<Yes>
<I’m on my way home from work. I’ll pick you up. Wait>
<Thanks. I’ll get the bus>
Tom cranes his neck. “Who’s that?”
“Alek.”
“Is he coming here?” he asks.
My phone alerts me. <Don’t be stupid. What’s his address?>
In my old life, a guy like Alek wouldn’t make the grade. I wouldn’t let people boss me around. Now, I’m in a life where the only person who’s the same as me is exactly that kind of guy.
“Looks like he is. I apologise in advance,” I say to Tom.
“What for?”
Grace laughs. “He’s a little…uptight.”
“That’s a polite way of describing him,” I say to Grace and smile.
She folds the lid of her laptop and stands. “I’m too tired for what might happen when he sees me, so I’m going to bed.”
“Night!” says Tom, his look still fixed on mine.
After an evening submerged in the weird, alternate world I never knew existed, learning about Reapers, demons and ghosts, the old, human part of me is scared. What if something or someone does want to kill me? Begrudgingly, I text Tom’s address to Alek and wait.
Chapter 18
The next morning, my ordinary day in my extraordinary life takes a step further into the unknown. I sneak upstairs to ICU before my shift on the pretence of collecting a file I accidentally left the day before. Chloe smiles in her knowing way, reinforcing she thinks I’m here as an excuse to see Finn. Luckily, Finn’s shift hasn’t started yet.
How do I ask if a patient has died? It’s not exactly a casual conversation, and I’ve debated my opening line on the subject for over an hour.
“Who’s the doctor I saw yesterday?” I ask Chloe. “Is he new to ICU?”
Chloe wrinkles her nose in the way people do when they’re trying to remember something. “New?”
I inhale and cringe at my next words. “The attractive one, youngish...”
“Oh! Do you mean Dr Granger? Tall, dark hair, eyes to drown in, body to kill for? He isn’t new, he’s often up here.” She grins. “Eye candy to brighten up the day.”
Funnily enough, I didn’t find him as attractive as Chloe does. Seems like I go for scruffy, arrogant vampires these days. The thought would amuse me if it wasn’t so stomach-churning.
“We get a lot of heart patients up here, so he’s often around.”
Perfect. “You’re right. I have a friend who knows someone in here, in Room 3,” I say. I feel nauseated talking about being here, the smell of the ward tripping memories back in. “He’s who I saw Dr Granger visiting yesterday.”
I glance behind at the board covered in unintelligible scribbles, the numbered ward beds with names and information scrawled next to them in marker pen. The space for Room 3 is empty, streaks of blue left on the whiteboard where the information has been rubbed out in preparation for the next patient.
Chloe glances at the board, too, and her troubled expression meets mine. My face must be more transparent than I realised. “People die here all the time, Rose,” she says softly. “I’m sorry if he was someone you knew.”
The nausea grips my stomach. Of course they do, I know this, but is someone helping? Tom’s words about Dark Reapers, Finn, Dr Granger... “I guess.” I gulp in air.
“Sorry, did you know the patient well?”
I shake my head, chewing inside my cheek; I need to get out. “Not at all,” I rasp. “Memories... you know.”
Stories about patients dying, the shock of evidence supporting Tom’s claims of people - possibly Finn - killing in the hospital mingle with the sounds and smells hitting my memories of my own time spent here.
Chloe crosses toward me and places a hand on my sleeve. “You should ask your supervisor to keep this ward off your rounds until you’re able to cope.”
“I’m okay, really.” The brightness of the ward fades as I attempt to stop the shadows dancing across my eyes. I tense all the muscles in my arms and legs, the way the last doctor told me would counteract the fainting.
“Rose, come on, I’ll get you some water.” Chloe guides me toward the nurses’ lunch room where I last sat with Finn; I stare at the floor, hoping it remains where it is and I don’t hit my head on the tiles anytime soon.
“Is she okay?” Finn’s voice causes more blood to plummet from my head. I want to cry and scream this isn’t fair; how I don’t want to be a pathetic girl who faints all the time. I want my life back.
Slumping onto a chair, I lean forward, gasping in air. If Finn comes close, I will faint. Chloe’s cool hand touches my arm and a glass of water appears beneath my curtain of hair hanging down. I take it but don’t think I can stomach water, so I set the glass on the floor.
“Is she okay?” repeats Finn.
“I think she needs to keep away from the ward,” I hear Chloe say in a low voice.