"Are you okay?" he asks quietly, still holding me tight against his body, "did he hurt you?"
I am overwhelmed by emotion, by pure relief and a strong need to be close to him. I don't respond, I can't. Instead, I hug him harder. I never want to let go. But my silence makes him worries, he releases me with one arm, and uses it to gently embrace my face, lifting my chin up until I face him,
"He punched you! He- he hit you!" Daniel hisses in outrage. I can read the shock on his face. I guess neither of us thought George would ever go that far. How? Why?
"He- did he... did he hurt you in any other way?" he asks, I've never heard his voice so raw. So full of emotion. That's not Daniel. Daniel is the strong, confident fighter. Nothing ever gets to him. He's stronger than the world, yet... yet his voice is trembling as he speaks to me. I force a smile on my broken lips, I look him straight in the eye, and shake my head no.
"I am okay" I say, my voice a broken whisper. But he hears me. He pulls me into him once more. I don't think he'd ever let go. Not if it wasn't for George. His bettered body shuffles on the ground, both Daniel and I look in his direction. I think we both forgot where we were in that moment. But Daniel recovers quickly, he straightens his shoulders and breaks away from our embrace. He stalks towards George,
"No! Please!" George cries, scrambling backwards to get away,
"Daniel" I grasp his arm to hold him back, but he just continues forward, breaking my hold,
"No! He'll kill me! Please!" George begs, the words come muffled, his face is all bloody, I can barely recognise him, "Sofia" his eyes meet mine. One of them closed shut "he will kill me!" he cries.
All I see as I look at him is my attacker. The man that brutally slammed a metal pole into my head, punched me in my face, in my stomach. This is George. But I can't let Daniel kill him, no. I run forward, Daniel slams his leg across George's head, George falls to the ground. Unmoving. Unconscious. Or is he dead?
I quickly grasp Daniel's forearm.
"You will kill him if you hit him more" I say, stepping in front of him,
"Doesn't he deserve to be killed?"
"He does. But you don't deserve to go to prison"
"It's a price worth paying" he goes to step around me,
"No" I place both hands on his chest, pushing back, "he's not worth it Daniel"
"But you are"
"I am okay. He can't hurt me anymore" I say, tears in my eyes,
Slowly, I can feel his tense abdomen muscles relax under my touch. He's not going to do it. He's not going to kill him.
"We need to call the police" I say, he nods in agreement, pulls out his phone and hands it over to me. I dial the number. We're asked to stay connected, as the police is on their way. The operator wants to keep asking questions, but I lower the phone, unable to listen to her speak. My mind is too muffled.
"Is he okay?" I ask, nodding towards George,
"He is. Unfortunately" he says, "you're hurt" he notices,
"A little" I lie, though now that the fight is over, the pain is starting to become real, "how did you happen to be driving there?" I ask, realising the miracle of Daniel being there when he was. If he hadn't come when he did, George would have captured me. Or shot me dead.
"Nina" he responds, "I came home from the gym, she was there. We spoke about you. She wanted us to make up. She told me that you're at the theatre, so I wanted to pick you up. When I arrived, a large crowd was gathered in the parking lot, police cars all around. I asked the people; they told me a grey van with no plates abducted a young female. They pointed the direction it went. I didn't wait around, I got in my car and sped after it. I never saw the van, it was pure luck that you came out onto the road when you did"
"I can't believe how lucky I was" I whisper, "I... after the way we fought, and I refused to even speak to you, I am shocked you still looked out for me..."
"I'll always look out for you"
"You're bleeding!" I gasp, there's a circle of blood on his shirt, above the left shoulder,
"The damn bullet"
"He shot you!"
"It's just a scratch"
"We need the ambulance!"
"Yes. For you"
"I'm fine" I say,
"You can barely stand"
"When did the bullet hit you?"
"On the road, just after I saw you. We were still at the car"
"And you still ran after him?"
"I didn't want him to get away"
"He could have killed you!"
"Not before I killed him" he retorts. Confident like always.
"Does it hurt?"
"No" he says, "but you're in pain"
"I'm a bit dizzy. He hit me with some metal object, or something"
"He could have killed you!"
I glance down at George's body, splayed on the ground,
"Are you sure he's alive?"
"He is"
I walk over to George, looking down at him. Daniel is right, George is breathing, alive. I still can't believe it's George. What will Nina say? I can't imagine... Daniel stands behind me, he grasps my shoulders,
"I don't get why he did this?" I whisper,
"Because he's a psychopath"
"But you don't understand, Daniel. I've known George almost all my life. We were friends. He loved Nina. Always. He..."
"He's a psychopath, Sofia. He loved Nina. He wanted her as his girlfriend, he would have even married her maybe, had children with her. But that wasn't enough for him"
"What do you think he would have done to me? Would he have killed me?"
"I don't know" he says, pulling me back to lean against him,
"Sofia?"
"Huh?"
"Tell me. How did you get away from him? What happened after he forced you into the van? Where is his van?"
The sound of sirens fill the air, they grow louder with each passing second. Daniel and I stand over George's unconscious body, my breaths coming in ragged gasps. Blood smears Daniel's knuckles and his clothes, a testament to the altercation that just took place.
The police cars can't get to where we are, as the woods are too thick for passage. But they have our exact location from the phone. Within moments, officers are spilling out into the woods, guns drawn, eyes scanning the scene.
Two officers approach us cautiously, their expressions a mixture of concern and suspicion.
"Hands where we can see them!" one of the officer's barks, his voice commanding.
Daniel and I exchanged a quick glance. Slowly, I half raise my hands, my fingers trembling. Daniel doesn't do the same. Instead, he steps protectively in front of me.
"Step away from the body" the officer commands, Daniel and I step forward,
"What happened here?" the officer demands, his eyes narrowing as he takes everything in. He gestures for another officer to check on the unconscious body.
"He... he attacked me, he pulled me into a van. In front of the theatre" I stammer, my voice shaky. "He had a gun"
The officer's gaze flicks to the weapon lying on the ground, then back to the two of us, "and you fought him off?" he asks, I nod,
"Daniel. He came and... fought him off"
The officer motions for me to lower my hands,
"We're going to need a lot more detail than that. Step over here," he instructs, pointing to the side of the road where the other officers had begun to set up a perimeter.
As Daniel and I move, the officer signals to a colleague, "have a look around. See if anyone else is here"
The second officer, a woman with a stern expression, approaches us with a notepad, "I'm Officer Davis. I need you to tell me everything, from the beginning"
First, I tell her that Daniel has been shot, she asks if he needs immediate medical assistance, but he refuses. I refuse immediate assistance too.
"Okay, tell me what happened" she prompts,
I take a deep breath, recounting the events as clearly as I could, in the current state. In my restatement, I answer all of Daniel's previous questions. How I got away. How the van is somewhere on a gravel road, but I don't know exactly where. How he shot at me when I ran.
Officer Davis takes notes, her pen moving quickly across the page. When I tell her how Daniel caught up to George, knocked out his weapon, the officer nods,
"And then you called 911?"
"Yes," I reply, "as soon as we could"
Another officer approaches, whispering something to the first one, who then turns to address Daniel and I again,
"We're going to need to take you both down to the station to give formal statements. In the meantime, you'll need medical attention for those injuries"
I nod, relief mingling with the lingering terror. We follow the officers to the waiting patrol car. I glance back once more at the scene of the encounter.
"I'll drive us down" Daniel says, "my car is here"
"No sir" the officer says, "we can't let you do that. We need to talk to you to make sure you're in the clear first"
"If you'd like, one of us can drive your car down to the station?" one officer offers,
"I'm driving down myself. She's coming with me" Daniel says and gently takes my hand, leading me to his car. The officer calls after us, but Daniel doesn't listen. I know we should do as they say, but then again, I've asked the police for help many times. They never helped me. They said my stalker was not as big of a threat as I made out. Daniel listened. He helped me. I decide to ignore the officer's calls, and enter the passenger seat of Daniel's car. Surprisingly, no one tries to stop us. But two patrol cars follow us as Daniel drives to the police station.
"You good?" he asks, I look over at him and give a faint smile,
"I am now"