Page 12 of Unwell
‘Larry,’ Nurse Nancy said, her eyes wet with tears. ‘Don’t attack him. You know what they’ll do to you.’
Even after hurting her, she was still trying to help him.
She wasn’t like the others.
The only angel amongst a sea of devils.
A tremble stole over Larry’s form as he and the doctor stared at one another, agonising tension making me forget my pain.
‘He killed Marge,’ Larry whimpered, his voice a contrast to his hulking, tense form.
‘I know. I’m sorry. But you don’t want to go downstairs, do you?’ Nancy reached out to touch Larry’s arm, flinching as he yanked it away.
‘The lightning?’ Larry’s words stumbled. He turned his head toward Nancy, his lower lip shaking. ‘Don’t let them use the lightning. Or the voices.’
It was like a spell lifted. Larry’s muscles unbunched, his shoulders sagging. Nancy sighed, and the tension abated.
Nancy pulled him against her, letting him cry a half-dozen sorrowfulMarges into her hair.
Too late, I saw Dr. Marney move.
Saw him plunge the syringe into Larry’s thigh.
The sedatives worked quickly. Larry barely stumbled before he was falling.
Down.
Down.
Until he landed heavily on Marge’s carcass, blood splattering the side of his dazed face.
‘David,’ she gasped.
‘Vermin,’ Dr. Marney spat, his eyes sliding over me like a venomous serpent. ‘Just like the rest of them.’
When he left, Nancy let out one choked sob before pulling her shoulders back and dusting her dress off. She pulled a clean handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed the rodent blood from Larry’s cheek.
My one ray of hope amongst the crumbling decay.
SEVEN
NANCY
Ginny’s hair slid through my fingers like spun silk. There wasn’t a knot left among the long, dirty-blonde strands, yet I didn’t stop.
I didn’t want to stop.
Cross-legged and stroking her stomach, she sat in front of me on her bed. If I ignored the sobbing from the bed across the room, I could almost imagine she was my daughter. Not that I was old enough to be her mother. Not unless I’d fallen pregnant as a preteen. But with her delicate figure and sweet countenance, I could imagine she younger.
Humming gently, I stroked the brush downward, losing myself in the way her hair delicately skimmedher shoulders. Shoulders that were too bony. Skin that was a little too sallow. A dusting of pale brown freckles that almost created a heart at the back of her neck. I grazed a thumb over the marks, the urge to brush my lips over them swarming me. A prickle darted along my spine as Ginny inhaled at my soft touch, and for a moment, the world reduced to the two of us.
The three of us.
‘Can you tie my ribbons?’ Ginny asked.
Pink ribbons lay on the bed next to her. An item that should have been confiscated. But Ginny wasn’t in a high risk ward, so no one had bothered to take them away. Let’s face it, one less patient was one less mouth to feed. Another bed to fill. I doubted Ginny’s family could be paying very much to house her at Wellard, no doubt Dr. Marney would let her hang herself with her ribbons for a sniff at a patient with an affluent family.
‘How do you want me to tie them?’ The ribbons tickled my palm as I picked them up, their ends cut into a perfect double point.
