Harker blinked in confusion at this woman laying on the snow. What did she just say….
Did she just call him Edmund?
But why? He doesn't understand what's happening at all...
He went to kneel by her side to see if she was still alive. And she was. She's only sleeping with all the bullets inside her body.
So she's really not a normal human. But she's not regenerating either. The blood was clotting, but that's it. It wasn't a fast pace, and she continued to bleed and bleed.
They suddenly heard people from afar. They seemed to be a native tribe living nearby that heard the gunshots. Harker cursed, and picked her up.
"Let's go. We can't let them see her like this. We still have to ask them what they know about this weather, and if they have seen Victoria and her men." Harker told them.
They nodded. The group moved farther away from the village, and found a pretty secure area covered by the high pine trees.
"She's still not awake. I want to try something." Harker thought.
She's not like the zombies. but she didn't die from fatal damage. Still, her stats were the same as a human, even her endurance.
Could it be that she passed out because she could still feel pain? And yet a bullet wound on her heart did not make it stop...
Because it was already not beating.
Harker pushed his fingers inside her wounds and pulled out the bullet inside. How could she maintain her temperature and not appear suspicious if her heart was never beating? It doesn't make sense….
As soon as he pulled out all of the bullets, Professor Seward's eyes opened and she suddenly started coughing.
"Hah…. Hah… That took you long enough….." She gasped for air.
The wounds she had seemed to have been covered in her thick blood with high platelet count. It closed up, but it's not really healed, per se. It was just like putting a tape over a hole in a water bottle to keep it from spilling.
"Why did you stab me?" Harker furrowed his brows.
"Because…. Cough…." More of that dark, murky blood splattered on the white ground. "Because I know you wouldn't die, as you never did. You're my Prince's jester, after all."
Prince's jester was what Beatrice calls Benedick in return for that Lady Disdain. Harker wore a scowl at this.
"I'm not Edmund. I only even heard that name from you the other night. The one where you had been crying." Harker said. "My name is Harker Jones. I'm your student, don't get it twisted."
"But Edmund—"
"Harker."
"You…. Then how are you still alive? Are you not like me?" She asked. "I thought Victoria also brought you back to life, that's why you're looking for her. That's why you and I were…. Since the first day we met, you and I…."
"What?" Harker asked.
But deep down, he knows what she was talking about.
When they first met in his freshman year, there was something that made them feel already casual with each other. Like they had been friends for so long.
But that's just people clicking well with certain types. It doesn't mean that he's her lover from back in the 18th century, because he knows for sure that he was Harker Jones, son of Howard and Josephine Jones, born and raised in New York City.
Professor Seward seemed to look confused for a moment, then that confusion turned into disappointment. She stood up but staggered. Harker instinctively tried to support her, but she pushed him back.
"See? You're doing it again. If you're not my Edmund, then why act exactly like him... You even look like him... I don't understand..."
The bodyguards also had no idea what was going on, and felt like it wasn't their place to pry on this certain matter. So they noticeably kept their distance to give them some space to settle this awkward situation.
"Look…. How about we become honest with each other, okay? I'll explain my thing and you explain yours. We can't just keep making assumptions about each other like this." Harker said.
"I'll go first. Once I tell you the truth, I'm sure you'll realize that I am NOT Edmund."
Harker had then explained about his Shapeshifting ability, and the circumstances of why he's looking for Victoria. He had also now revealed how him being gay was a misunderstanding due to this ability. and that he had a girlfriend already named Mina who's a mermaid.
He explained all of it in great detail just so Professor Seward won't find any reason to assert that he's Edmund again. In the end, it looked like she's having a hard time digesting everything.
"Mermaids and demons, huh….. Hah. Why do I still find it hard to believe those despite being abnormal myself…. I keep hoping that you're just making excuses to keep this elaborate ruse, this prank you're playing on me as Edmund."
Harker sighed. "That's what we call denial, Prof. It's easier to believe that to keep your hopes up that your lover is still alive. But I'm not him."
"I-I know…. I just…."
She stared into space for a while, as if not knowing where to go from there. She looked so lost, the darkness within her eyes expanding.
Harker doesn't know where to go from here, either. He didn't want to make her devastated, but here they were. And it's all because they let these misunderstandings stay for too long instead of confronting each other.
Alejandro suddenly came. "Ahem. Mr. Jones, I'm sorry to interrupt but…. The device is picking up something that's coming closer."
"Coming closer?" Harker took a look at it.
As the radial censor circled around, it picked up some green spots. Harker doesn't know what those spots could mean. Electromagnetic fields? The possible GPS source?
But they just kept on increasing, with the largest one getting nearer and nearer in their current location.
Suddenly, they heard the clip-clopping sounds of a horse. An Algonquian man whistled at them from the back of the horse.
"You! Newcomers!" He called out. "If you don't want to die, find some place to hide before they find you!"
Harker yelled back. "Who will find us?"
They suddenly heard a howling sound, but it didn't sound like a wolf's or a coyote's. It sounded guttural and strange, almost like a demonic shriek.
His face darkened. "Flesh eaters. I would find shelter before dusk, if I were you, and stay there until morning comes….."
"Unless you have a death wish and want to be feasted on by the wendigos."
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺