Page 87 of Revive
Alle raised her head already smiling as she sought Spook out, only for the joy to fall from her face in an instance. “Why the fuck are you here?”
“Hello, Princess.” Marshall approached the bed with his arms open for a hug.
Nope. Just no. “Get out. Get away from me!”
Alarmed, the nurse raced around the bed as Alle attempted to climb out on the side opposite to her grinning prick of a brother.
“What are you doing? You can’t just leap up!”
“Then get him the fuck away from me. Where’s my boyfriend? Where’s Spook?” She turned her head towards Marshall. “If you’ve done something to him—.”
An alarm blared beside her, and she realised the nurse had hit the emergency call button. Three other members of staff descended on her bed space. “Get him away from me,” she told them. “I’m not getting back in this bed until he’s gone.”
Marsh slouched, hands in pockets, the same annoyingly smug grin on his face as usual. “It’s all right, mate, I’ll go,” he said to the chap in the security vest. “Women, eh? Always over dramatic, especially when they’re addled. Probably still hazy about what’s happened to her. No, no, I’m coming. Don’t want to distress her.” He flashed her a grin. “Later, Princess.” After blowing her a kiss, he strolled off toward the double doors at the end of the ward. “We’re close you know,” she could hear him telling the guard. “Oh, mind if I check in at the nurses’ station? The doc said she’d be fine to be discharged later today. I could do with knowing what time to be back.”
The fuck! In no version of existence was she leaving here with him. “Where’s my phone? Where are my things? I want to leave.”
“You need to get back into bed,” the nurse insisted.
“Then give me my things?”
One of them opened the cupboard next to her bed, but there was nothing inside, leaving her gasping in outrage, uncertain whether Marshall had stolen her phone, or it had never made it in here with her. If he’d taken it… If he’d pulled the same stunt he’d pulled before, she’d fucking murder him and chop him into so many tiny pieces they’d never find him. “Who else has been to see me?” she demanded of the nurse who’d done her obs. “Has there been another man here? Blond, long hair, really good looking.”
The woman shook her head. “Sorry love, my shift only started forty minutes ago, but I can try and find out for you. Come along, be an angel for me, eh? Get back into bed.”
***
Alle suffered through several rounds of observations and a great deal of indignity, proving she could eat, and pee and poop, and walk without toppling over, all done in a gown that was only held closed at the back by two blooming bows. She wanted actual clothing and a decent cup of tea. Most of all, she wanted Spook. There had to be a reason he wasn’t here, and thinking over what that reason might be set her head pounding and made all her other aches twice as painful. As the day dawdled on, her impatience grew, and the more her head thumped. The one consolation was that she remained blessedly bereft of Marshall’s company.
“I want to be discharged,” she told the nurse, after begging for a cup of tea and being brought water instead.
“You’ll have to discuss that with the doctor. They’ll be along to see you in a while. And the physio will probably want a word with you.”
Except she was tired of sitting around waiting for people who didn’t ever seem to appear. Didn’t they need the bed for someone else? Someone who might actually benefit from being here? Wasn’t there a national bed shortage? Gah, hospital had to be the least relaxing place on the planet!
Alle was contemplating getting up and just walking out when a porter arrived with a wheelchair. “Ride for Ms Hutton,” he said. “I’m here to take you to your assessment.”
“Assessment? With the doctor? Am I finally being allowed to go home?”
“Dunno chick, they don’t tell me any more than I need to know, which is the start and end points.” He helped her transfer to the chair and then wheeled her backwards down the corridor. At least she was no longer attached to a drip stand, which made the whole moving about thing easier. The horrible intravenous tap thing was still in the back of her hand though. What was the etiquette regarding removing it herself?
The porter deposited her in a boxy windowless room full of plastic trays stuffed with medical equipment and a blue examination couch with a line of blue roll paper down the centre of it. She’d been waiting there temporarily alone for a couple of minutes, picking at the edge of the dressing holding the canula in place when the door opened and a uniformed police officer entered, along with another woman she initially presumed to be a doctor, but swifty recategorized as a plainclothes officer.
Her brows furrowed. This wasn’t good. Cops wanting to talk to her could only mean trouble. Jesus, if Marshall had hurt Spook in any way…
“Are we okay to have a few words?”
She nodded. As if she had a choice when she’d been unceremoniously wheeled in here and abandoned, wearing what felt like an oversized handkerchief.
They introduced themselves. The plainclothes officer dragged over the chair from the desk, while the other perched on the end of the couch.
“What’s this about exactly?”
“We’d just like to go over what happened last night with you. Wondered if you could clarify a few details for us, and maybe clear up a few mysteries about some of your injuries.”
“I have mysterious injuries?”
The two women exchanged looks.
