by Wendy Hudson
She balled the note up in her fist and scanned the hospital grounds. Were they watching her? How long ago had they left it? How had they found out where she worked?
It was a public place, and strangers dotted the carpark and entrance ways. There was no way of knowing who should or shouldn’t be there, and no one seemed to be paying her any special attention.
What did she expect?
A cloaked figure in a hat and sunglasses staring at her from a darkened alley?
She knew how they’d escalated where Darcy was concerned, switching between thoughtful gifts and cruel pranks. Their intentions confusing and unfathomable. The message they were sending Eilidh was more obvious: stay away from Darcy or there would be trouble.
How far were they prepared to go to make that happen?
It was the question that had kept Eilidh awake the night before. With Darcy, there was clearly love, sordid and perverse, maybe, but without violence. In her case, their objective was less confusing, and it both scared and angered her in equal measure.
She wondered again whether to tell Darcy. Or the police.
Safe inside her car, she glanced down at the balled-up note, now residing in the passenger foot well.
No.
Darcy didn’t need to know right now, and really, what could the police do with two identical vague notes? There was something wonderful growing between her and Darcy, and whether her crazy stalker approved or not, Eilidh was going nowhere.
Anja slouched down low in the driver seat and watched as Eilidh left the hospital.
Once again, she was quick to spot the note. She plucked it out with less curiosity than the day before, quickly reading the message before screwing the paper into a ball.
She scanned the carpark, turning on the spot. She wouldn’t see Anja; too many cars and distance separated them. Anja knew it was a risk to hang around but couldn’t resist observing her reaction.
Eilidh opened the car door and threw the note inside, her anger evident. It wasn’t the reaction Anja had hoped for, but she was only beginning. Soon fear and paranoia would kick in, and the message would eventually be received. Anja would continue to do her best to keep them apart, until Eilidh decided for herself that seeing Darcy wasn’t worth the hassle.
She told herself again that Eilidh was no more than an obstacle. All her life had been a series of obstacles, and she had overcome all of them in the end. What was one more? This one she guessed would be stubborn, wouldn’t give up too easily, but then neither would Anja.
This was only the first step. She had an entire arsenal of tactics aimed at getting Eilidh to back off. It was a game Anja knew she would win.
She had wondered initially if Eilidh would tell Darcy about the notes, but quickly resolved that it wouldn’t be an issue.
Perfect, brave Eilidh wouldn’t want to worry her.
That suited Anja fine.
Chapter 42
Darcy shouted a choice string of expletives that came from both pain and frustration.
The cast was off both her leg and wrist, the former replaced with a supportive boot. It sat in a corner and taunted her as limbs became jelly and coordination abandoned her. Sam tried to coax her a few more steps, but she was done. It felt as though every inch of her skin prickled with cold sweat, and her entire body throbbed.
Everything felt hard, and it was difficult not to take it out on Sam.
“I said I’ve had e-fucking-nough. Okay?”
Sam held up his hands. “All right. Whatever you say, Darcy. It’s your body.”
She felt tears sting her eyes. After a couple of weeks of great progress, they were tears of frustration, and she was determined not to let them get the better of her.
“I’m sorry.” With his help, she limped to a bench and gulped at some water. “I shouldn’t take it out on you. You’ve been great.”
Sam took a seat next to her and bumped her shoulder. “Trust me I’ve heard worse out of folk. You’re doing amazing, truly. Stop being so hard on yourself.”
“It’s just…argh…so infuriating. Everything is so bloody slow.”
“Is that such a bad thing? Maybe it needs to be slow. It’s not only our bodies that have to heal after a trauma like you’ve been through.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “What are you? Physio and psych all rolled in to one.”
He laughed at that. “Cheeky bugger. How about physio and friend?”
And they were. Eilidh had introduced them and promised he would have her fighting fit again in no time. She was living proof of that. Since then, Sam had seemed to sense exactly what she needed and when. He knew when to be gentle the same as he knew when she needed him to shout in her ear. There was the professional side of him that never mentioned or talked about Eilidh with her, but also listened when she had an off day and only a rant would help.
She bumped his shoulder back. “Suppose.”
He glanced at his watch. “That’s us finished now, anyway. Why don’t you try something simple, something you would normally do in the real world? I think the gym sometimes puts patients under pressure to push too hard. Go take a walk in the park and I guarantee you’ll surprise yourself.”
They both looked up at the mechanical whir of the gym doors opening, and Darcy smiled when Eilidh appeared.
“Excellent timing,” called Sam. “This one needs to walk off some rage. I suggested the park, and you’ll be the perfect chaperone, I imagine.”
“Yuck. Don’t say chaperone. Makes me sound like some spinster aunt.”
He stood and poked at her cheek. “Well, these are getting a wee bit saggy.”
Eilidh slapped his hand away and pushed him aside. “Let’s ignore him.” She held out an arm for Darcy. “You up for it?”
“Only if there’s coffee involved.”
“Done.” Eilidh helped her with the boot and her coat, then packed Darcy’s bag and slung it over a shoulder.
“See this?” Sam took Eilidh’s arm and moved it comically in to random positions. “She can do this because of me. She can carry your bag because of me, and this is how she treats me.” He pouted.
Eilidh ignored it. “Cheers, Tommo. See you tomorrow.”
“Fine. Away with you both.” He waved them off, and Eilidh guided Darcy to the door where her crutches stood propped to the side.
“You sure you’re up for this?” she whispered. “He doesn’t always know what’s best.”
Darcy transferred her weight on to the crutches and pointed one through the door. “Let’s go.”
They found coffee and the wall that had become all too familiar during Darcy’s stay in hospital. When the weather permitted, Eilidh had wheeled her down there to share lunch and good-natured gossip about colleagues who wandered past. The difference this time was Darcy could now sit on the wall instead of a wheelchair, and Eilidh was holding her hand.
“Hi.” She leant in and pressed a gentle kiss to Darcy’s mouth.
“Hey,” Darcy whispered, before going in for a second one, allowing it to linger.
It was all still so new, and tentative, and unknown. Darcy was enjoying every second.
“Tough session today?”
“Aye. It’s so frustrating some days. Sam’s been great though, I have to say.”
“He really is. Don’t tell him that too often though.”
Darcy chuckled. “Oh, I won’t.” She took a sip of coffee and wondered again about Eilidh’s own accident. She’d yet to tell her anything in detail, and although curious, Darcy was afraid to pry. She knew how difficult it was to think about the night of her own horror story, despite only recollecting a few details. Maybe Eilidh didn’t want to remember it. Although maybe they could help each other if they talked.
“You know, if you want to talk about your accident, I wouldn’t mind. It might in some way help both of us.”
/> Eilidh studied her over her cup as she took a sip, then another. “It might. Or it could add a whole heap of heavy shite to an already-laden-with-shite situation.”
“You think of us as a shite situation?” Darcy tried to hide the smirk.
“No, no.” Eilidh slapped a hand over her mouth. “I so didn’t mean it that way. I meant your situation is shite. No. Wait. The fact you can’t remember yours and the stalker and… Please stop me before I’ve dug my own grave.”
Darcy laughed then. “I knew what you meant. However eloquently you put it. But it’s okay, really.” She leaned in again with a kiss she hoped conveyed reassurance. “You can trust me with this,” she whispered.
Eilidh took her hand again and spent a moment studying their entwined fingers. Darcy sipped her coffee and waited. When Eilidh looked back up to meet her gaze, her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “It wasn’t an accident. I was attacked.”
“Oh my God, that’s awful. What happened?” Darcy shuffled in closer and gripped her hand tighter.
Eilidh took a deep breath that seemed to push back the tears. “It was the night Claire and I first broke up. It was civil then, a joint decision. Anyway, we’d left the restaurant and decided to walk a while before getting a taxi. We were both a little sad, you know, our last night out as a couple.”
All Darcy could do was nod encouragingly. She almost told Eilidh to stop; the thought of what she might be about to hear frightened her. The thought of someone hurting Eilidh was unthinkable.
“We cut down an alleyway. One we’ve walked a hundred times before. There was a group of guys at one end, laughing and shouting. Claire tried to get me to turn back, but I realised there was someone lying on the ground.”
“And you couldn’t turn back.” Instinct and everything she already knew about Eilidh told Darcy she was not the kind of person to turn back.
“Exactly. I called out and ran towards them in the hope they’d scare off. I was wrong.”
The tears broke free then, and they broke Darcy’s heart. She didn’t say anything; instead, she held Eilidh’s hand fast and let her cry.
Eilidh took a breath and blew it out long and slow. “Claire was shouting for me to come back, but I saw one of them kick the person on the ground and I knew I had to stop it. As I got closer it was obvious it was a homeless person. I could see their makeshift bed in a doorway.”
She spoke through the tears, but Darcy could hear the anger that simmered underneath. “One of the guys stepped in front of me, told me to turn around and mind my own business. I tried to push past him. I remember yelling and swearing at the other guy to stop kicking. Then I was falling. The guy had punched me, I hit my head on the ground, then everything blurred. I’m pretty sure he kicked me. My shoulder was in agony where I’d fallen awkwardly, Claire was screaming, they were laughing, and then it all went black.”
“Bloody hell, Eilidh. That must have been terrifying.”
“It happened so fast I don’t think it had time to register. When I look back it’s scarier—what I remember of it, anyway.”
“So there’s things you don’t remember as well?”
“Aye. Claire witnessed it all, but even her memory was vague. It was all over in a minute or two and she was in shock.”
“I bet.” Darcy was at a loss and wondered how she would have reacted in the same situation. Would she have been Eilidh, running to help and putting herself at risk? Or Claire, screaming in retreat? “What happened afterwards? Did they catch the guys? Was the homeless person all right?”
Darcy saw Eilidh visibly swallow. Her head dropped, she set her coffee aside, and fidgeted with Darcy’s fingers. “He died.”
“Fuck. Eilidh, I’m so sorry.”
“I tried to be the hero and he still died.”
“That wasn’t your fault. You did everything you could.”
“Did I? What if my intervention only antagonised them more? What if I’d done as Claire said—called the police and let them deal with it?”
“You can’t torture yourself like that because it will never change anything. You did what you thought was right at the time, and no one can blame you for the actions of those animals. You’ve suffered enough.”
“I’m still alive though. He isn’t. My shoulder was dislocated and a few ribs were broken which punctured a lung, but none of that compares to what that man went through before he died. Claire said they kept kicking. They only stopped and ran away once they heard the sirens. She’d run back out of the alley and called the police.”
“She left you?”
“She had no choice. Don’t think badly of her for that. I did at first, but what else was she supposed to do?”
“I guess. Is that why you stayed together? Until you were better.”
“At first. I think part of her blamed me because she told me not to get involved. It was my fault she was put through this horrific experience, and it left her cold towards me. Another part of her felt guilty, I think, that she couldn’t help. That she could only stand by and watch it happen. So she stuck around until I was better, and then I told her she could leave.”
“Christ, Eilidh. That’s so messed up.”
“I told you it was heavy shite.”
Darcy couldn’t help her smile and was relieved when Eilidh returned it.
“Did they ever catch the guys?”
“Fortunately, yes. An appeal was put out. There was some CCTV images from earlier in the evening and from street cameras. People came forward with information, and they were rounded up. I managed to identify the one who had punched me initially, but they couldn’t tell who had delivered the fatal blow to the homeless man. They’ve all been charged with various offences and held in custody. Now we’re just waiting for a court date.”
Darcy wrapped her arms around Eilidh and held her tight. “You really are a brave idiot.”
Eilidh chuckled in to her neck. She pulled away a little but still held tight to Darcy’s waist, her features turned fierce and determined. “And I’m thankful for that, because it meant I got to save you.”
She kissed Darcy with an urgency that hadn’t been there before. When their tongues connected, Darcy allowed any last shred of doubt about Eilidh’s intentions slip away. A small groan hummed in her throat, and she felt her breath escape. On the brink of losing herself entirely to it, Eilidh suddenly pulled away.
“Sorry. I just realised we’re sat in a hospital garden with any number of my colleagues around to witness this.”
Darcy laughed and looked around guiltily. “Take me home?”
“Of course.”
Eilidh hopped off the wall and stood in front of Darcy. Darcy held her hands out for support getting down, but instead Eilidh manoeuvred between her legs and looped her arms back around Darcy’s waist. “I want you to trust me when I say that you will find the light again, even in your darkest hour. When it’s the middle of the night and you’re in pain, but you couldn’t sleep anyway because your mind is racing with the terror of what you’ve been through, remember us here and now. Remember me telling you that you will find the light again.”
Darcy ran her fingers through Eilidh’s hair, then clasped her face in her hands. She had described so many of Darcy’s nights since the accident, when everything swirled in a pit of desperation and darkness and Darcy felt as if she would drown in it. She had tried to explain it to Anja, on the nights she awoke and Anja was there at her side, trying to comfort her, asking to understand what was going on in Darcy’s head. But it was impossible. The words would never form, and so she would simply pull Anja’s arms around her in the hope they would bring the calm she needed. Almost every night, the horror was repeated.
Now as she looked in to Eilidh’s eyes, she believed for the first time that the sun would rise again and sweep the night away. “You found it, then?”
Eilidh looked away a moment, ou
t across the expanse of grassland and trees.
“Aye.” She matched Darcy’s own teary smile. “It came back the moment I saved you.”
Darcy pulled her closer and lay her head on Eilidh’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Chapter 43
So much for her surprise.
Anja watched as Eilidh led Darcy from the hospital entrance. They headed towards the surrounding gardens, Darcy on crutches and two steaming cups clutched in Eilidh’s hands.
She had intended to swing by and surprise Darcy. Pick her up and take her home to a fresh-cooked dinner, rather than another painful and expensive taxi to go with whatever was left in the freezer.
Her notes clearly weren’t getting the message across to Eilidh, and she felt the rage build every time one of them laughed. They might as well have been laughing in her face. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. What was it going to take to get that interfering bitch to stay away from Darcy?
She found a seat in a bus shelter with a view of where they sat. Other folk milled around, providing some cover. She watched as they held hands.
Then the worst happened.
They kissed.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she muttered.
Her handbag held an opportunity to interrupt them. She produced a new pre-pay phone and quickly started it up. There were only two numbers saved in it. She selected one and tapped off a brief text.
I see you.
Then she waited.
There was no reaction. Either Eilidh’s phone was on silent or she was ignoring it. Frustration curdled with fury; their conversation seemed so earnest. They still held hands, and was…was Eilidh crying?
Good.
Although normally you would only cry in front of someone you trusted, someone you cared about, someone you didn’t mind seeing you at your most vulnerable.
She sent another text.
Every time you see her you are tempting fate.
Was that the point Darcy and Eilidh had reached? Where they confided the worst?
