Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 183: Deja Vu

Chapter 183: Deja Vu

Bin An Sha looked at me strangely for a moment before he went back to working through the next mat. "You do know that it doesn’t work that way, right?" he asked.

I chuckled at his cautious tone. "I am more than aware that heterochromia is based on genetics, just like every other eye color. But it was what the doctors told my mother, and she went with it. There was no other explanation as to why I had two brown eyes before the accident and only one after."

Rip shared a look at me. He knew that something brutal would have had to happen to this body in order for me to transmigrate into it, and now he was finally getting the whole story.

But if I changed the genetic makeup of this body, was I still just borrowing it?

It was a question I never asked before, but I guess that I might have taken over the role of the old Wang Tian Mu; we were two different people. There went the theory of alternative universes.

"Well, whatever happened, I love your blue eye. I don’t think I have ever seen a color like it before. The inside of your iris, closest to the pupil, is almost a navy blue, and it keeps getting lighter as it expands. Like a reverse ombre. It’s even more fascinating that your brown eye doesn’t do the same. Instead, it looks like the sun with your iris in the center. It’s like I can see the ray shooting out from the very center," explained Bin An Sha as I hid my face in Rip’s shoulder.

"I can’t say that I have ever heard them described that way before," I admitted, my cheeks bright red. I liked how he saw my eyes. Like they were something otherworldly.

But I was still keeping my contact lens on while out in public. I didn’t need anyone to know that I was the Healer, not if I didn’t want to heal anymore.

There was a lull in the conversation as Bin An Sha continued to work through my hair. I was pretty sure that he was healing me as he did it; I couldn’t feel the dull pain anymore. But I was worried that he would be in pain by taking mine.

I was about to ask him if that was the case with him, but once again, I could feel my eyelids becoming heavier and heavier.

It was so easy to fall asleep in Rip’s arms while Bin An Sha combed my hair, and I decided not to fight it. If I wanted to get stronger, the first thing I needed to do was get sleep.

-----

It was a moment of déjà vu as I watched Bai Long Qiang, Si Dong, Cheng Bo Jing, and Ye Yao Zu strapped bullet-proof vests to their bodies and checked their guns in the middle of Bin An Sha’s living room.

"I think I am missing something important," I said, wrapping my arms around my body in a vain attempt to prevent a panic attack I could feel coming. Apparently, I did have some PTSD when it came to specific events.

The last time I watched Bai Long Qiang prepare for a ’training mission,’ he disappeared off the face of the Earth, and I was abducted.

"Wu Bai Hee suggested that we form a team and go out to look for supplies. In return, we could keep 40% of the food, and the rest would go toward lodgings," explained Cheng Bo Jing as he cleaned the different parts in front of him.

I knew enough to know that they were part of a rifle of some kind, the pieces being too big to belong to a handgun, but that was about it. While I could shoot just fine, I wasn’t as good at dismantling and putting the gun back together. I usually left cleaning them to the guys.

"I see," I said with a nod of my head. "Have fun?" I ended that statement with a question because I really didn’t know what I was supposed to say... story of my life lately.

I didn’t want them to go. But the last time I asked Bai Long Qiang to stay, it didn’t make a difference; he still went anyway, leaving me by myself.

My chest started to feel tight as my eyes jumped between the men getting ready. "Do you have to go?" The words were forced out of me before I could even take them back, and all four men dropped what they were doing to turn and look at me. In fact, all seven men in the living room turned and made me their sole focus.

"No, they don’t," assured Bin An Sha as he leaned relaxed on the couch, his legs crossed at the knees and one of his arms draped over the back of it. "I already have a crew coming to start taking out walls, making the condo bigger for everyone, and no one is going to deny me food."

"We can’t rely on you to provide everything," pointed out Bai Long Qiang. I think that was one of the sticking points for him, the idea that he had to rely on someone else to provide for us. It was like he wasn’t an alpha male if he didn’t do everything himself.

He even hated taking money from me before to pay the bills or even to buy food. I had a great paying job, and he still insisted that he pay for everything.

It was like it was hardwired into him.

"It’s more than just that," interjected Cheng Bo Jing as he went back to putting together his gun. "We need information. We are too vulnerable just sitting here, not knowing what is going on in the outside world. It might be okay for the residents of the Sanctuary to stick their heads in the sand and not know, but we can’t be that ignorant."

"And that is why you have to leave?" I asked. I mean, I understood where he was coming from. The guy literally lived and breathed information before the end of the world, so not having the same sources would be painful for him.

But at least I knew that inside these walls, we were safe and alive. I couldn’t take it if something happened to them... again.

"Rip, Bin An Sha, and I are going to stay here with you," assured Fan Teng Fei, wrapping his arms around me from behind. I jumped a bit, not hearing him come close, but then I relaxed against his chest. "We are never going to leave you alone again," he continued, whispering in my ear. "If we had known what you told Bai Long Qiang that day, at least one of us would have come back and stayed with you. But there are more of us now, so nothing is going to happen."