Destined to Feel

by Indigo Bloome

  I’m having difficulty assimilating Salina’s instructions, when I’m the one who is normally in charge. Unfortunately, there is not too much I can add as everything she has said makes sense. So I keep my mouth closed until we pull up at the tiny hospital.

  ‘Is that the ambulance?’

  ‘Yes, it looks like it.’

  ‘Good, hopefully they are all still here.’ She picks up her phone. Obviously, Martin is on speed dial.

  ‘Martin. Malek here. I’m with Quinn and Webster at Bled Hospital. Blake was sighted being loaded into an ambulance outside Kranj and we believe she is inside. We’re heading in for surveillance and will send an update ASAP.’

  Efficient on the phone as well, obviously.

  ‘Ready?’ she asks. ‘Remember you are here as a patient, Quinn. Quite convenient that you had your fall under these circumstances.’ I don’t like being considered a patient or convenient by someone I barely know. It’s not like I’m looking for sympathy, but I doubt I would get it from her anyway. We both nod as she pulls up to the hospital entrance to let us out and then quickly parks the car in visitor parking. I don’t need to pretend to limp to the front desk, as the pain is steadily mounting in my knee and hip. The nurse speaks a little English as we attempt to explain my injuries. When she leaves her desk to come around to inspect my leg, Salina quietly slips by into the shadows of the corridor.

  I try to explain that I’m a doctor as she escorts me into a small curtained room and indicates for me to sit down in the chair. She insists on finding the locum doctor and wanders off, giving Sam the opportunity to check the rooms on the other side of the hospital.

  A friendly young Indian doctor eventually introduces himself and he speaks good English. I tell him I was hiking and that I’m happy to give myself stitches if he can provide the equipment.

  He looks hesitant until I pull out my medical card from my wallet and then he smiles. ‘Okay, doctor, good. Very good.’ He shakes my hand before telling the nurse to supply me with what I need. Thankfully, the procedures at this hospital don’t seem to be as strict as in the States or Australia. When she returns with the equipment I get to work and as the doctor is still loitering around I decide to find out what I can.

  ‘Do you have many people working on this shift?’ It is the least busy hospital I’ve encountered for many years.

  ‘Only myself and two nurses. We are never too busy here. There is another intern who rosters on occasionally from Ljubljana and one specialist doctor who sometimes brings his own patients, but otherwise it is quiet most of the time.’

  ‘And the ambulance that recently arrived, is everything okay?’

  He looks distracted as he fills in the paperwork. ‘Ambulance? Oh yes, that is the specialist doctor I was just talking about, one of his patients just arrived. Very serious. It’s not looking so good.’

  I almost pierce the needle straight into my wound at his words. ‘What? What do you mean, not looking so good?’ I feel myself break into a sweat and I can’t keep the angst out of my voice.

  He flips over the paper on his board. ‘You know how it is, Doctor…’ He looks down again at his paperwork. ‘…Quinn. You win some, you lose some.’

  Fucking hell, what does that mean? He can’t possibly be talking about Alexa, can he? Surely he’s mistaken. I try to gather myself together and finish these bloody stitches as quickly as I can.

  ‘What do you mean lose some? Was there an accident?’

  ‘I’m afraid I cannot discuss our patients’ details with you. I imagine you will be very sore in a few hours. You’re bruising now, so it will only get worse by tomorrow. These will help.’ He hands me some painkillers for my injuries and effectively dismisses our previous conversation. I know he can’t disclose any information but not knowing is killing me.

  Sam wanders into the room, shaking his head slightly.

  ‘Thanks.’ Bruising and physical pain is the least of my worries. It will be nothing compared to the pain if I were to lose AB. Can’t think like that! Where the hell is Salina? She should be back by now.

  I’m sorted, so Sam and I thank them for their assistance and head reluctantly back to the car, in the hope that Salina has more concrete news of Alex’s whereabouts. I remind myself that she was perfectly physically well at the chateau. At least that’s what it looked like through my binoculars. What if I missed something? Nothing could have happened to her between then and now, could it? If it has, they fucking did something to her, and someone will pay. Anger and fear once again surge through my veins and my heart pounds heavily in my chest as I’m forced to wait impatiently in the car.

  Salina’s brisk efficiency has disappeared as she walks slowly out the hospital doors towards our car. My heart immediately jumps into my throat and I feel sick to the core.

  Something is very, very wrong. My mind is sheathed in dread as she slumps into the driver’s seat and closes the door. ‘It’s not good.’

  ‘What’s not good? What happened?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Blake was taken to the hospital for a standard procedure. Something went wrong and her body has been taken to the hospital morgue.’

  ‘What?’ These words don’t make sense through the roaring in my ears. ‘That’s impossible.

  What fucking standard procedure? It’s a lie, they are lying to you, there is no way she is in the morgue.’ Salina runs her fingers through her hair, looking distraught. Sam is slumped in the backseat, his face ashen.

  I can’t stand this a moment longer, I can’t breathe in the confines of this car, I need to get out.

  But as I open the door, Salina grabs my arm. ‘Quinn, stop. It’s true, I saw it with my own eyes.’

  ‘What, what did you see?’

  ‘This!’

  She shoves her phone in front of me and I stare in disbelief at the image searing into my retinas.

  ‘What is it, Jeremy?’ Sam asks urgently. ‘Give me the damn phone.’ Salina takes it from my hands and passes it back to Sam.

  I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. I can’t move.

  My brain and heart are frozen with fear.

  Alexandra is dead.

  There is no way this can be fucking true. I saw her alive at the chateau. Melancholic, haunted, but alive and breathing. This is impossible, my worst nightmare a reality. After all these years we finally get together, sort ourselves out, recognise the love for each other which has meandered in our subconscious for decades, ever since the first day we laid eyes on each other. No fucking way. It can’t be, it won’t be. I won’t let it. I pound my fists, trying to smash the dashboard, smash anything. My heart feels like it has been cruelly sliced in two, then four, and the cuts are rapidly multiplying as each second passes.

  Oh my god, the kids, Elizabeth and Jordan. And Robert. What the fuck have I done? I’ve ruined a family. A family I was coming to terms with loving as my own. My body feels like a paralysed deadweight as I feel myself going into shock. This is bad… This is as bad as when Michael died, no, it’s worse. This time it’s absolutely all my fault. I’m vaguely aware of Sam leaving the car. Salina grabs the keys and follows Sam back into the hospital. This is all occurring around me, but is happening as if I’m not part of the scene. My body is anchored to the seat with chains of anguish and guilt.

  I don’t know how long I have been sitting alone in the M5. Time doesn’t seem to exist in my new reality — a reality without Alex. I can’t escape the image of her face in my mind. A face that no longer registers movement or light, only death and darkness. The black body bag encasing her beautiful form that was so vitally alive and breathing just a short time ago. My hands shake and my body trembles. I’m unaware of the hot tears streaming down my face and pooling in my shirt.

  My body is physically reacting to my shock and grief without my knowledge, while my heart feels like every bit of love is being squeezed out of it only to be replaced by extreme pain. I thought I knew and understood the pain of loss, but this is an entirely different experience —
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  sheer agony. My emotions are strangling me from the inside out, suffocating the breath in my lungs.

  Those bastards have murdered one of the most beautiful women on earth, my best friend and my lover. My god, I swear they will pay for it. Suddenly hate and anger fuel a rush of adrenaline through my veins and I am momentarily overridden from these treacherous emotions. It takes every bit of control to stop myself smashing a fist through the car window and I have no doubt the slashing pain of the glass would be nothing compared to the anguish in my heart.

  Instead, I jump out of the car and run straight into the hospital, the stitches in my knee hampering my usual pace and stride. I slam through the doors, turn right past reception and charge down some stairs that I’m hoping will lead to the morgue. I need to see her. To touch her face, her skin, and gently close the lids of her haunted eyes. Every muscle is tense as I swing through some double doors to see Sam and Salina standing before me, both running their hands through their hair in exasperation as they speak to the nurse. The atmosphere is charged.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ I yell. ‘Where is Alexa’s body?’ I search the empty room and anxiously yank at one of the drawers in search of the body bag I witnessed in the photo. ‘Tell me, where is she?’ I’m so hysterical I could shake the nurse to make her respond. Thankfully, Samuel’s voice distracts me just in time.

  ‘She’s not here, Jeremy. This is where Salina saw Alexandra’s body, but apparently she’s been moved.’ I shift my stare toward Salina.

  ‘She was right here, I saw her with my own eyes, I swear to you.’ She sounds almost as distraught as Sam, and she doesn’t even know Alexa.

  ‘I know, I know, your photo more than proved that.’ I can’t take the anger and despair out of my voice. I turn to the nurse. ‘Where has she been taken?’ I scream at her. ‘We must know.

  Now!’

  The nurse almost jumps out of her skin before nervously extracting herself from the room.

  ‘What the hell is going on here? This just doesn’t make sense.’ While we are alone, I attempt to open the drawers again, but they are all locked.

  The young, English-speaking doctor comes to talk to us. ‘You shouldn’t be in here, this is for hospital staff only.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about your rules and procedures, doctor. There was a woman in here, Dr Alexandra Blake…’ My voice catches as I say her name. ‘We know she was here, or at least her body was and now it has suddenly vanished into thin air. We need to know what happened.’

  ‘Please, please come out of here, you will get me into a lot of trouble. Please.’ His eyes almost beg us to follow his arm, outstretched toward the door. ‘Follow me quietly and I’ll tell you what I can.’

  Reluctantly, the three of us walk out the swinging doors, down the corridor and follow him into a small room.

  ‘You should never have gone in there, it is not allowed.’

  ‘I don’t care what’s allowed and what’s not. Where is her body?’

  ‘Her body has been moved.’

  All patience is lost as I grab him by his shirt collar and shove him against the wall. ‘Tell us where she has been taken.’ I’m seething with anger when Salina steps in between us and forces me to release him. I slam my fist into the wall in frustration even though I know my tactics are unnecessarily and uncharacteristically brutal.

  ‘Doctor,’ she says in a calm and controlled voice and I can’t deny I’m a little pleased she still has him firmly pinned against the wall. She’s not big, but she’s not to be messed with. ‘It is imperative you tell us where the body was moved. Dr Blake is an Australian citizen who has recently been abducted and now it seems, murdered, in your country. We have reinforcements on their way and unless you want to spend the next 24 hours in custody answering questions, I suggest you tell us immediately where the body was taken.’ She cleverly shifts her blazer so he can see her gun holster. This seems to prove a more effective strategy.

  ‘She has been taken the morgue in Villach Hospital, across the border. That is where Dr Votrubec will conduct a preliminary autopsy to confirm the cause of death. We don’t have the facilities in this hospital. That is all I know,’ he concludes, eyeing each of us nervously.

  ‘Thank you, doctor, we appreciate your cooperation.’ Salina calmly releases him and readjusts her blazer, once again concealing her weapon.

  ‘Right, you two, let’s get out of here,’ she says with authority, glancing at Sam and me. ‘They can’t be too far ahead of us.’ She takes her phone out to update Martin and agrees we’ll meet him and two other agents there.

  Although relieved that we have something concrete to do, this knowledge gives me a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut. I really don’t want to see Alexa dead but I know that, until I do, this just won’t be real. And at least following her body to Villach will defer the phone calls I am dreading having to make.

  It takes us less than an hour to cross the border into Austria and locate the hospital in Villach. A significantly larger town and a different country obviously make a lot of difference.

  Salina insists on waiting for Martin, but I can’t stand it. Sam looks mentally and physically exhausted and they wait in a cafe opposite the hospital entrance. Nobody has eaten much all day and it’s now late afternoon.

  I can’t bear the thought of sitting down. ‘I’m going for a walk around.’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Quinn. Smythe will be here soon.’ Just how incapable does Salina think I am, I wonder?

  I give her a look of pure frustration and slam out the cafe door. I need to know Alexa’s fate. I have a fleeting thought that Salina has never been in love, or that she’s so well trained she doesn’t show a trace of emotion.

  I head straight to the hospital but can’t get beyond reception. Eventually, I find myself in the embarrassing situation of being escorted off the hospital premises by security, unable to discover whether Alexa’s body ever arrived, let alone whether she is still in there or not. I return to the cafe with my tail between my legs, finally realising the capabilities of Martin and Salina far outweigh my own expertise in this area. They take one look at my face and I’m grateful they decide against a verbal reprimand. I acknowledge Martin’s arrival by briefly shaking his hand and quickly grab a chair from another table and slide in beside Sam as they continue their discussion.

  ‘We know they don’t want her dead and that the GPS signal stopped at Lake Bled. Agreed, the body bag is convincing, but may equally have been used to throw us off the trail.’ Salina and I raise our eyebrows at Martin simultaneously, astonished. He puts his hand up, signalling us to allow him to continue. ‘We have been able to establish that Dr Votrubec has nothing to do with the hospital here in Villach and, more significantly, nothing to do with transferring dead bodies across borders. So, Blake’s body must still be in Slovenia.’ Martin says this as professionally as possible, but I can’t help feeling like a complete idiot for being so easily mislead. No wonder they thought I was a psycho in the hospital moments ago! ‘We have also been able to establish that he, Votrubec, is financially retained by Xsade and is known to the staff in their Slovenian office.’

  ‘Do you have a list of Xsade executives and their contact details?’ I suddenly remember that Moira was hoping to send me the phone records of each forum member. It’s a long shot but you never know, they may provide a link…

  ‘Yes, I’ll email that through to you now.’ Martin picks up his phone and scrolls through.

  ‘Done.’ I nod in thanks. We return our focus to his authoritative voice as he continues. ‘We will return to Slovenia tonight and split up for surveillance at the Chateau and the hospital in Lake Bled.’ He motions toward two men sitting at the table behind us. I assume they are meant to be incognito, so don’t acknowledge them. ‘Salina, you stay with Quinn and Webster, keep your phone on at all times. Accommodation has been organised for you a few blocks from here.’ He hands over a document with the details and looks directly at Sam and I. ‘It’s b
een a long day and night for both of you. I know it’s hard but you need a rest before you can be of any use to anyone.’ Well, that certainly tells us where we stand. He looks solemn. ‘This situation is dangerous, I don’t want you leaving your rooms unless Salina knows. Are we clear?’ I don’t think I’ve been bossed around this much since my internship! It’s late and even I have to admit it has been an obscenely long day, so I don’t argue with Martin, he’s right, we need to rest. We must all look utterly dejected as we say our goodbyes. Martin pulls me aside before we depart.

  ‘Don’t lose hope, Quinn. This is not over yet.’ I nod my head in desolate thanks. If only I could believe him.

  We check into a nearby hotel for some rest. It’s clean and tidy and will do for the night. I just don’t care. I feel hopeless, in every sense of the word. I know I should eat, so I order room service but find the only thing my stomach can handle is mashed potato. For the first time in my life, I medicate my sleep to numb the pain. I’m out for the count.

  I’m wandering in a vividly green field, and somehow I sense I’m in Northern Ireland. I can see the fierce waters of the sea smashing against sheer cliff tops. I take deep breaths of the icy air and feel alive and invigorated. I walk for a long time yet my energy never wanes until I notice dark storm clouds rolling in from the horizon. The shades of black and grey tumble over one another until they are almost upon me. Rain splashes down against my skin, making me sodden and weary and I notice there are heavy chains weighing down my arms. My ankles and wrists become bound to an ancient wall. A scream escapes from deep within my lungs only to be snatched away by the ferocious howling winds slamming my naked body against the coarse bricks. A dark fog tumbles forward as though it wants to devour my body; terrified, I struggle against the restraints as it rolls thick and fast toward me. Trapped, I close my eyes and feel its chill ice through my body until at last it passes.