"Vincent-"
Rand pounced on Vincent.
Frightened that his hands and feet were so uncoordinated, he fell on the ground without any obstacles, leaving a severe bruise on his knee that lasted for half a month, but at this moment Rand even Did not feel any pain. At this moment, there was no fear or resistance to Vincent in his heart.
He knelt beside Vincent and put his head on his knees.
Vincent's body was shaking very slightly, maybe spasming, his chest was pumping but Rand put his fingers in front of his nose and realized he wasn't breathing at all.
Rand had no idea what was going on with Vincent, and shook Vincent's head back in an attempt to get his breathing back to normal, but to no avail - while he was using the loudest sound he could ever make in his life. calling out to people outside.
He just wanted to blow up the damn soundproof wall.
Vincent looked particularly hideous because of the distortion of his facial muscles, and his face turned cyan. Rand stared at him intently.
Intense fear cut through his nerves like lightning.
No, don't do it, Vincent will die.
Vincent will die.
Rand pressed on Vincent's ribs, pinched his nose and put his head next to his lizard-skin dry, cold lips, giving him artificial respiration.
"Vincent, hold on, just hold on!"
…
It all seemed so long to Rand, it was like "a century has passed" as people say.
He heard someone smash through the door and rush in, and he was rudely pulled away from Vincent.
A champagne-haired woman stood beside Vincent like a lioness protecting her cubs.
"Bring me a stretcher! I need to put him on the plane, we have medical equipment!"
Her voice sounded far away.
Rand was thrown on the corner of the sofa, sitting on the cold carpet, watching the woman grab the injection from her pocket and insert it into Vincent's artery, as she rudely poured the golden liquid into the white in the body of a man.
There was a long, hoarse gasp in Vincent's chest like a beast, and then he started coughing violently.
He could finally breathe.
It was not until this moment that the scene that seemed to be pressing the slow forward button in front of Rand suddenly became normal.
Rand stared bloodlessly at the champagne-haired woman in front of him... Consciousness slowly recovered.
Oh, it's Caroline.
She was Caroline and the man on the ground was Vincent.
The pain that almost knocked Rand out like a snail finally reached his body at this time. Rand felt his back hurt like hell, and his knees were hot and painful as if they were broken. He just hit the corner of the sofa, and as a sofa in a military airport office, it was terribly hard.
At this time, the staff transported a streamlined stretcher with special space wheels to the office, and two white nurses rushed in and transferred Vincent from the ground to the stretcher in the most professional way.
Rand took a deep breath and forced himself to stand up from the ground, although the pain from the bruise caused a black mist to float across his eyes instantly. Then he forcibly dragged his steps behind Caroline... The latter was instructing others to send Vincent to his private jet.
Rand didn't know what was wrong with Vinson, but judging from Caroline's series of pointers to those people, they seemed to have already known about Vinson's problem and prepared medical equipment with unconventional configurations there— Just like a Saudi Arabian oil tycoon who always has a medical team and two heart donors on his private jet when he knows he has a heart attack.
Caroline's steps were fast and hasty, and her face was full of a solemnity that scared Rand. She didn't find Rand who was barely following at the end of the covered bridge.
"Sorry, Rand."
She turned her head to Rand.
"what?"
Rand didn't understand that Caroline's drooping eyelids blocked her vision, making it impossible to see her true mind.
"I mean, you can go back, and I'll send someone to take you back."
"I… "
Rand stared at Caroline with wide eyes in surprise.
"I know you're worried about Vincent, but," Caroline bit her lip, she took a deep breath as if to control herself, and then she spoke to her in a false voice like a piece of plastic. Rand continued, "Is this all right? Rand... Now Vincent needs a more calm state, there are some problems with his body. I need to send him back to Washington in the shortest possible time, he needs some special Treatment."
"It's not a small problem, right?" Rand said, and he unexpectedly found that his voice had become unfamiliar, it sounded like it came from underwater, "If so, Caroline, I Think I should stay by his side..."
"But you don't want to do it at all!"
…
Rand looked at Caroline, and the strange emptiness that seemed to throw his entire soul out of the scene appeared again. He never imagined that Caroline would interrupt him in such a rude way, she looked at him so strangely.
She stroked her hair, raised her eyebrows, and spoke to Rand.
"God, I hate this... But I have to say, Rand, it's not going to be any use when you get on the plane, is it? And, actually, everyone can see that you're not all that happy to talk to. Get along with Vincent, no, you don't need to rush to deny it, anyone with eyes can see it, including me, including Vincent, so that's why I'm here to stop you, Vincent's current physical condition ...not suitable for you, he is an excitable person after all. So, you just need to go home and I will let you know if there is any news, I promise."
Caroline's gaze was temperatureless. She was annoyed by Vincent's incident, but she had to suppress it deeply.
When listening to her say this, Rand suddenly noticed this.
He opened his mouth, trying to refute it, but found all the voices stuck in his throat like dry cotton.
Someone stuck his head out of the operating room and made a gesture to Caroline that he needed to move the covered bridge out of the way—the plane was about to take off.
Caroline gave Rand one last deep look, and she didn't say anything else but walked directly into the airport.
The silver-white ones were closed before Rand's eyes.
Some took Lander off the covered bridge and stuffed him into a luxurious stretched Lincoln.
Inside the long and narrow carriage was a coffee table with a black crystal top—where Rand's favorite things were placed, coffee, water, chocolate, and red velvet biscuits—a detail that Vincent and those around Vincent would never forget.
There is the scent of orchids in the air.
Rand's body sank deep into the leather seat, yet he felt like a walking dead without any ability to think.
The pain in the back and legs seemed to be on fire, but there was something in Rand's heart that was more unbearable than the scorching pain.
He had absolutely no idea why things were the way they were.
The dark, long Lincoln was ghostly carrying the man named Rand Sievers down the road under a dark purple sky with a pale moon above it.
No one answered that person's question.
At the same time, in another place, Rand was seven thousand meters above his head. Vincent is having a dream.
It had been a long time since he had dreamed, but when the big cream-colored French colonial house reappeared in his world, he was horrified to realize that he was back there again.
Back to sixteen years ago.
He looked down at his hands, a pair of white and slender hands, he was wearing a school uniform, with a black schoolbag under his arms.
Even without looking at him, he knew there was some gift stuffed there—chocolates, cookies, or greeting cards—that he took comfort in at that high private high school, and everyone knew about it.
His younger brother was dragged from his house and never came back.
The sun was about to set, and the sun had turned red on the edge of the distant mountains, and over the head of Vincent sixteen years ago, darkness had begun to spread.
He could hear his heart whimpering, but he walked completely uncontrollably down the rosemary-planted path into the house.
A woman was sitting in the living room waiting for him.
She has black curly hair and emerald green eyes, pale skin, so similar to Rand that Vincent flinches reflexively at the sight of her face. She used to be beautiful, and of course she is beautiful now, at least in Vincent's dream—even if her cheeks were sunken and haggard as if she were going to die the next day.
The room was arranged by her.
Floors are polished brown stained maple, wall skirts are tonal planks, and on the upper half of the walls is pink wallpaper with golden patterns of vines and birds. The living room is large, with hand-woven rugs and antique furniture the Sivers love. A chandelier casts a yellowish glow above the living room.
All this should be warm and happy.
The blood on the carpet, however, smelled of rust so thick it was almost suffocating.
"Hi, Vincent, you're back."
The woman turned her head and looked at Vincent with a smile.
Vincent walked over step by step.
His father's corpse unfolded in his sight little by little.
The man who had hugged him that morning and told him that everything would be alright fell on his back, his stomach brutally cut open, and his ugly guts scattered like broken berries.
He kept his eyes open the whole time, staring above him with that kind of unbelievable amazement.
"Sorry, I seem to have screwed myself up."
The woman said weakly to Vincent, she bent down and drew the silver knife from the man's abdomen.
Her hands were completely dyed red, looking like long red lace gloves.
She put that hand on Vincent's shoulder, forcing him to do it on the sofa - with his father's head at his feet.
The woman sat down opposite Vincent.
There was even a fruit bowl on the coffee table - Vincent couldn't help but wonder why there was a fruit bowl - his mind went blank as he looked at the fruit.
Until the hoarse and illusory voice of the woman forced him to turn his eyes to her.
Don't look, don't look-
The wailing in his heart was so strong that if there was a real beast, it might have turned into a real beast and ripped open his chest and escaped.
But in this dream, he still looked at the woman uncontrollably.
"Vincent, why don't you like Rand?" she began to cry, tears splattering away from her face.
"I can't take it anymore, Vincent, I'm sorry I did all this."
She was sobbing.
"... However, you should really be optimistic about him, you are a brother, you should protect Rand, you should protect him, why can't you do this?"
She covered her face with her hands, and suddenly raised her head.
Vincent had to look at the pair of green eyes that had completely fallen into madness.
She, that woman, Vincent's mother, Mrs. Severs - she gave Vincent a hopeless smile that he would never see again in the rest of his life, then took the silver knife, precisely and crisply. Ripped his carotid artery.
Under the pumping pressure of the heart, blood spurted from the wound and bathed Vincent's entire body in an instant.
He tried to dodge, but at that moment his body was completely immobile.
He could only sit there, letting the hot, bright red fountain of blood spray into every inch of his skin, every capillary hole and every fold of his soul.
"You should protect him."
Mrs. Sivers fell vertically off the sofa, her head hitting Vincent's toes.
Her lips opened and closed slightly, and she could no longer make any sound, but Vincent knew what she was going to say.
"You should protect Rand."
…