Robbers

thirty - nine

// thirty – nine //

Julie Hunter visited Ella at the hospital that Tuesday.

Ella had been eating lunch when there was a soft knock from her recovery room's door, and with slow and careful steps, Julie entered the room.

"Ella Jane," she greeted in a worried tone. "How are you feeling?"

The flat, plastic tray of stale hospital food had hastily been pushed away. Ella couldn't help the shocked expression that automatically spread across her expression, managing to slowly work her way into more of an upright position against the mattress. She was stumbling into a half-hearted protest already, blurting out, "Mrs. Hunter – what are you doing here? You didn't have to drive all this way to see me."

Julie offered a small smile, one that just barely reached her eyes in a tiny spark of color. She seated herself in the worn armchair by the right side of Ella's bed, the same spot Mac Ferreri had taken when he'd questioned Ella. Julie reached across the edge of the mattress and, with the greatest amount of care, patted Ella's right hand gently. "Of course I needed to see you, Ella. But tell me how you're doing. How's your shoulder?"

A warm smile spread across Ella's lips, one that persisted despite the slight throbbing pain from the stitches. Her voice still sounded dry and cracked when she spoke. "I'm doing a lot better. Dr. Haverford says I might get to leave by the end of this week. But – " She paused and glanced down at her right arm, limp against the cream-colored sheets. Ella lifted her hand and both their eyes traveled to her rightmost fingers, hanging uselessly downwards, away from the rest. " – I can't move those two fingers anymore. There was nerve damage, or something. I don't know."

Julie's eyes had widened in horror – and there was no way for Ella to be sure, but she could have sworn they began to water with tears. So Ella hastily continued, adding, "It's okay, though, I'm lucky. Really, really lucky. Besides, I start physical therapy next week. The feeling will probably come back."

It was a lie, of course. The doctor had sounded doubtful when he spoke with Ella's parents, and now that Ella had been awake for several days, she had realized how dead those fingers felt to her. It was as though there were two weights tugging at the second half of her right hand, a constant faint annoyance that Ella was gradually getting used to. To her, it didn't seem like the feeling in those two fingers would ever come back – but she wasn't about to confess this to Julie.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you," Mrs. Hunter told her quietly. She was leaned close to Ella, one elbow pressed into the mattress, and each word was spoken so softly and gently it was as though she was afraid to startle Ella. "Did the police find out who did it?"

Ella's gaze dropped to the hospital bedsheets before her, unable to look Julie in the eyes as she lied. "No, I still don't know who it was. They haven't gotten any leads."

Julie shook her head somewhat angrily, as though she was upset with how poor the police were at investigations. Little did Julie know, the man who'd shot Ella had been dead for several days. Ella had been the one to kill him, but of course, those words were tightly locked away somewhere deep inside Ella's mind. She would never be able to speak them out loud.

Not even to Ryan.

At this thought, Ella remembered all at once how distraught Julie had been after learning that her son had been arrested. She tore her gaze away from the bedsheets and took in Mrs. Hunter's appearance, for the first time truly taking in every detail. A minute of silence had long since passed, so Ella's voice sounded strange as she cautiously broke it. "How – how have you been doing?"