Fallen

Chapter 9

Fallen

- 9 -

I felt like there was a rock in my stomach.

The door opened and I could hear voices.

"Hey, mate!" One them said. "How ya been?"

"Good, yeah," Louis said. "And Liam!" Two people embraced, I think. "It's good to see you on the outside."

"Trust me," Liam, I guessed, chuckled. "I'm glad to be here."

I pulled on my jumper but stayed on the bed.

Five people soon came into the room, Louis, three other guys, and to my surprise, a girl. She was average height with pink mixed into her long blonde hair. Eyes landed on me.

"Who's that?" One guy asked. He had curly brown hair and beautiful emerald eyes.

"Oh," Louis said. "Lads, this is Eleanor." He reached his hand out and motioned for me to come over there.

Cautiously, I approached them.

"And how does she play into all of this?"

I felt a little indignant at the fact that he was talking about me like I wasn't there.

I was thinking about snapping at him when I noticed the guy behind him was staring at me, his brown eyes squinted a little bit.

"Eleanor..," he said, a little unsure. "Eleanor Calder."

How did he know my name?

Louis glanced at me and then back at him.

"Liam? You know her?"

Liam nodded slowly but I still didn't recognize-

And then it hit me. Liam Payne. I'd met this man before.

Memories flooded through me.

I had been working at the hospital for a few months now. I liked the job. I liked my coworkers, especially Lori, another nurse who I had gotten along with fairly well.

Dealing with the prisoners was a little intimidating at first but finally I was getting used to it. You just had to show them that you weren't afraid of them, even if you were.

I usually didn't end up attending to someone unless it was something serious; no man who landed himself in prison was going to willingly see a nurse about a sprained wrist or a few broken fingers. They were too tough for that, I guessed.

One day while I was working a late shift, a guy was brought into the hospital wing of the prison.

"Michael," Lori said, addressing him. "You need to tell me who did this."

He grunted as she attended to his broken ribs and dislocated shoulder.

Michael had gritted his teeth and said, "No way, doc. I'm not a rat."

Lori sighed.

Whenever we asked the prisoners what had happened to them, they refused to say a thing about it.

Which I understood. Usually, if they did say something, the guy who had done it in the first place would come back for more. Then the victim would wind up with worse injuries, sometimes resulting in death.

Now that I had thought about it, I realized that there were quite a few deaths in this place.

Prisoners hanging themselves or killing themselves in some way. Riots broke out and people were stabbed but amongst the chaos, there were no witnesses. And sometimes prisoners died in there sleep, of suffocation usually, but there was never a way to prove who had done it.

I grabbed my bag that was filled with prescribed medication for the prisoners who required it.

"I'm going to make my rounds," I told Lori.

She nodded.

"Can you take care of mine too, while you're out?"

"Sure," I promised.

After I finished my rounds, I moved onto Lori's. I wasn't usually in this part of the prison so was moving a little slower, checking each cell number with the list in my hands.

As went down the walkway I saw two of the wardens, who I knew by the names of Benjamin Hale and Peter Ellington, come out of a cell and then close it.

Hale shoved something into his pocket.

They walked away, their backs to me, and I heard groaning coming from the cell.

I approached it and peered inside.

The inmate was on the ground, clutching his side. He was extremely pale and I was horrified when I saw he was bleeding uncontrollably.

"Help!" I shouted, opening his cell.

I rushed inside and bent down next to him.

"Are you okay?" I gasped. "What happened?"

"Stabbed," he groaned, the pain evident in his voice.

"Okay, hold on," I said. "You'll be fine." I started to apply pressure to his wound which was directly to his rib cage.

I heard rushed footsteps and I knew people were coming.

'Thank You, God,' I thought.

Because there was no way I was going to lift a grown man and assist him all the way back to the hospital wing.

"What's your name?" I asked him, trying to distract him from his injury.

"Liam," he said through gritted teeth. "Liam Payne."