The next morning I went to the hospital again, partly to see how Jessie was holding up – she hadn’t left Angel’s bedside – and partly to reassure myself that there was still a solid, physical part of Angel left – that there was still hope.
I met Mrs. James first, in the corridor as the left Angel’s room, and noted with relief that she didn’t look like she had just seem any bad news.
“How is she?” I asked immediately, not wanting to halt the nurse’s rounds for too long.
“She’s getting better,” Mrs. James replied, “the bruising and internal bleeding are disappearing, and her general physical state is improving…”
She paused, checking some notes on the clipboard she was carrying.
“The only thing we’re unsure of is if or when she’ll wake up, because the results of her brain scans haven’t changed fundamentally since she arrived.” She finished.
I wasn’t sure if that was more good or bad news, or even what it meant in general, but I couldn’t ask Mrs. James because she had already hurried off, her pager flashing as she rushed to tend to another patient.
I took a breath and turned to the door, deliberately not looking at anything but the polished floor as I opened it.
“Jay!” I heard Jessie cry in greeting as I entered the small rom.
Looking around, she was sitting by the bed, looking tired and worn-out, but still seeming glad to see me.
I avoided the bed for the moment, giving Jessie a hug and asking her how she’d been.
“Pretty awful,” she shrugged, fiddling with a corner of the threadbare hospital blanket hanging from the bed.
“All I’m doing is waiting, and hoping, so it gets tiring. It’s great to see you, though – makes a change from only seeing doctors and nurses and cleaners.”
I smiled weakly, knowing there was more truth than joke in the words – but there was nothing I could do; not here, anyway.
Then, as the conversation died, I found the nerve to look at Angel’s body, lying motionless on the bed and surrounded by machines – surprising myself, because she looked less weak and ill than the day I met her, and almost seemed as if she were just sleeping.
The unfairness of it all struck me then, just the complete lack of sense it made to have Angel lying there, unconscious, and Jesse and I having to worry about her, while Chris was out there somewhere, doing whatever he wanted.
“It sucks, doesn’t it?” Jesse said, breaking the silence as if she read my mind. “That she’s in here like… this,” she motioned to Angel’s body with a helpless gesture, “and he’s out there, and no one can do anything.”
There was another long silence, where the beeping of the monitors attached to the lifeless Angel and the bleachy smell of disinfectant seeped into everything, painting the scene a horrible hospital green.
“People are doing something, though,” I said eventually, shaking off the hopelessness that had seeped in with the hospital noises. “Your mum’s trying to get Chris charged, and all of the doctors and everyone here is trying to help Angel. We just have to keep trying, I’m sure she’ll be alright if we fight for her.”
Jesse looked up sadly, looking like she wanted to believe me, but was too weary from fighting already to keep on going.
“Trust me,” I repeated, hoping like mad that I was right, “It’ll be okay.”
“Besides,” I added, and was about to try to make some lame joke to lift the tension, when the door to the stuffy hospital room opened again, and the very person that had caused all this came charging into the room, reeling like a drunken sailor.
“Wha’s all this?” Chris demanded as suddenly as he had barged in, staring drunkenly between the bed and where Jesse and I stood together, shocked.
When we didn’t answer or say anything – Jesse was too terrified to say anything anyway, I could feel her trembling behind me – he stumbled over to the hospital bed, and started yelling at Angel.
Unconscious as she was, obviously her stepfather was too smashed to notice it, for he was yelling at her as if she was just asleep.
“Get up, y’lazy bitch!” he snarled, reaching to shake her with a meaty fist, but missing and having to lean heavily on the chair beside the bed.
“Gah,” Chris said then, getting frustrated and obviously thinking that she had pushed him somehow. “Wha’ya do that for? I’ll teach y’ta push me around,”
With an animalistic growl, he raised a fist to hit her, finally shaking Jesse and I out of our terrified stupor.
I moved to stop him, hitting the alarm button for security on the way, but was surprised to find Jesse there before me, slapping his arm away before punching him across the face with an angry strength that I never suspected she had.
Chris blinked once, swaying, then fell backwards into the arms of the security guards who had just arrived.
“What happened?” one asked, but didn’t have time to hear the answer as Mrs. James ran in and repeated the same question in a slightly more frantic tone.
“Chris just came in, drunk, and started to attack Angel… he didn’t even notice she was unconscious,” Jesse supplied, nursing her knuckles in her other hand.
“He was going to punch her, so Jesse hit him first,” I added, thinking to myself that I was glad she had, as Chris really deserved it, and more.
“Did anyone get hurt?” was Mrs. James’ next question, concernedly observing her daughters cracked knuckles. “Well, except him,” she added with a small, satisfied smile as the guards dragged a now-unconscious Chris away.
“We’re fine, except for her hand,” I said, adding triumphantly, “I guess this is just more evidence for the case, right? ‘Cause it’d all be on the security videos,”
“Well, yes,” Mrs. James nodded, dabbing antiseptic on Jesse’s hand in a motherly display of overkill, then frowned, “But this is also a problem – you two are going to have to stay well away from Chris now, especially you, Jesse. People like Chris hate being humiliated, even if they bring it on themselves, and if this does add to the case, then he’s not going to be happy about it.”
Jesse and I nodded solemnly, Jesse adding, with a shudder, that she hadn’t planned on going anywhere near the creep.
“Okay, then.” Mrs. James said finally, letting us move out of the corridor and back into Angel’s room, where the furniture was still skewed from Chris’ rampage. “Now, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about, is visiting times…”
Jesse let out a groan, her eyes going wide and panicky as she thought her mother was about to make us go home and leave Angel alone.
“Just wait a minute, before you panic,” Mrs. James began again, a trace of amusement twitching around the corners of her mouth.
“I’m not about to suggest you stop hanging around here,” she went on, tidying the room as she talked, “but since you’ve been here for days without a rest, Jesse, I was thinking that maybe it was a better idea if you two took it in turns being here.”
I saw the sense in her idea, though Jesse still wasn’t very happy, so I tried to help convince her she needed the rest to be able to help Angel in any case.
“I think it’s a good idea,” I said, turning to Jesse, whose tired face looked even worse in her worry. “You need the rest – and with Angel getting better, she wouldn’t want you to get ill because of her, would she?”
The remark did what it was meant to – Jesse’s face fell, but she looked a little relieved as she agreed to go home and rest, and to eat something.
“Don’t worry,” I heard Mrs. James add as she walked her to the doors, “if anything happens, I’ll call you, and Jay won’t let anything happen to her, not even Chris.”
