Page 45 of East (The Moral Compass 3)

“It would help if I knew who she was.” She tilts her head and smiles.

What is it with these fucking smiley people? Sarky bastards are what they are, and it’s not doing my temper any good.

“Her name is East O’Brien, or it might be McGarry. I don’t know which one you have her down as.”

My foot involuntarily taps as she keys in her name. Then, I hear the laughter coming from a room.

What the hell?

I throw open the door and stand in the doorway. The two girls stop laughing and look right at me. Kara is the first to break as she starts to giggle, and East quickly follows.

“Why the hell did you not tell me you had been moved?” I bark.

“I texted you,” Kara says, laughing slightly.

“I haven’t gotten any text messages.” I pull out my phone and show Kara. “Look! Nothing!” I growl.

She pulls out hers and shows me that she did try to text, but it had not gone through. I start to calm down when I look at East. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile since before she broke her arm and, hell, she is beautiful. I don’t think I will ever get over how stunning her eyes are.

“I thought you had died,” I say, walking further into the room and taking a seat next to the bed. I reach for her hand, but she moves it and scratches her ear.

“Why did you think that? I was okay when you left.”

“Because I didn’t know you had moved, and the room looked like someone had died. It was all clean and disinfected. I bloody shit myself. East, you only went in for pins in your arm and nearly died. How was I to know you hadn’t relapsed while I was gone?”

Kara clears her throat. “Well, now that you have more visitors, I’m going to go and pester North for a bit.”

Kara smiles and winks at East. Why does she keep winking? Does she have something wrong with her face?

“Thanks for staying with me, Kara. It’s good to have a true friend.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Kara says as she leaves, and I feel the air shift in the room like someone turned up the air conditioning unit.

“So, I see you’re feeling better, and they have taken you off all those machines.”

“Yeah. My scans have come back, and there is no damage. They’re not totally sure, but they think it was that worm thing. On its own, it’s not dangerous, but mixed with the amount of anaesthetic I had, it may have created a reaction. Have you found Margarite yet?”

“No, but I’m going to kill her when I do.”

“I don’t think she tried to kill me, Zed. She didn’t know I was going to fall and break my arm. I think she was maybe just trying to loosen us up a bit. We were at each other’s throats before the drinks arrived.”

“How do you remember that?”

“A lot of it came back earlier when I was just resting. It was weird. It was like I relived the night in slow motion. Very strange, but at least now I know roughly how it went down.”

“Care to enlighten me?” I ask.

So, she tells me the whole story. Well, her version of the story. How I begged her for sex, then because she said she would only have sex with the man she married. I decided it was me. So, we did.

I can’t bring myself to look at her. What an absolute arsehole I must have been. East tells me she was up for it just as much as I was, but at the end of the day, it was all my idea. I carried her to the chapel and sorted out all the paperwork. I even picked the rings. What an absolute twat.

I finally look up to see her watching me.

“Zed, it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. We can get it all sorted as soon as I am out of here. All right?”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s what you want, Zed. This was never part of your grand master plan. I was never part of the plan. This is not the right time for you, and I’m probably not the right woman either.” She looks so calm, so strong, but I can see her faltering.

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