Sticks and Stones (19 page)

‘Alun,’ Benji could hear Louey say from the ground, her voice sounded strangled and cracked. Benji looked down and sucked in a large breath. There was a big pool of red around Lou as well, and she was holding her stomach, her fingers soaked in it. He ran over the Louey and dropped down to his knees in the red stuff, his hands grabbing hers.

‘You know where to go to get help boy?’ the old man asked from behind him and Benji nodded, not taking his eyes off Louey’s, whose were beginning to drift closed. ‘Now you’ve been a brave boy.’ Benji started crying at the old man’s words but furiously wiped them away, getting the red stuff all over his face. The old man dropped to his knees beside Benji, moved Benji and Louey’s hands, and pressed his coat over Lou’s tummy, holding it there firmly. ‘You’ve just got to be brave a bit longer. Can you do that soldier?’

Benji nodded, tears streaming down his determined little face. Then he turned and ran.

Still his

‘It’s not me! Get off! Get off! You’re not bloody listening!’

Dylan froze in the corridor outside A&E. He knew that shout.

‘I’m not hurt. It’s Louey. You’ve got to help her!’ Dylan spun on his heel and ran into resus. He was confronted by a mass of people attempting to contain a small mass of flailing limbs, blonde hair and… ‘Oh my God,’ he breathed. From what he could see there wasn’t much of the little boy that wasn’t covered in blood.

‘Benji, mate. It’s me. It’s Dylan.’ Dylan fought through the throng of people, including the haggard looking paeds consultant, until he made it to Benji. When he got there Benji took one look at Dylan, stopped fighting and threw himself into Dylan’s arms. He was sticky all over from the blood, and the sickly sweet smell hung in the air around them. Even his face was covered, his tears having made tracks through it on his cheeks. Dylan started checking him over but stopped when Benji grabbed his face between his two small hands and pulled it to his bloody one.

‘It’s not me,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s Louey. ‘You listen to me now. She’s hurt. Level E in the car park. Dylan shot to his feet and his eyes cut to the A&E consultant.

‘Trolley now,’ he barked and everyone jumped into action.

*****

Lou squinted up into Alun’s face and tried to focus. He was pushing down on her stomach with something, and his other hand was stabbing randomly at her mobile phone.

‘Piece of junk,’ she heard him mutter as his eyes cut to hers.

‘Don’t you go to sleep now doc,’ he said. She tried to smile, but by the look on Alun’s face it was more like a grimace. ‘You stay with Alun. You hear me? You didn’t get a twp bugger like me to carry on living just so that I could watch you die on this filthy goddamn floor.’

The pain in her stomach had started to fade and Alun’s gruff voice was strangely soothing. She could feel herself start to drift, everything was getting fuzzy around the edges and his voice was sounding further, and further away.

*****

She was being jostled, each small bump causing a jolt of pain through her midsection. Her eyelids flickered then quickly closed in response to the bright lights above.

‘Lou? Babes you’re fine, you’re fine,’ she heard that familiar voice next to her, and felt her hand being squeezed in a strong warm grip. Every thing else was cold, so cold; all except for her hand, like it was the only thing anchoring her to the world. She tried to blink but her eyelids were so heavy. Whatever she was lying on jostled again and she felt another jolt of discomfort. The pain seemed to rouse her enough for her to open her eyelids a crack, and she realized that she was moving at speed down a brightly lit corridor. She turned her head and saw Dylan running beside the trolley with her hand gripped in his. He looked terrified, his green eyes standing out starkly in his pale face. She tried to speak but felt that heaviness pulling her under again.

*****

‘I’m here babes. I’m here and you’re going to be fine. You’ll be fine. I promise. I promise. I promise,’ she heard him chant from beside her, his words trying to reassure, but his voice aching with desperation and fear. She managed to squeeze his hand and her eyes flickered open again. Dylan’s face was hovering inches from hers and on seeing her eyes open his free hand moved to cup her jaw. She felt a sharp pain in her other arm and could hear the bustle of activity around them. Scissors were cutting through material and her clothes were being peeled back. She vaguely wondered if her bra and knickers matched, but beyond that her sense of unreality was stopping her from becoming too concerned.

Focusing on the face hovering above hers she let herself take in the features she’d seen so little of over the last year. Despite everything that was happening around them she almost felt a surge of relief to be this close to him again, and allowed the longing and love she usually kept under rigid control to come to the fore. Tears were glistening in his eyes now and she wanted to reach out to him but couldn’t move her other arm.

‘S’okay,’ she whispered, slipping away again, but wanting to stem that awful pain in his eyes before she did. ‘I’ll be okay.’ Her eyelids fluttered closed but she just managed another whisper, barely audible above the chaos of resus. ‘I miss you,’ she got out before the dark descended again.

*****

Frankie slipped her arm around Dylan’s stiff shoulders as she sat on the plastic chair beside him. She tried to push a Styrofoam cup of the minging brew the hospital coffee machine produced into his hand, but he just pushed it away. Every muscle in his body was held in a state of extreme tension, and had been for the two hours they had been sitting in the waiting room. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his thighs and his face buried in his hands. As soon as Frankie had arrived she knew he was at breaking point. Rosie and Ash had filled her in on all the details; all Dylan had been capable of was repeating ‘She’ll be okay; she said she’d be okay. She promised,’ over and over until it sounded almost like a prayer. His face was streaked with tears but it was like he’d gone beyond crying at this point, only retaining a wild, frantic look in his eyes.

Upon registering Dylan’s loss of control Frankie managed to tamp down her own panic and be the strong one in the situation. Frankie knew that people underestimated her, but just because she was shy didn’t mean that she was weak. Her childhood spent with parents descending into alcoholism, the eventual death of her mother, and the ongoing problems she had with Papa, had given her the ability to deal with grief and loss foreign to most people. Lou had been strong for Frankie since they met, had dragged her out of herself and given her a life she never thought would be within her reach. It was
her
turn to be strong now.

The door to the waiting room opened and Frankie shot to her feet as the ITU consultant Dr Cassandra Tobin came in. Her eyes swept through the room and came to settle on Frankie. Dylan had also risen to his feet and was holding himself perfectly still.

‘Right, well…this is an unusual situation seeing as you’re not actually Louise’s family but – ‘

‘Yes we are,’ Frankie cut him off. ‘We’re her family. We’ve been her family for the last twelve years.’ She took Dylan’s hand in hers and squeezed.

‘It seems that Dr Sands would agree with that; you are both listed as next of kin and emergency contacts on her medical records. No mention of her parents or her brother.’ Frankie’s eyes flashed as the mention of Lou’s parents, but she continued in as calm a voice as she could muster.

‘As I said, we’re her family. She wanted
us
to make decisions for her, not her parents.’

Dr Tobin nodded, then glanced at the rest of the room. It was packed with Lou’s friends and colleagues, a clogging atmosphere of fear in the air.

‘Would you both like to come through,’ he asked and Frankie nodded quickly, pulling on Dylan’s hand to move him forward towards the door. Dr Tobin led them into ITU and Frankie’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of beautiful, vibrant Louey lying completely lifeless on the hospital bed. A ventilating tube was in her mouth; blood was hanging from the drip stand and going into a wide bore cannula on her arm, the monitors steady beeping and the whirring of the ventilator filling the air. Dylan had frozen next to her in shock, and when she tried to move forwards she realized that he was as good as welded to the spot.

‘Hey,’ she said, reaching up to his shocked face to pull it down so he was looking at her. ‘She needs us now, honey. We need to walk over to her and talk to her so she knows we’re here and that we’re not scared.’ Dylan’s eyes flicked away, taking in Lou on the bed again, and when they returned to Frankie’s they were swimming with unshed tears.

‘She looks…I can’t…’ he trailed off as one of the tears escaped and fell down his cheek onto Frankie’s hand. Frankie knew exactly what he was trying to say. The Lou on that bed didn’t look like their Lou at all; her face was devoid of all the usual animation, her body limp and hooked up to machines. Lou was always larger than life, a force of nature, and seeing her so still and lifeless was horrifying.

‘I know. But you can and you will,’ she said firmly, and then turned to Dr Tobin. ‘Is she…? I mean how long will she be…?

‘They removed her spleen in the emergency laparotomy,’ Dr Tobin told her. ‘Luckily the other stab wound didn’t hit anything vital. She’s lost a lot of blood. We’ve induced a coma for at least the next twenty-four hours but after that she should be on the mend. I’d anticipate an ITU stay of about two days.’

‘Thank you Cassie,’ Frankie said then started tugging on Dylan’s hand again. He unfroze and allowed himself to be pulled forward towards Lou.

When they reached her bedside Frankie bent down, grabbed Lou’s hand and started talking in her ear. ‘Hey Louey,’ she said in a low, calm voice. ‘You had us all worried you know, always the drama queen. You’re going to be just fine now. They’re keeping you asleep for a bit so you can get all that energy back and start giving everyone jip. Ash’s in the waiting room and, I don’t know if he’s in shock or something, but not a single proverb in two hours; can you imagine? It’s weird.’

Frankie glanced up at Dylan and saw that he was standing on the other side of the bed, but about a foot away from it. His eyes were fixed on something at the other end of the unit, and the expression on his face was so fierce that instinctively Frankie let go of Lou’s hand and made to move around the bed towards him.

‘Dyl – ?’

‘You’ve got to be shitting me,’ Dylan forced out through his clenched teeth. Frankie followed the direction of his gaze, and saw a large man with what looked like severe head and facial injuries lying on a bed on the other side of the unit. One look back at Dylan’s face and she realized who the patient was. She rushed to Dylan and laid both her hands on his chest to hold him back, but he started moving forward as if she wasn’t even there.

‘Why the fuck is this arsehole in here?’ he bellowed and the whole unit turned to see what was going on.

‘Dylan, calm down.’ Frankie grunted in the fruitless effort to hold him back.

‘I’m going to fucking kill him.’ Dylan’s voice was cold; he meant what he said. The last few hours had pushed him over the edge. As he got closer to the bed Frankie looked over her shoulder and saw what must have been the patient’s wife stand up from the plastic chair she was sitting in, her pinched face pale and locked on an advancing Dylan.

‘Cassie,’ Frankie shouted. ‘Send the boys in from the waiting room and call security. Get him out of here now.’

Dylan kept walking to draw alongside the bed, completely ignoring Frankie’s frantic attempts to hold him back. When he was level with the bloody-faced large man he drew his arm back and Frankie screamed, but just as his fist was about to connect with the man’s face three sets of much stronger arms managed to push him back. Despite their size Tom, Ash and Miles still had great difficulty pulling Dylan away. Miles received a vicious punch to the jaw and the others didn’t fare much better as Dylan struggled wildly to get to his target. When they finally managed to drag him out of the unit he started banging on the locked door to get back in, and Frankie decided that she was done.

‘Dylan,’ she clipped and he stopped pounding for a moment, likely taken aback by her tone; Frankie was not the type of person to clip anything. ‘How will this help; braining the guy responsible whilst he lies defenseless in ITU?’

‘It’ll make me feel a fuck of a lot better,’ Dylan said to the door, his voice still cold.

‘Well boo-hoo,’ Frankie shouted. ‘Poor little Dylan is cross and having a tantrum, so he wastes time beating up somebody who is not worth going to prison for. Ruining your life. Maybe even ruining the chances of having that piece of filth properly punished for what he did? Don’t you think I want to hurt him too? But I want him to be punished the right way. I don’t know what prison is like but I would imagine that for someone who’s stabbed a woman, a doctor, that it’s pretty blinking uncomfortable.’

Dylan had stopped pounding on the door mid Frankie’s tirade and was now facing her. She moved forward and grabbed both his hands in hers. His were still balled up, but she worked her small fingers inside the fists and he allowed her to slowly uncurl them.

‘She
needs
us Dylan,’ she said, more softly now. ‘We’re her family and she needs you here, not locked up.’ She watched as the anger slowly faded from Dylan’s eyes, the green again beginning to swim with wet.

‘He hurt her,’ he whispered. ‘He hurt my Lou. They’ve unzipped her whole stomach. They’ve taken bloody organs out of her for Christ’s sake.’ Frankie moved forward and hugged him round the middle. There was a second’s pause before the tension drained from his body. He crushed her to him fiercely, as if trying to absorb her strength.

‘Look,’ she said after finally pulling back. ‘Have a break – ‘ He started shaking his head but Frankie cut him off before he could respond. ‘She needs her things around her. You’ll know what she’ll want. Tom will drive you back to her flat and you can pack a bag for her.’ Dylan nodded. He needed to get himself together. There was no way he could go back into the unit like this, and by the time she was awake he needed to be in complete control.

Lou had put him down as her next of kin. He didn’t care what had happened over the last year, the fact that his name was on that form meant that she was still his Lou and he was going to make goddamn sure that everyone, most especially her, knew it.