Chapter 31 Her Unexpected Saviour
Quisito’s men who were present at the zoo hours before he and Kate had arrived came out of their positions and began searching for her along with him.
He had to ensure her safety, but at the same time he wanted to make her feel comfortable in public, so he had ordered his men to stay concealed and only come out in case of an attack. But this wasn’t an attack; It was a much worse emergency because she could easily get kidnapped while she wasn’t under his shadow.
It was impossible to escape the keen vision of his trained men and yet somehow, she managed to disappear. He was getting frustrated every passing second because he was standing next to her the whole time and had no clue when she swapped places with the girl who wore the identical outfit.
While searching for her next to a fountain, his gut told him to look to his left side and when he did, his eyes found her standing inside a cage, staring down at something intently.
“She is unbelievable...” he ran a hand down his face in exasperation and let out an irritated sigh before taking out his phone and informing his men to call off the search because he had found her. After putting back his phone he marched towards the cage, his jaw set in anger.
Inside the enclosure, Kate took a tentative step back, causing a twig beneath her feet to snap, alerting the creature even more.
‘Stop moving you idiot!’
Her consciousness warned her. Locking eyes with the reptile was like playing the Russian roulette, one look away and you were dead. However, she forced her eyes out of the cage, in some hope for help and her gaze settled on Quisito, who was nearing the cage with an enraged face. He looked like he was about to burst into flames any second.
A second later she saw how his anger morphed into fear and concern, when he saw what she was up against, for the first time.
By the time he reached the entrance of the cage, most of the zookeepers were embarked on the mission to distract the crocodile, but the creature paid no attention to them. Kate just stood there frozen with fear, as she heard Quisito yelling at the staffs for an explanation on how she had gotten into the cage in the first place. When the staff replied that they had accidentally left the cage open while trying to feed it, her heart fell to the pit of her stomach.
She was going to be its lunch!
Quisito couldn’t even blame the staff completely because who in their right mind would walk into a cage, and that too at a zoo?
She had made a mistake but he couldn’t just stand there and watch her being torn apart by the reptile, so he tried to make his way into the cage but the staffs held him back.
“Sir...please...you’ll startle the creature; It might harm her” One of the male staff pleaded as the zookeepers struggled to keep Quisito from barging into the cage. Crocodiles are incredibly fast and unpredictable animals and one wrong move could put her life in serious danger.
With every second that passed, the enormous creature kept on crawling, closing the distance between itself and its unlucky prey. It was the best time for Chris to come and save her as a knight in shining armor; That is, if he ever existed in real life.
“Y-you are a g..g-good b-boy aren’t you? P..p..please d..don’t eat me...” Kate mumbled, but it came out as a broken hoarse whisper, because her throat was clogged up due to fear.
She remembered the documentary she saw on discovery channel about Crocodiles and when they said that these reptiles were giants, they weren’t kidding!
The Crocodile was massive and if it wants to, then it can easily drag her by her leg into the pond and do the death roll. She would bleed a lot and would be impaired for life. She had never appreciated having a fully functioning body till then and she was sad that she didn’t even get to say proper goodbye to her limbs.
Even as she stared in the face of death, she could picturize how the front page of the next day’s newspaper would look if she doesn’t make it out alive. There will be a huge heading in the front page, colored in red.
‘Russian Mafia Underboss’s Daughter Dies by Crocodile Attack’
And if it was up to Quisito to write the title, it would go something like:
‘Stupidity Kills Girl at the Zoo’
The crocodile closed in a bit more and she was certain of her demise. It blinked its predatory eyes one last time, as if to thank God for the wonderful meal. It opened the jaws wide and lurched forward, aiming at her paralyzed form.
It was the end, or....so she thought. A powerful arm wrapped around Kate and pulled her back, a millisecond before its pointy teeth could get her. She initially thought that it was the angel of death, who had come to take away her soul. But it wasn’t the death angel, it wasn’t even Chris. It was her real-life knight in shining armor, Don Quisito.
He quickly picked her up by pressing her back against his chest and got out of the cage, even before the reptile could even understand what happened. He did it with such an expertise as if he had done it a thousand times before.
Immediately after the rescue, the staff closed the gates, preventing the hungry animal from crawling out after its lost ‘food’.
After they reached outside the cage, he lowered her to the ground and turned her to him. He began asking frantic questions in a hurry, but all she could hear was incoherent murmurs because of the blood roaring in her ears.
Out of all options, he grabbed her upper arms and gave a violent shake.
“ARE YOU OKAY?” finally one of his questions struck her out of her trance.
“Y..yes..” Kate managed to say, but was still pretty shaken up from the experience.
She heard him exhale a sigh of relief at her response.
Slowly, everything that happened played in her mind again and again, like a reel. He saved her. Putting his own life on the line, he pulled her out from the jaws of death. He could have obeyed the zookeepers and stayed outside and let the creature seal her fate, but he came for her. Only for her.
Unfathomable gratitude filled her and without thinking twice she reached forward and hugged Quisito, like her life depended on him. How could he be so self-less?
Moisture coated her eyes as her nose turned scarlet.
“Thank you...” she sniffed against his chest. He didn’t return the embrace but let her stay like that for a few seconds. Then, putting hands on her shoulders, he separated her from him.
“Let’s go home” he grabbed her wrist in a tight grip and dragged her out, as the people around them watched with marveled expression. Even they thought that she was surely going to die.
The anger that disappeared earlier had returned to him and she could sense it with every cell of her being.
Kate rubbed her wrists to ease the pain from his vice like grip when he rounded the car after he sat her on the passenger seat. This time, she didn’t forget to put on her seatbelt.
Getting behind the wheel, he plugged in the key brutally and turned it. The engine screeched to life. He drove the car into the main road, but said nothing.
He was quiet.
Dangerously quiet.
Adding to her misery he was driving menacingly fast, as though trying to transfer all his anger into racing the car through the streets. His chest heaved up and down rapidly as he gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white.
She held on to the door handle and the seat for her dear life while he took sharp turns and twists, not bothering to acknowledge the fact that she was being tossed around in her seat despite the seatbelt.
She was mentally counting the seconds until he spoke next. She did that to calm herself down and distract herself from the fear that kept on building in her chest due to his harsh driving.
384...385....386...387...388....( Kate counting inside her head)
“REALLY KATE? THE CROCODILE ENCLOSURE?!” he roared.
There it was!
“THAT WAS AN INNOCENT CREATURE AND WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO....HUH? SHOOT IT FOR YOUR STUPIDITY?” he growled and she winced at his tone. He was being too loud in a small space.
“Saw an open cage.... walked right in....SERIOUSLY KATE, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”
“I’m sorry I-I wasn’t thinking...” she whispered weakly.
“I KNOW YOU WEREN’T THINKING. IT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION DAMMIT!!!” he smacked the steering wheel so hard that she thought it might unhinge from its joint.