The Cure

Chapter 52

'I'm sorry. I was unfair.'

She hadn't spoken for the last four hours, and the morning sun was high, and they were pulling off the motorway. There was panic clawing at her throat.

It must have been midday.

'You don't have to be fair today.' He glanced across at her as he pulled onto the slip road. She was as white as death.

The old, roaring car felt impossibly slow, though Nate had already been flashed by speed cameras twice; her fingers were sore, cramping, from where they clenched the sides of her seat.

Nate was pinching the bridge of his nose, a line furrowing into the skin of his forehead.

He must have a headache.

'Come on, you fuckers. Come on!' Nate slammed a fist to the steering wheel, pressing his forehead to its worn leather as they joined the midday, town centre traffic.

Exhaust fumes shivered into the sky. The sharp whelps of beeping split through the air.

Lola's pulse was racing, she could feel it in her neck, hear it in her ears, and Nate didn't say anything when she lit a trembling cigarette.

'Fucking move!'

He slammed a fist into the horn.

Icy panic smashed through her body. Chillingly reminiscent, the cold, sweating trepidation as she stepped into the unknown; like stepping into the playground on the first day of school, stepping up to the stage, guitar in her shaking fist; stepping up to the gallows.

There was a lorry unloading boxes of frozen food to a local chain pub.

Warning lights on, blocking half the road.

The delivery men laughed about something as they passed the boxes down to the barman.

The traffic started moving again, just as Nate's phone began to buzz.

He stared at her.

'Don't answer it,' she whispered as he pulled into gear, the car lurching forward, her heart leaping when she saw the red and white direction sign for the hospital.

The buzzing was insistent, renewed three times as the river streaked by.

A flock of geese rose up chattering from the riverbank.

Lola had been praying for haste without a mental breath, but now, as the hospital came into view, a belching white concrete block looming, leering, blocking out the sun, she wanted nothing more than to turn back.

Her heart was going to give out.

Nate swung into the ambulance bay, swerving between two vans, the old wheels of the Ford screeching.

Then he was running before he'd cut the engine, pulling his phone out of his pocket, not even turning when one of the EMTs grabbed his shoulder in jovial greeting.

Lola could only pull herself achily from her seat treading slowly, numbly in his footsteps, the dark treacle of dread swirling about her ankles, making her legs tremble.

The air was post-storm clean.

The sun was white.

The gulls flipped gaily over the still river.

The smokers leaned languid besides the sliding doors.

And Melissa was in the foyer, her face, her dark eyes exhausted, and Nate slowed at her side, his features untightening with brief respite as he grabbed her forearms.