Through Your Eyes — Chapter 55

SEAN'S POV

I followed Patrick to the woods when he did not come back after about fifteen minutes. I got worried that his enemies might have already tracked him in this remote part of the country. One of the reasons why I relocated the occupants of this place was because I did not want any trouble coming my way. I did not mind that I had no neighbors, as long as I had Patrick and his wife.

To my horror, I saw Red crouching on the ground with her head buried on top of her pulled-up knees. I got even more horrified when she looked up with bloodshot eyes. I was afraid that Patrick might have suspected her as a spy and hurt her.

"She opened the lid of the Bronca breeders," Patrick informed me, his voice quivering in fear. "Sean, check her out."

I freaked out when I saw that reddish mark of a Bronca bite in her cheek. Just a while ago, Patrick even boasted about how lethal its bite was. He tried it on the animals, and all of them died after a few hours.

My emotion broke out like an unrestrainable water surge, and I cried out hard. I felt I am useless and inefficient for being unable to protect Red. I didn't only expose her from the illness; I also allowed her to get bitten by those cultured Bronca bugs.

"Why the hell are you here?" I could even still remember how I gritted my teeth in anger upon realizing that her life was then hanging in a thread.

As if responding negatively to my fears, Red suddenly limped in my arms. I raised my voice in a wail, telling her those assurances that I wanted only her to be my wife and no one else. I assured her I was willing to marry her as soon as she could move on from Eric. And I told her I wouldn't want to live anymore if she would leave me.

Time clicked by so slowly as I waited for Patrick to finish disinfecting his knife. I wanted to drain the blood that accumulated the bite area, hoping that a part of the venom would ooze out from the wound. As soon as I made a small slit in her cheek, I immediately suck the wound, thinking that my mouth had more power to extract the venom under her skin before it would seep into the bloodstream.

"Sean! Do you want to die?" roared Patrick as he saw me sucking the wound. He knew that what I did was fatal. Although the gastric juices would neutralize a part of the venom, a part of it would still create irreversible damages to my system. It could even kill me just as those experimental deers Patrick tested.

I was still bawling my eyes out when Dina approached us, bringing a pitcher of concoction from what she called as miracle herbs.

"Wake her up, Sean! She needs to drink this. I still greatly believe in ancient medicine."

I cheered up a little as her words suggested a light of hope. However, no matter how  I tried to wake Red up, she would no longer open her eyes.

Patrick snapped her fingers and bolted into their house. When he was back, he was already carrying a big box.

"Sean, I remember I still have medical kits here," Patrick said without looking up, his hands were busy pulling out packs of medical supplies. I held my breath, making a silent prayer that Patrick may be successful in whatever he was planning.

"Here!" Patrick's eyes lit up as he waved a pack containing a coiled rubber tube.

"This is called a nasogastric tube. We often used this in the lab before."

He searched for more packs until he asked me to prop up Red into a sitting position.

"I'm going to insert this tube through her nose then down to her stomach. In this way, we could give her this tea," Patrick said, glancing at the pitcher of tea that Dina brought. He then turned to Dina.

"Pour Sean a glass of tea. He is also in danger as much as his wife."

My heart jumped to hear the word 'wife' coming from Patrick's mouth. I reached out for the glass and finished the content in a continuous gulp.

Patrick then inserted the tube into Red's nose. Drops of tears escaped from my eyes as I imagined the discomfort, but Red seemed to cooperate. Patrick succeeded in one attempt.

Patrick was once the head scientist of the National Institute of Virology until Mr. Ric Abella became the president of the country. The people appointed him after they hailed him as a hero after saving the country from another case of a virus outbreak. He was able to formulate an antiviral formula that saved the country from further death tolls. Due to the president's plot to kill him, he ran away and hid in this wood.

I watched and admired Patrick silently at how he was still able to retain his skills after his fall. Due to anxiety, he forgot everything about medical stuff for many years until he started growing bugs again. I thought it was just for his pastime activity, or he was formulating drugs out of those Bronca bugs. But to my horror, he grew those bugs fo his revenge.

"Sean, admit her to a hospital. She needs to be hydrated, and if she wouldn't wake up after many hours, she has to undergo emergency hemodialysis to cleanse out her blood."

I called up Philip to send the plane back to my place. And in a few hours, Red was admitted to the Intensive Care and Isolation Unit.

I waited outside and peeped on the glass window while the medical team got busy. I saw the doctors and nurses running around and pulling out different kinds of apparatus. Some of them attended to her, hooking an intravenous line. Someone else hooked her to the electrodes of a cardiac monitor, and another one to a nasal cannula.

All of a sudden, the monitor beeped, and red numbers blinked. My eyes flew wide as I read it, and I held my breath.

60/40 mmHg      148 bpm