Although my conscious slowly regained, I couldn't make out where this place was. It was dark and barren to me, surrounded by stacks of 40ft containers flanking in an orderly manner. Either we were nearby a port or inside freight facilities.

Nick ushered me to his dark coloured McLaren 675LT Spider idling in front of what presumably be a warehouse before letting me in. He wasn't pushing, while I wasn't resisting. I lounged into the passenger's bucket seat, similar to Milla's 911 while he reclined my seat backwards to reduce the stresses on my back before strapping the seat belt for me. He shut my door and entered the driver's seat.

As we exited the compound, I carefully turned to my left to see a white-coloured signboard 'ShipGoUK.com' outside this property with its address printed on it: Bennett Street, Ardwick.

He didn't say where he was taking me to but then again, I didn't ask. The pain was still throbbing despite the anesthetics he gave me, made me feel drowsy. The entire journey to the unknown was silent except for LANY's song 'Valentine's Day' played on his audio system followed by another LANY's 'Malibu Nights'.

I never thought he could be so melancholic.

We arrived at Manchester Royal Infirmary's A&E approximately five minutes later, where he parked his car in one of the disabled spaces in reverse. He unbuckled his seat belt, got up and opened my door. He tried to help me out of the vehicle, but I refused and insisted to send me home. He ignored my request, placing one of his arms around my back with the other under my upper hamstring, to boost me up, making me stand.

Once I was out, he shut the door behind me and urged me to walk a short distance to the entrance ahead of us. I declined, ordering him to send me back home once again. He refused and lifted me under his arms, carried me all the way into the waiting hall.

We were questioned by a staff nurse at the registration over my battered state, to which Nick and I automatically responded, "She had a fall" and "I was beaten up" at the same time.

Then, an awkward silence emerged between us that Nick quickly rectified our contradicting statements in a casual manner, "My men got drunk, beat her up by mistake and she fell down a flight of staircase."

"Oh," the nurse mouthed. Hearing this, she slowly edged away from us and resume her work.

"Why were you at QPark, Zahida?" Nick tilted his head to my side.

"The name is ZJ," I retorted.

"But Zahida is your name, isn't it?"

"Only a few can call me that."

"Thank you, I'm honored to have that privilege." Nick grinned cynically. "Why were you there, anyway?"

"I was doing stupid things my instinct told me not to."

"What was your instinct telling you to do?"

"Stay home and countdown to daylight savings," I answered flatly.

"Counting down to daylight savings," he echoed. "It is an important mission, but you abandoned it because you preferred to go to your friend's aid, for what?"

I kept quiet, too pained to respond, too angry to answer.

He sighed and said softly to my ear, "What Abs did to you back there was the reason I spared your life today. Don't go chasing down something that's futile. Get yourself protected. Be like me."

At that point of time, my anger towards Nick receded until there was none. I looked down at his exposed arms; the tattoos were more visible than before. The images I thought were entirely gruesome, turned out to be beautiful close-up.

There were a few other images I hadn't seen before. From the middle section of his left forearm down to elbow joint, a beautiful galaxy filling in as a canvas with shades of purple and gray with an image of a topless woman exposing her back, covering her bum with drapes on. Below her, an image of a red dragon surrounded with pink white sakura petals scattered in a spiral motion. The fine lines and careful detailing of the dragon's scales, claws, fangs and its ferocious facial features imprinted on his skin looked real, as though the majestic creature was alive.

I flitted my eyes towards his right arm, ogling at a couple of David Austin Roses with its thorny twigs encircled around the arm with a fishhook attached at the end. The roses petals were gradient combination of orange and red hue with bright red in the center.

There were also other images and designs printed on his skin, like triad symbol, skulls, calligraphy and geometric patterns that were intricately drawn to fill in spaces in between. Above all, my curiosity caught up with another image of a woman on his upper left arm, but her face was covered by his sleeve, revealing only her neck and shoulder.

Nick caught me studying his arms, so I recoiled to my position and darted my eyes elsewhere.

The doctor's initial reaction was perturbed when he saw the number of bruises, gashes and injuries I had. Then, he proceeded to check my vital signs, assessed for any bone fractures, cleaned up the blood before treating my wounds with surgical glue.

I was lucky enough not to have any fractured bones despite the fall, he said. He concluded that my internal organs were undamaged, and my injuries were mostly wounds, shock and exhaustion which weren't severe enough for me to be hospitalised. After patched me up, he advised that I get proper rest at home and to obtain my medication from the pharmacy based on the prescriptions.