by Hatchett
“What do you mean ‘she can detect us’?” David asked accusingly.
Joshua’s anger wilted under the glare of the other four and he metaphorically kicked himself for losing his self-control.
“I don’t know for certain, but I get the impression she can detect us...or me, anyway. I don’t know how. The first couple of times I entered her room after she woke up, she just appeared confused, which is just what you would expect, but over the past couple of days she seems to have figured things out and knows exactly who I am. Also, her parents and friends have become particularly icy, as if she’s told them of her suspicions.”
“Are you sure you’re not being paranoid?” Mason asked.
“Quite possibly,” Joshua replied, “but perhaps one or all of you would like to meet her then you can decide for yourselves.”
He had now thrown down the gauntlet and would see if these weaklings found some courage to take up his challenge.
“Would you step out and wait for us?” Mason asked, but it was an order and not a request and they all knew it.
Joshua stood up, nodded and left the room, closing the door loudly behind him.
The Horsemen waited until Joshua had left the room.
“Well, what do you think?” Mason asked, once the door had been closed.
“I think that our Joshua thinks he’s more important than he actually is. Delusions of grandeur,” Declan replied. “He needs to be put in his place.”
“I wasn’t really talking about Joshua,” Mason added, “I was talking about…”
“The girl,” Declan interrupted. “Yes, I know what you meant, but I still wanted to comment on Joshua’s behaviour. As for the girl, I would have thought it was a simple enough issue to resolve and really didn’t need for all of us to meet in person. Just get that prat out there to transfer her to our private clinic and then we can see for ourselves. If she’s a danger, then we can arrange an accident. If she’s useful, we can take her over.”
“Anyone else got any thoughts?” Mason asked.
“Declan’s solution sounds fine to me,” David said. Archie just nodded his head in agreement.
“So be it,” Mason confirmed as he rose and walked towards the door to let Joshua back in.
Joshua stood a few feet away from the Horsemen as they sat, taking sips of their drinks. He wasn’t invited to sit down again so this would obviously be a short conversation.
“Joshua,” Mason began. “We’ve decided that you should move the girl to one of our clinics where we can observe her and keep her under control.”
“Fine, when do you want me to make the arrangements?” he replied
“No time like the present,” Mason suggested.
Joshua shrugged. “Fine by me.”
“Let me walk you out,” Mason offered, rising from his seat.
11
Jess was still awake and for some reason she had the feeling that time was running out. She looked around the room as if trying to find the answers written on the walls. Her father was still in the chair watching the TV, the volume muted.
“WE NEED TO LEAVE,” came out of the voice box.
Damian started and turned to look at Jess. She was staring back at him intently.
“Sorry Jess, what did you say?”
“I SAID WE NEED TO LEAVE. NOW.”
“We can’t just leave, you aren’t well enough and there’s no way the doctors will sign off on your release. If you’re in pain or something, I could go get a nurse or something?”
“WE’RE IN DANGER. MUST LEAVE.”
“Let me call your mother.”
“NO TIME.”
Damian stood up, looking between Jess and the door, torn as to what he should do. Jess clearly wasn’t fit enough to move or well enough to leave the hospital. Was he really becoming paranoid and starting to believe in Jess’s far-fetched delusions about Doctor Raven?
“YOU ARE NOT PARANOID AND I AM CERTAINLY NOT DELUSIONAL,” came from the voice box.
It took Damian a few seconds to realise that he had only been thinking these things, yet Jess had read his exact thoughts.
“How do you know what I was thinking?” he asked.
‘DOESN’T MATTER. WE NEED TO LEAVE.’ This time the voice box was silent, yet he heard her words as clear as day and in her own voice rather than the robotic sound of the voice box.
The fact that Jess had obviously read his mind and could speak to him without the voice box convinced Damian that there was something very special about her and that he needed to do as she wanted, unless of course he was completely losing it and would find himself in a padded cell when he woke up the next morning. Now was not the time to question what he was experiencing.
‘DON’T WORRY, YOU’RE SANE.’ Again, no voice box. Perhaps he was imaging things?
‘YOU’RE NOT.’
Damian quickly approached the bed and started removing the various tubes and wires attached to Jess. He made sure he left the leads for the heart monitor in place just in case it set off any alarms. He then quickly left the room and came back moments later pushing a hospital issue wheelchair.
Damian didn’t need to struggle to lift Jess and place her in the wheelchair. Her emaciated body was so light, and he could feel all her bones beneath her skin. He pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her snugly so that she wouldn’t fall out of the chair and then placed the voice box on her lap.
Damian took one last look around to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything then removed the final electrodes and leads from Jess’s body and quickly pushed the chair towards the corridor. The electrocardiograph or ECG flatlined immediately and the once intermittent beeping speeded up to provide one long continuous beep.
Damian pushed through the doorway and turned right towards the lifts around fifty feet further down the corridor. Before he had got even halfway, a group of nurses and doctors came rushing past heading in the direction of Jess’s room.
Damian speeded up and was almost running by the time he passed the nurses station. Thankfully there was no one behind the desk and he skidded to a halt next to the lifts, holding Jess’s shoulder to stop her from being thrown from the chair. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that her hands were gripping the arms of the seat.
Damian pressed the ‘call’ button repeatedly and waited for one of the three sets of doors to ‘ping’ open. He could feel sweat on his forehead and knew it wouldn’t be long before it started running down his face; he hadn’t done much exercise recently and his heart was thumping behind his ribcage. ‘Come on! Come on!’ he thought to himself, looking at the lift display to see when the next lift might appear. He was sure the doctors and nurses would soon be retracing their steps once they realised Jess’s room was empty and then the police would be called, and he’d be arrested for abduction.
‘DON’T PANIC, THE LIFT IS HERE,’ he heard Jess say, but again it didn’t come from the voice box. As she finished her sentence, the lift ‘pinged’ and the doors of the middle lift slowly opened. Damian checked it wasn’t heading upwards before pushing the wheelchair forwards, only to have to pull it back again to allow a couple of hospital staff to get out. Once they were out of the way Damian pushed forwards into the lift and quickly pressed the ‘G’ button before hitting the ‘close doors’ button. It seemed to take an eternity before the doors closed and the lift started moving down. He hadn’t heard any shouts and the alarm had not gone off so perhaps the staff were puzzled as to what had happened.
They reached the ground floor and once the doors had opened Damian quickly pushed forwards and headed towards the exit. Still no alarms.
There were a couple of security guards at the entrance and Damian was convinced they’d get the warning at any time and stop them dead in their tracks.
‘STOP WORRYING.’
As they approached the exit, the automatic doors swished open and Damian almost lunged through the gap into the crisp night air. The security guards had been talking and hadn’t given the
m a second glance; it wasn’t unusual to see people being wheeled about in wheelchairs around here.
Damian paused for a second to work out where he’d parked his car and unconsciously noted that it wasn’t raining but was a bit chilly. He automatically glanced at Jess to check she still had the blanket and hoped she wouldn’t be too cold in the flimsy hospital gown.
‘I’M FINE, CAN WE GO NOW?’
Damian was woken from his reverie and started pushing the wheelchair towards the parking area. He’d finally worked out where he’d left his car; he’d been here so many times and parked his car in so many different places that it hadn’t been easy. He quickened the pace and a couple of minutes later he drew up next to a silver Ford Mondeo. He used his key fob to unlock the doors, opened the back door and turned back to pick Jess up out of the wheelchair. ‘Thank God she wasn’t very heavy’ he thought to himself as he levered her into the back seat and put the safety belt around her. As he did so, he looked into her face and saw her looking back at him with the hint of a smile. He realised that she was managing to hold her head up, so she was definitely improving physically.
Damian smiled back, kissed Jess quickly on the forehead then stepped back and closed the door. He then quickly folded the wheelchair and threw it in the boot before running to get into the driver’s seat and start the car.
He reversed without much thought for anyone who might happen to be behind them and once he had sufficient space, put the car in gear and roared forwards towards the exit.
‘YOU DON’T NEED TO DRIVE FAST. STICK TO THE LIMIT OTHERWISE WE MIGHT BE NOTICED.’
Damian was still struggling with hearing Jess’s voice in his head, but he did as he was told. He thanked the hospital’s governors for putting in a ‘pay and display’ car park as it meant that he wouldn’t have to stop at any barrier and feed it a ticket.
As he was exiting the hospital, a black Mercedes with tinted windows came speeding past him. Damian hardly noticed but Jess was well aware of who was in the car.
“Made it,” she thought to herself.
12
Joshua sped into the hospital entrance and headed straight for his private parking spot. Just as well he hadn’t been stopped by the police on the way here as he didn’t think he’d stuck to the speed limit once, except for when he had to stop at junctions or traffic lights, of course.
The car had hardly stopped and turned off before he was out and running towards the entrance. He wasn’t sure why he was in such a rush, but he felt compelled to move quickly. When he’d left Mason’s house a short while ago, he had been taking his time and, if anything, was mightily pissed off that his night had been ruined and that he’d been sent on this errand. ‘Could’ve fucking waited until tomorrow,’ he thought to himself. But something was nagging at the back of his mind and he decided he needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. ‘Let’s just get this over and done with, then I can get back to doing something more interesting.’
As he entered the reception area, one of the lifts was just about to close its doors when Joshua thrust his arm into the gap to get them to re-open. He entered the lift and ignored the occupants despite one of them saying ‘Evening Dr Raven, didn’t expect you back tonight.’
Joshua checked which floor buttons had been lit and although the one he wanted was already lit, he pressed the number three again to make absolutely sure.
The lift stopped at the second floor to allow one person to leave and a member of staff to enter. By this time, Joshua was drumming his fingers on the side panel next to the doors and was getting thoroughly annoyed.
Finally, the doors opened on the third floor and Joshua bounded out of the lift towards the nurses’ station. There seemed to be a commotion going on and Joshua’s instincts told him that he was not going to like what he found.
“What’s going on?” he demanded as he reached the counter.
“Oh, Dr Raven, I didn’t know you were working tonight,” said a young tired-looking nurse as she looked up.
“Never mind that! What’s going on?” he demanded.
“We’re not exactly sure,” the nurse replied, a bit flustered. “We can’t find the patient in Room West Five.”
“What do you mean ‘you can’t find her’?” Joshua almost shouted. He had a really bad feeling about this.
“About ten to fifteen minutes ago her ECG flatlined but when the crash team went to her room it was empty and all the leads, wires and electrodes were dangling down onto the floor. We’ve been searching the hospital trying to find her ever since.”
“She can hardly walk around!” Joshua retorted scathingly. “Has anyone checked the CCTV?”
“Not yet,” the nurse replied.
“Then do it!” Joshua snarled.
The nurse unconsciously lent back in her seat. She’s never seen Dr Raven so annoyed. Usually he was such a gentle, kind man, who always had time for everyone. However, she could understand that he wouldn’t be best pleased with one of his patients going missing. “Right away,” she replied and turned to her monitor and started bashing in commands on her keyboard.
Joshua strode down the corridor to Room West Five and entered to find a couple of nurses and technicians checking the equipment and generally looking a bit confused. ‘Waste of time’, he thought to himself as he turned and went back to the nurses’ station.
“Anything?” he asked, leaning over the counter to try and get a look at the screen.
“It looks like her father wheeled her out,” she replied, turning the screen so Joshua could see it.
“Can you check where they went?”
The nurse clicked a few buttons and numerous camera feeds appeared on the screen.
“These are all the cameras around the lifts,” she explained.
They waited patiently, looking at the various feeds when the lift doors opened or closed.
“There they are!” Joshua exclaimed, pointing to an image in the bottom right corner of the screen. “Can you enlarge it?”
The nurse clicked a few more buttons and the camera from the reception area filled the screen. She pressed a couple more buttons and additional camera feeds from the reception area popped up.
“There they go. Heading for the exit,” she noted unnecessarily as Joshua could see that for himself.
“Can you track them outside?”
“I should be able to,” the nurse replied.
A few more clicks on the keyboard brought up the external cameras, but as it was dark outside, the pictures weren’t clear. They could see Jess being wheeled in the direction of the car park but couldn’t tell which car they went to. However, it didn’t matter. Traffic at the hospital was almost non-existent at this time of night and it only took a few minutes before a silver Ford Mondeo entered the picture, heading towards the exit.
“Can you pause it?” Joshua asked.
The nurse complied and Joshua searched for a pen and ‘post-it’ note before writing down the car registration number.
“Can you change the feed, so it shows the exit?”
A few seconds later the view on the screen changed and showed the Mondeo leaving the hospital grounds just as a black Mercedes drove in. ‘Fuck. Just missed them!’ Joshua thought to himself.
“Thank you, Jenny,” Joshua said, looking at the nurse’s name-tag. “You’ve been very helpful,” he said in a conciliatory manner and a smile on his face. “At least she hasn’t been abducted by strangers!”
Jenny smiled back. She could understand the Doctor losing it a bit when he thought his patient might have been kidnapped. At least she’d gone home with her father.
“Could you look up the parent’s address for me?” Joshua asked, slowly realising that the young nurse next to him was actually quite pretty and seemed to have a decent figure.
“No problem,” the nurse replied, clicking away once again. She took the ‘post-it’ from the doctor and wrote down an address for a place called Worplesdon which was near Guildford, before handing it back.<
br />
Joshua’s hand rubbed the nurse’s for the briefest moment as he took the slip back.
“Perhaps I could buy you a drink sometime to apologise for my behaviour?” Joshua suggested with his film-star smile at full blast.
“You don’t have to do that Doctor, I understand the pressure you are under,” the nurse replied.
“Oh, but I insist,” Joshua replied. “In the meantime, could you call the police and let them know what’s happened. I suspect they’ll want to send someone around to their home right away to check that everything is alright, and you can tell them that I’m on my way.”
13
Damian pulled into his small driveway and was met by Di as he got out of the car.
He’d called her from his mobile en route, and although he’d had some difficulty convincing her about what had happened and what Jess wanted to do, Di had eventually accepted the situation and done as she was asked.
Damian helped her load the car with the items she’d prepared then locked the house up and jumped back into the car.
Di had climbed into the back seat to be next to Jess and she looked closely at her daughter to check she was alright.
‘I’M FINE MUM,’ Jess projected as she looked at her mother.
Although Di had sort of been prepared for it, it was still a shock. To hear her lovely daughter’s voice in her head was like a dream come true…or at least a dream.
Damian started the car and reversed out of the drive and pulled away. “Did you speak to John and Paula?” he asked.
“Yes, they’re a bit sceptical but they’re waiting for us at their place,” Di replied.
“Do you have their postcode? I have no idea where they live.”
Di read out the postcode for a place near West Clandon on the other side of Guildford, less than ten miles away. Damian put it into the satnav alternating between looking where he was going and looking at the screen. He hit ‘Start Guidance’ and followed the instructions. For the first time in the last hour he felt relieved and relatively calm.
