Page 63 of Beck

Andrew went feral, but it didn’t last long. Within seconds, he sprinted away, lost in the growing crowd.

“I’ve called the police,” someone said to them. “They’re on their way.”

“Fuck, Beck! Are you okay?” Kole cradled his hand, and Beck tried not to move it too much.

“Yeah,” he said, although he could hear the pain in his own voice. “Good job it’s my left hand and not my right. At least I can still tattoo. Though it’s going to make it a lot harder.”

“Bloody hell,” Kole said, glaring in the direction of where Andrew disappeared. “He’s even more unhinged than I thought.”

“And a stalker to boot.”

Kole scraped his teeth along his bottom lip. “Yeah, I guess only time will tell.”

“You’ll have to be more careful now. He’s pissed. He’ll be up for revenge.”

“We’ll both have to be careful.” Kole leaned closer to the knife. “Does it hurt a lot?”

“Just a bit.” Beck played it down, but it hurt like a fucker.

Sirens wailed towards them, and a police car and paramedic car pulled up beside them. Beck could honestly say he’d had enough of the police by that point, but he could hardly tell them to piss off. He would press charges against Andrew—if they ever found him—and hopefully, it would give them extra to add onto whatever stalking charges they could pin on him.

They explained everything to an officer while the paramedic tended to his hand. When Beck interrupted to ask about taking the knife out, the paramedic shook her head.

“It would be better to keep it in place until you get to the hospital. They will probably have a surgeon look at it before deciding how to remove it. They won’t want to do more damage than necessary.” So, she bandaged it up, with the knife still reaching for the sky. “I’ll take you in.” She turned to the officer. “You’ll have to finish getting his statement at the hospital.”

They settled into the back of the paramedic’s car after securing their shopping bags in the back. It was a quiet ride. The paramedic, Stacy, tried to make conversation, but neither of them was forthcoming. He couldn’t speak for Kole, but Beck was tired. Bone-tired. Sick and tired. Just bloody, fucking exhausted from it all, and he didn’t want to take it out on anyone.

When they finally arrived, they were sent directly into a room, with one bed and one chair, neither looking very comfortable. Beck settled onto the bed and Kole took the chair and still they didn’t speak very much. Kole must have got the message that he didn’t want to talk because he went silent, but the look he kept giving him spoke volumes. Beck knew he was being an asshole, but he couldn’t help it. He was pissed at the world.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for a doctor to arrive—or several—and they had the bandages off his hand, in complete gory detail, being examined by several people.

“We definitely need to get some tests done on this to see where the knife is.”

“In my hand?” Beck said.

“Beck…” Kole warned.

The doctor laughed, his mouth and eyes crinkling, showing that he laughed a lot in life. “Yes, it is definitely in your hand. We need to just make sure it’s not touching or severed anything vital before we try to remove it, so we need to take some pictures to do that. Once we’ve done that, we can get it taken out all being well.”

“How long is this likely to take?” Beck asked.

“We’ll call down to get the test done now. It shouldn’t be too long.”

The doctors disappeared, and Beck exhaled, long and loud. “In other words, we’re going to be here for hours.”

“We’ll be here for as long as necessary to ensure that your hand is in the best condition possible when we leave,” Kole said, leaning forward and pointing a finger in Beck’s face. “And you’ll grin and bear it. Understood?”

Beck tried to ignore what that tone did to him, and instead, just stared at the ceiling.

“Understood?” Kole’s tone brooked no argument.

“Understood,” Beck murmured, closing his eyes.

He would give the doctors their due, it didn’t take them long to get him down for a test. It could have been an X-ray, or it could have been something else, he wasn’t sure because, with the knife in his hand, he wasn’t certain what test could be done without causing problems. But he did what Kole had asked of him. He grinned at the right points; he bore it as much as he could, and by the time they were back in the room, there were already some people waiting to discuss the next steps. The doctor who had spoken previously to him, who was called Dr Stevens, stepped closer and held up the photo. It looked like an X-ray, but Beck still wasn’t certain.

“This,” Dr Stevens explained, “is your lucky day. The knife has missed everything vital and has cleared the most important parts. It will be a fairly easy surgery to remove it, and although I know you’ll want it to just be pulled out now, I don’t recommend that because taking it out that way could cause problems. The slightest wrong movement as we take it out could cause lasting damage. So, we are going to get a room prepped for you and get his knife out as quickly as possible.”

“Thank you, Dr Stevens,” Kole said. “We appreciate how quickly you’re doing this for us.”

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