Sirens ~Nika Mühl

Chapter 5

Cue despised hospitals. She hated the blinding white lights that always gave her a headache. She hated the overly clean smell and the way it burned her nostrils.

But most of all she hated how she got the worst news of her life in a hospital the day her mother passed away.

She shook her head, desperate not to relive that memory. She was there for one sole reason. To speak to her ex-girlfriend, Nicole, who just so happened to be a registered nurse at Mansfield General.

The two of them began dating just a few weeks after Cue arrived in Storrs, when she was 18 and Nicole was 25. In those days Cue was still sleeping on the pull out couch in Zeke's living room, still recovering from having to walk away from everything she had ever known. Then one day Nicole spotted Cue at a local gym, approached her and asked for her number. Cue gave it to her because she didn't know how to say no back then and she needed something that would fill a deep void within her.

They ended up dating for a little over a year, ultimately breaking up after Cue tested positive for chlamydia, despite having no other sexual partners at the time. Cue that wasn't even mad when she found out, she had been searching for a reason to leave anyways.

Despite all that Cue didn't hate her ex like most people did. She was grateful for Nicole in some ways, after all she was the person to buy Cue her every first pack of Marlboro Reds. Hate was too strong of a feeling, she felt completely and utterly indifferent towards Nicole. To this day Cue wonders what it really was that she felt towards Nicole, because it definitely wasn't love.

The Joseph Costa arrest turned out to be a dead end, Cue knew it would be. Which is why she was now looking to see if any hospital tools were missing or had been stolen. Cue had an inkling that she wasn't going to get anything out of this situation. But whoever was killing these girls was clearly using the same or similar materials found in a hospital, and Cue couldn't afford to leave any stone unturned.

As she walked through the bare halls towards Nicole's office, Cue touched her eyebrow, making sure the smaller bandaid Nika had placed on her was still there.

Nika.

Cue tried not to smile like an idiot to herself as she thought about the Croatian girl. After agreeing to be friends, the two of them ended up exchanging numbers. Since then they had been texting every day and calling whenever one of them had time, even accidentally falling asleep while on FaceTime at one point.

It was nice, their friendship, but Cue wanted more. She just couldn't risk losing everything all over again. Cue wouldn't be able to crawl out the dirt again, she wasn't strong enough.

Cue sighed as she knocked on the open door frame of Nicole's office to get her attention. The older woman's eyes lit up at the sight of her.

"My my, Cue Jones aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" Nicole commented flirtatiously while looking Cue up and down. Her bottom lip was pulled in by her teeth.

Cue was un phased, "It's nice to see you too Nicole." Her eyes found the engagement ring on her finger. "I guess congratulations are in order."

Nicole face flushed with embarrassment as she fidgeted with the ring, "Yea this uh, just happened last week. I finally convinced Alexis to stop dragging her feet."

"Well I'm happy for you, genuinely. But I am here on official police business, so we don't really have any time to chit chat," Cue stated with absolutely no emotion. She already wanted this encounter to be over.

"Right, right of course. I got your email and I can take you down to the medical storage unit to check to see if anything's missing or looks out of place," Nicole suggested.