Page 28 of Unwell
I dragged her limp weight halfway back toward the building before my arms shook too badly to keep going. My uniform stuck to my skin with sweat, my back screaming with tension. I couldn’t leave her.
‘We need to get her to a hospital,’ I told Dr. Marney when he appeared at the edge of the grounds, summoned by a member of staff.
‘No, we don’t.’
Marney didn’t even crouch down to inspect her, just prodded her side with the toe of his shoe, rolling her just enough to see her face.
‘Surface wounds. She’ll live.’
‘She’s hurt. Unresponsive. What if someone molested her in the woods?’ I hadn’t forgotten her claims about Elijah and the cum on her thighs.
Marney’s lip curled, and he let out a sharp laugh. ‘Wouldn’t be the last time. Look at her. She’s a whore.’
His words made bile rise in my throat. He didn’t care about what happened to her. But why did I expect anything different? He didn’t want her taken to ahospital because no one left Wellard.Not alive. Not whole.
Patients survived there, until they didn’t.
Not for the first time, I regretted ever agreeing to work here. Robert had gotten me the job. I’ve hated it every day since. I stayed for the patients, and even that felt like a pathetic lie. My ‘help’ amounted to patching them up after the doctors used them for experimentation. Or fun. It wasn’t enough.
It was never enough.
Ginny stirred, a moan catching in her throat as I tried to lift her. My knees buckled.
I panted, half holding Ginny against me as Marney watched. Neither he, nor the other staff made a move to help me.
Larry appeared, towering in the doorway. His face crumpled as he saw Ginny.
‘Nurse Nancy,’ he said, his words holding that childlike tone they so often did.
‘Help me?’ I puffed. Without a word he crossed the ground and stooped to lift her up in his massive arms. She hung there like an unloved ragdoll, left in the Asylum to be forgotten by anyone who had once loved her. Larry’s huge hands dwarfed her spindly limbs. She was slight in all but her swollen stomach. Larry held her like she was made of spun glass, more care in his touch than I’d seen from any of the staff.
‘She’s hurt,’ he whispered. Tears stained his eyes, and I feared he’d lose control.
‘It’ll be okay,’ I said, placing a hand on his arm andturning him toward the building. ‘Just help me get her upstairs. She’ll be right as rain.’
A sniffle made Larry’s shoulders rise.
I swallowed hard, guiding him gently as he carried Ginny back inside, my chest aching with the weight of it all.
SEVENTEEN
GINNY
Warm water soothed my skin with each wipe of the cloth. Herbal soap seeping into the cuts on my legs and arms as I bit down on my lip. It stung, but Nurse Nancy’s soft murmurings of praise after each pass of the cloth kept me from falling apart.
I shivered, not from the cold chill in the room, but from the kindness in Nancy’s touch.
‘Who did this, Ginny?’ she asked. While her voice was quiet, it was edged with anger.
‘Elijah,’ I whispered. Hardly ready to admit it to myself. It wasn’t the first time Elijah had hurt me, but it had been a long time since he pinned me beneath him with cruelty. Usually our rutting was filled with kindwords and pleasant touches. He only hurt me when I made him mad.
The cloth stilled as Nancy paused, water drops landing loudly on the bath’s surface in the gap between my knees. ‘In the asylum?’
I nodded, tears burning at the raw corners of my eyes.
‘How did he get in?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was the truth. I’d asked Elijah, but instead of answering he’d bruised the tops of my arms. Nancy’s brow furrowed as if I were already in trouble.
