Before He Comes Back

“What is it?” Mathias begrudgingly answered his phone as he tried to huff off his exhaustion. After all, he exerted a lot of energy at every swing he did against Andrea’s soft body. However, his anger was yet to be quenched for real. As long as Andrea could still move, he would not stop.

There was no way he would let Andrea run to that man again.

It’s just that the voice that came from the phone was as if the cooling breeze of spring. His overall fury only needed a few seconds to be dissolved into a drop of a smile on his face. Mathias then leaned on the wall and kept listening to the voice with a smile that only grew deeper.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be there tonight. Sorry about last night. I was too drunk to attend to my phone.” His smile seemed to hit an all-time high… until the voice mentioned something that froze Mathias’s expression. The man only spat at the side. “She only has to be a slut tied to my bed. What can she even do without me around her? Don’t think about her; you saying her name is making me angry.

“I expect you to take responsibility for that.” Mathias’s eyes glinted in excitement and anticipation. More when the person from the other end continued to giggle and promise him good things. Mathias even closed his eyes as he listened.

This voice… this voice was the most beautiful. No one could make Mathias change his mind.

Thinking about meeting her again made Mathias want to change and arrange for it already. He had completely forgotten about Andrea until he walked into the room that he thrashed just then. Seeing Andrea’s broken body on the floor made him scoff. He kicked her out of the way before making a beeline to the top drawer of the nightstand.

He pulled out money from a tin can box; he even threw the box at Andrea and littered the floor with the coins. When he saw Andrea trying to use her bruised arm to collect the coins, he stepped on her hand. “Do you think you are even allowed to leave today? Stay here and clean the house. Don’t you dare come to the office today. Tch, you’re so ugly.”

Mathias spat at her before walking off and closing the door behind him again. He slipped the money inside his wallet and left the house in his dark-blue car that he parked out of sight. With a loud purr, the man drove out of the driveway of their apartment.

When the engine vanished into the distance, Andrea tried to get up from the floor. Her arms trembled, but she only endured the pain. She got to her feet and wobbled as she made her way to the door. Bang! She couldn’t keep herself up, causing her to crash toward the panel. Using the knob as her support, Andrea forced herself to have enough strength to open the door and not swing with the panel too much.

Who cared about her stuff? Who cared about her clothes? Andrea needed to escape this place before Mathias could catch her again. He had already taken her emergency money, and all that was left with her was her life. Unlike the others, this one… she couldn’t lose this one life she had.

“…it’s not locked…” Andrea mindlessly whispered as she opened the front door. She had no idea that their unit was simply impossible to be locked from the outside. The broken woman leaned along the walls to hug them on her way to the elevator lobby. When she saw the elevator, her eyes glittered. However, with someone coming up, she felt her entire body shake in terror.

“No… I can’t be seen by him again…” Andrea chose to retreat, but her body was simply too broken to move backward. She stumbled on her own feet, causing her to crash to the floor. 

However, she didn’t forget to crawl away at the fastest speed that she could muster. She got on her stomach and used her aching arms. Even her heart pounded at the beat of her nails on the flooring.

Ding! The elevator doors opened, and Andrea froze as the eyes from the car descended on her. It didn’t help that the footsteps took on large strides to get to her. When hands held onto her shoulders, she cried as she flailed like a dying fish out of the water, “Mathias, please, just let me go. I don’t want to die… I’m scared… please stop…!”

The grip of the hands didn’t get defeated by her words. They still tried to make Andrea lie on her back… or just simply take a look at their owner’s face. “Hey! How dare you mistake my hands as those of that excuse of a human for a boyfriend? Andy, are you still sane?”

Andrea stopped moving at the sound of his voice. She then turned to face Gryphon slowly as if in disbelief, the man picking her up from the floor. He even scoffed at the dirtiness of the clothes that he just ordered for her. “You look like you rolled across your own shit. I think you’re the one who needs to be in a hospital instead. Where is your unit?”

“No, no! Let’s go before he comes back!” Andrea grasped and pulled at the man’s clothes, even if they were custom-made for him by a high-end brand. She didn’t even care about smudging her blood on his clothes as she clung to him. “Gryph, we should leave. Oh, my God, let me leave this place!”

“Even if he returns, let me see if he dares take you away from my arms.” Gryphon didn’t care much about the horror in Andrea’s heart, but he was panicking inwardly about her state. What if Andrea suddenly died? No, he couldn’t let her die like she was the one who got run over that night.

When Gryphon stepped into the main lobby, the people coming in and leaving the apartment building could only freeze. Andrea looked like she was obviously battered, and the man carrying her… it was that man who walked out of that luxury car outside. Even the guard took another second to ask if he should call for anything. However, Gryphon only glanced at him with those dagger eyes. 

Parked just outside was a slick black Corvette Stingray in its newest model. When the driver saw his master carrying a half-dead miss in his arms, the driver quickly started the engine. He opened the door for the master and took a glance at the woman. The driver already knew that they needed to rush her to the hospital. Without spending another minute, the black Stingray rolled out of the driveway.

…

Andrea didn’t know how much time had passed, but when she woke up, she found herself in a private ward in a hospital. She was supposed to be in ICU, but she figured that the doctors thought that her condition was not that bad. It’s just that she didn’t want to wake up all alone. There was no way Mathias wouldn’t find her here if they used her photo and her name.

The woman moved her hands and felt her entire body. The bruising and the pain were there, but she felt less like dying. It was probably because she was not yet in imminent danger anymore. It’s just that… if Mathias found her, he might as well kill her.

Tears traveled down her face. The sting woke her up from her terror, and she felt her face. There were so many bandages running around as if her face was reconstructed. Andrea was shocked. “What did he do to me? Did… did Gryphon help himself with my case enough to change my face?”

“Are you stupid? The least I need for that is your consent. What kind of doctors do you think my mother’s hospital has?” Gryphon’s voice echoed from the side. When Andrea turned to find him, she figured that he came from the washroom. 

The man then sat on the edge of her bed. “That Mathias guy will be looking for you. I can’t hide you if he can still your face. The nurses only covered you. He can’t be that awful to start pulling on people’s bandages, can he be? If he is, I will break his hands myself.”

Andrea only took a look at him. The usual pompous tone of his voice was grounding her. If he offered his hand, she would have felt better. She then asked, “…how did you know where to find me?”

“I was waiting for you to leave the hotel. I followed you back to that apartment. It’s just that visitors were not allowed to come in without the permission of a tenant. I should have just come there with you.” Gryphon only crossed his arms on his chest and clicked his tongue. “I had to bribe someone to let me in. Of course, I also spotted a car registered to a Mathias Hall. 

“Andy…” He reached out to hold her hand as his tone changed. His eyes even started averting her gaze. “I didn’t know he was already beating you. If only I knew, I would have broken in from the roof. It’s not entirely my fault for lacking foresight, but I’m sorry I wasn’t there sooner.”

Andrea ended up stifling a laugh. “You sound stupid when you apologize…”