Justine cracked her eye open enough to recoil at the brightness that surrounded her. Chlorine tingled in her nostrils, barely able to mask the scent of stale blood rising off her sheets. A quiet beep followed the rhythm of her heartbeats. Something caught on the back of her hand as she extracted it from the blanket. She stared at the cannula. A line connected it to a bag of fluid hung above her head.
The shadow outside her door moved, shifting its weight from left to right. The beeping of the monitor increased. A second shadow appeared, shorter and slimmer, it hovered at the doorway for a moment before the burly shadow moved aside.
Justine closed her eyes as the door handle pushed down. The door clicked closed. Footsteps made their way towards her, the soft rubber soles squeaking slightly.
"Good morning, Justine," the nurse said softly, "my name is Hannah, I'll be looking after you today."
Justine opened her eyes and looked up at the young woman. "Who's outside the door?"
"You don't remember?" A flicker of concern crossed her face.
Justine frowned as she tried to recollect how she became a patient. Her head still ached. She reached a hand instinctively to the bruise on the back of her head.
"On a scale of 0-10, with 10 being the worst pain you've ever experienced, where would you rate your pain right now?" Hannah scrolled through the tablet and waited.
"Five, maybe, it's fine I can deal with it. I've worked through worse."
"Where is the pain?"
"It's just a headache, I'll be fine."
"You don't have to be in pain. I can get you something for it."
Justine sucked in a large gulp of air as her brain finally switched on. "They're cops, aren't they?"
"Yes."
Justine closed her eyes and rested her head back on the pillow. Tears snaked their way down her cheeks. "Chris didn't make it, did he?"
"I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to discuss the condition of other patients with you." She offered Justine a reassuring smile.
Justine rolled onto her side causing pain to shoot through her muscles. "He's alive?"
"I can't say, due to patient confidentiality," she put heavy emphasis on the word 'patient'.
Justine nodded.
Hannah pointed to the door, "They want to speak to you. Are you feeling up to it?"
Justine nodded, "Better to get it over and done with."
Nothing happened for half an hour, Justine was just drifting back off to sleep when the detective knocked on her door. They didn't wait for her startled response but walked straight in with their entourage.
The detective was a grizzled man in his late fifties with a look of perpetual tiredness. Two men trailed after him, one with a case and large camera strapped around his neck, the other fumbled around his pockets for his notebook and pen. The three of them approached the right-hand side of her bed.
"Miss Littlewood, I am Detective O'Shaughnessy this is my partner, Ramsey, and our tech Holly." He talked in a dismissive tone, purposefully omitting the titles of his counterparts. He pointed to his colleagues and then pushed himself to the forefront. "We have a few questions we need you to answer, but first, we would like to document your wounds with some photographs."
The tech, Holly, lifted up his camera. "We'll need to get you up out of bed to get better images."
"You'll also need to find me a female chaperone," Justine sat up and looked O'Shaughnessy in the eye.
YOU ARE READING
Throat Full of Glass | ONC 2023
Mystery / ThrillerJustine wakes up with a cracking headache and no idea where she is or what exactly went down. All she knows is there is a lot of cash kicking around in a cabin that no one has lived in for decades and more than one dead body.
