No Love For The Villain - Chapter 26
His eyes seemed cold, yet also tender. Sierra thought she had gone mad. Madmen saw the world as they wished it to be.
Mirages of an oasis appeared only before the thirsty. Those driven mad by thirst would bury their heads even in the arid earth and swallow sand until it choked their throats.
His cool, leather-like scent entered with each breath she drew. She inhaled deeply his cold fragrance that seemed to clear her constricted chest. Her throat burned as if she had painfully swallowed grains of sand.
Finding relief in his solid embrace, she felt anxious at the same time. It felt as if she would end up clinging to him.
Don’t go.
A shudder ran through her as an impulse, tearing through the gaps of her weakened reason, surged up. Sierra bit her lip.
She pushed against his chest.
“Get out. Go. Go…”
Sierra spoke with the last of her strength. Eli silently accepted her pushing hands. Until her strength faded and her hands slid away helplessly.
As Sierra, with no energy left even to hold up her head, exhaled a weary breath and slumped, he slowly laid her down on the bed.
With blurred vision, Sierra felt a hand brushing back her hair. The cool hand swept over her cheek, where sweat-dampened strands of hair were stuck.
Sierra drifted in and out of a shallow sleep. Her entire body felt as if it were burning, preventing her from falling deeply asleep. Trapped in the fever, Sierra dreamed.
Her father had returned.
‘Sierra.’
Sierra, who had been sitting alone at the Christmas table, turned around. She rose from her seat and ran to her father.
Her father embraced his long-awaited daughter. Sierra felt relief.
It’s not a dream. Father is alive. He came back, just as he promised.
Her eyes grew hot.
I had a scary dream, Father. A truly frightening dream. You were shot, and… so, no matter how long I waited, you never came back. Father, you have to stay here. That place is too dangerous. Don’t go.
But the more she spoke, a terrifying realization slowly dawned upon her. The ten years of waiting for a father who never came were far too vivid. It felt as if it weren’t a dream…
The strength gradually ebbed from Sierra’s arms as she hugged her father. The moment a foreboding feeling struck her, her father’s chest area turned red. It was full of holes. Like a corpse that had been shot.
When she stepped back, the body, with no support, collapsed to the floor.
Ah, it’s a nightmare.
She woke with a heart-shattering realization.
With unfocused eyes, Sierra looked at the empty space beside her.
“Don’t go. Don’t go…”
Words that had been stuck in her throat poured out hotly. Clutching the bedsheet, she desperately tried to piece together the dream that had already shattered into fragments.
Her parched, cracking throat felt as if it were tearing apart from the inside with every word she uttered.
A figure approached her blurred vision. The person who stopped by her side was like a shadow from the dream she had so fiercely tried to reassemble.
“Don’t go…” Sierra reached out a hand, pleading pitifully. Then, an answer came.
“I’m not going.”
It was a cold voice, not her father’s. But like someone unable to let go of a futile dream, Sierra grabbed his sleeve.
Eli was holding a glass of water. When he brought the glass to her lips, Sierra turned her head away because the rim touching her lips was so cold. The undrunk water wet her lips and dripped down her chin.
“Father…” Sierra murmured plaintively.
At that moment, a hand gripping the nape of her neck tightened, choking her. Sierra could no longer make a sound. The tip of his thumb stroked down the throat held in his grip.
“Am I your father?”
When she closed and opened her eyes, her vision gradually cleared. The man’s face vividly occupied her retina, preventing her from piecing together the dream of her father any longer. Trapped in the hand gripping her neck, Sierra flailed. Tears welled up as she struggled to breathe.
“You should call the right name. It’s unfair if I do all the work and your father gets all the affection.”
His voice, cold as a blade, carved away the lingering image of her father. It stripped away, layer by layer, the loneliness of waiting for someone who never came and the helplessness of being unable to do anything.
Sierra looked directly at the man left in the place where her dream had been laid bare.
“Eli…”
The grip on her neck loosened. Her breath opened up. Fingertips pressing firmly on her lower lip parted her mouth. Eli brought the glass of water, half of which she had already spilled, to his own lips.
Eli, holding water in his mouth, covered her lips with his. He let the water flow into Sierra’s mouth.
As the water pushed into her throat, which had opened to breathe, Sierra felt like she was choking. She had no choice but to swallow all the water he was giving her. The gulping sounds were frantic, like someone dying of thirst.
Their joined lips slowly parted. Water she hadn’t fully swallowed dripped down the corner of her mouth.
“Don’t spill it. Swallow it all.”
At the firm command, Sierra clenched her lips shut. Her jaw moved stiffly. She even swallowed the water pooled in her mouth
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