rolled his eyes inwardly; he had never done anything of this sort before. He helped change her clothes then put her on his bed and covered her up with the blankets so she'd get warm.
He didn't feel like sleeping so he took a warm bath to help fight off the cold and to also help him think straight before switching on the TV and watching the news. He sat there watching the news till he dozed off.
….
The next morning, he woke up feeling like a heavy stone had been placed on his neck all night. He twisted his neck this way and that and relieved the pain a bit. He had slept on the couch and he had never been comfortable sleeping there.
It didn't take him a second longer to process the events that happened the previous night. He had almost run over a strange lady in the middle of the night and she had passed out so he had brought her home and she was in his bed right now….
It felt like a dream. He jumped up and went to check his room and sure enough, she was still sleeping soundly though not comfortably, she had kicked away the blankets and was now sleeping with her hand touching the floor and her legs over on the other side.
He closed the door again and went to the kitchen. He would leave her to wake up on her own then offer to take her to the hospital and then drop her off wherever she lived. He was now regretting bringing her here in the first place, what was he even thinking?
He made tea and drank a bit before leaving for a morning jog. He came back an hour later to find the lady scanning his house with a horrified expression on her face. He stopped by the door and the lady, hearing the sound of the opening and closing door, whiplashed at him with a knife held out.
"Stay back!" she commanded.
Richard shook his head in amusement. "You're holding a knife." He reminded her as if she didn't know what was in her hand.
She looked at her hand again and nodded. "I'm holding a knife and will stab you if you don't stay away from me!"
"How did I get here?" she asked seeing that the strange man wasn't saying anything else after pointing to her that she was holding a knife.
"You're in my house." Richard gestured with his hand.
"Are you…?"
"One of the people you were running away from? I'll answer your questions if you put away the knife."
"The knife is my only guarantee to escaping this dump you call a house!" she held it out more prominently.
"I can disarm you in one move." Before she could even react, he had grabbed her arm and twisted it to her back then forced knife out of her grip. "Like that. The knife doesn't do you any good and you slept here all night so why would I hurt you now?"
She calmed down and asked, "I remembered a car almost knocked me down, were you the driver?"
He nodded. "What's your name?"
"Priscilla," she replied. "Priscilla Harris."
"You can call me Richard." He said casually and threw the knife on the table and went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of cold water.
Priscilla could vaguely remember the three people who broke into her house and attempted to take her. She reckoned that she hadn't done that much running in a very long time and the worst was that they had guns with them.
She had been terrified and was still terrified at the thought of it.
"So… why were you running out so late at night under the rain?" she was snapped out of her thoughts when Richard asked the question. He walked over to her and handed her a cup of tea.
She smiled. "Thank you. For helping me out last night and for the tea just now."
He nodded waiting for her reply. She then said, "I don't know who they were but they broke into my house and tried to take me. I left without even taking my phone and I'm pretty sure they're still out there lurking around my apartment.
"I can only have a few ideas as to why they came after me, maybe because I got a promotion at work?"
"I see," Richard nodded. "But you still need to go to the hospital and then report this incidence to the local authorities."
"I'm not that sick just a minor cold. I don't need to go to the hospital for anything, believe me."
She dropped the tea silently without even taking a sip and asked, "Do you do that often? I mean, save people randomly on the streets?"
"You're the first." He said without looking up at her, his eyes were trained on his mobile phone as he looked through a few things.
"Then I guess I'm lucky." She cast her gaze at the tea and also ignored the man on the opposite side of the sofa, her tea untouched. She preferred her tea capsules.