AIM [FIRST DRAFT]

Chapter 11: Like the Sting of a Jellyfish

Aimee reached home about a half an hour later. She knocked on her door and waited patiently and nervously for someone to unlock it. Molly opened the door, with an unpleased and unpleasant look on her face. Aimee quickly made sure that her cast was out of sight.

"Where have you and Clifford been, I've been home for almost an hour already!" she crossed her arms.

"I thought Clifford told you," she began explaining. "He was caught up at work so I had to walk all the way home."

She ducked her head in her shoulders and walked inside. Aimee took out her phone and noticed a new message. As she was about to read the text, Molly shut the door and ambled up behind her.

"Aimee is that a cast?" she realised, her head over Aimee's shoulder.

Aimee gasped as Molly grabbed her arm, causing her cellphone to slip out of her hand. She had a tight grip and Aimee was becoming fretful.

"What did you do, you little idiot?" posed Molly.

"I got it caught in the door at school," Aimee took her arm back. "It's not serious," she was riled by Molly.

Aimee picked her phone and its battery up from the floor. She paced upstairs to her bedroom and slammed her door, making Molly scold from downstairs. Aimee was mad, but she just breathed in and out, repeatedly, until she was calmer. She reassembled her phone and switched it on. She typed her password in:

Jellyfish

The Jellyfish was probably her favourite marine animal, but she did not really know why. Something about its colours and the way it moved fascinated her. The word just put a smile on her face. Aimee reset her phone and fell onto her bed, concerned about that message. It was Stefan's number. It read:

Aimee, I need you! Something bad has happened, hurry!

Aimee's heart practically skipped a beat. She ran downstairs to Molly, who was slurping tea in a blue mug on the TV room couch. Aimee was not in any mood to talk to her. She opened the message and waved her phone in front of her. Molly grabbed it from her palm after a few furious glances.

"I need to go there," remarked Aimee.

"Isn't Stefan that guy you've been sneaking around with?" she enquired. "Not a chance."

"Molly, he's in the hospital!" Aimee exclaimed. "I'm gonna get a cab!"

She turned around and headed for the front door. Before she could touch the handle, Molly stopped her in her tracks.

"You're not going anywhere, you're grounded!" she tested.

Aimee faced Molly's direction. "Alright, I'll just go up to my room then and stay there until supper," she assured.

She walked out of the kitchen and up the staircase, leaving Molly to surprise; Aimee was never the type to take grounding lightly. Being that girl, when Aimee reached her bedroom, she shut the door behind her and scrutinised her room for the door key. She found it amongst at least seven spare keys in the top drawer of her homework desk and took little time in locking her door.

Aimee grabbed a leather jacket of hers and shoved the keys into one of its zip-up pockets. She climbed over her bed in order to reach her bay window. Opening the windows widely, Aimee made her way and was soon hanging from the windowsill. She dropped down and landed in Molly's shrubs, breaking nearly every branch on the way down.

"She won't notice," she convinced herself quietly.

Aimee tip-toed passed their front porch and towards the kitchen window. She made sure to know Molly's exact position. Molly had not moved a muscle; she was still sitting on her dining chair, sipping her chai. Aimee rotated herself and sprinted out of the main front gate. She was sure to close it as soundlessly as she could. She called for a cab and sat against the tall brick wall.

Aimee reopened Stefan's message to see what time it was sent. It had been five minutes already. The cab arrived no more than two minutes later. Aimee grabbed a few coins from her jacket pocket and handed them to the driver as she climbed into the backseat.

"Where t-"

"You've gotta get me to the hospital, now!" she was freaking out. "Uhm, please?"

Aimee buckled her seatbelt and they took off. The man drove reasonably fast, but kept to the speed limit. They arrived soon enough. Aimee did not falter; she opened the door even before unbuckling her seatbelt. In attempt to jump out it pulled her back in. She thanked the driver with a wide grin and cranberry red cheeks while she unstrapped herself. The hospital was in front of Aimee's eyes. She ran in and toward the reception desk. A new face sat behind it on a fabric chair.

"Did you move him, where is he... Martha?" she addressed the receptionist by looking at her name tag.

Martha glimpsed down at her tag, which was upside down, and checked back to Aimee with a hum of surprise.

"Answer my question, lady!" posed Aimee.

"Ooh, intimidating," she said sarcastically. "In his room, where he always is," Martha attended to her computer.

Aimee opened her hands and shaped them as the claws of an angry bird, which was what she felt like, angered by Martha. Aimee stared down the halls before running to Stefan's ward. She wondered why he needed her, what could have been so bad that he begged for her to come? She halted at his ward door with these thoughts in her mind. She had her head cocked forward as she strode into Stefan's ward. There he was, deep in sleep. He seemed fine, not a scratch - aside from his leg, of course.

"Good afternoon, Ms Griffiths," a surgeon appeared from behind her.

"Doctor Cavell," she recognised him.

Otis Cavell is a tall, dark haired man with ever ending eyebrows. He identified Aimee from when he met her and Molly at the bookstore a few months ago. Aimee remembered who he was.

"It's been a while, Otis," she mentioned.

"Yeah, I wish I'd kept in touch," he stated.

That makes one of us. Aimee thought to herself.

The two were interrupted by a subtle moan from Stefan. Aimee immediately faced Stefan, asking Otis if he was alright. Otis's reply was that he had just received his medicine; he always said radical things after his dose. Aimee gazed at Stefan, his moans grew louder each time.

"Aimee... run," he mumbled.

Aimee heard him clearly. She gaped at the doctor with fearful eyes.

"Don't listen to him," said Otis. "You're in a public hospital. There is no danger here."

"Right, he's just acting silly," commented Aimee, although she thought otherwise. "Anyway, I'm gonna leave now."

Aimee backed away from Otis, slowly. Stefan may have been on meds, but she trusted him much more than she trusted Otis. She impatiently headed for the door, but was stung in the neck with a tranquilising syringe!

She lost consciousness in a heartbeat, falling backward into Otis's arms as he tucked the syringe into his pocket. He dragged her and dropped her on the bed on top of Stefan. Otis was extremely smug. He reached into his scrubs pocket, grasped his cellphone and dialled someone's number.

"I've got them here, in the ward." Otis informed.

He left his 'patients' unconscious in the ward and locked the door from the outside before swiftly making his way out of the hospital.