Stay With Me - A KathNiel Story

Chapter 13

The first place they went to was the park, going straight to the bridge where Miles had found Kath in the first place, and in the daylight, they saw dried blood on the wall she'd been leaning against. It was DJ who found a blade in the bushes just beside the bridge - evidence that had been thrown aside as her attackers ran away. It confirmed that she had a knife wound somewhere on her body and that in itself made Miles cry impossibly harder. Kath must have been in so much pain, but she never let on.

"How can she still be bleeding? Y-You said you found her on Saturday, but the blood on the bed looks new." DJ choked out as they kept searching the park together, checking every bush and behind every tree and bench they laid eyes on. The park was where they found Kath, it was familiar to her so they were going to search every inch of the place.

"It could only be a flesh wound and maybe her moving made the scab break so she bled, but that wouldn't have caused the amount of blood that was on the bed..." Amanda's voice trailed off as she sighed, DJ and Miles stood either side of her and DJ was still holding onto the duvet, ready to wrap Kath up in it to keep her warm.

"So, what do you think it is?" Miles asked, her voice shaky and Amanda took a deep breath.

"Whether it's a flesh wound or a little deeper than that... her condition has been worsening even though we've been giving her medication, so I'm certain she has an infection." Amanda said and Miles bit back the one question she was desperate to ask. She needed to know whether her girlfriend believed that Kath was starting to develop sepsis, but she was too afraid of the answer. It made all three of them start to search quicker, though, rushing around the park - they didn't care about the looks they got since as DJ was carrying around a bundled up duvet, their one and only focus were trying to find Kath. They only stopped for a moment when Miles got a text, seeing that it was from Richard:

'Got supplies. On my way.'

They still hadn't found her two hours later by the time Richard arrived and had found them to join the search. He had a duffel bag with medical supplies over his shoulder, and although they all prayed that they wouldn't need the strong medication and supplies that he managed to get, they were grateful that they had them.

"We should call the police." DJ urged as they walked out of the park. The four of them had checked the entire area twice and were going to walk up and down the block checking for Kath there - she can't have gotten far, so Amanda and Richard were nervous that she hadn't even made it to the park, to begin with.

"We can't call the police - they'll take her to the hospital and we can't afford what her medical bills will turn out to be... no medical insurance, no medical history... if we tell people what happened, it'll get Miles into trouble."

"I don't care." Miles choked out, tears burning her eyes. "I don't care if it gets me into trouble and you shouldn't either. If I'm kicked out of University for saving Kath's life, then so be it! I'm not gonna let her die just because I'm too selfish... if we haven't found her by half past, which gives us twenty-five minutes, we're calling the police." Miles said and Amanda sighed, kissing her temple as they kept walking back towards Miles's dorm building to start searching from there.

"Wait!" Richard called, making all of them stop and they followed where he was pointing. "Can you see that?"

"KATH!" DJ took off running towards the figure that was lying on the ground at the side of the dorm building, bushes, and trees hiding her from view from the front of the building itself. DJ threw himself onto his knees beside her, throwing the duvet over her instantly - she was unconscious, all the color drained from her body and every piece of skin was coated in sweat from her burning fever, yet she was cold everywhere besides her face. "Kath? C-Can you hear me?" DJ urged, but he stood up as Richard and Amanda got closer and they took his place, Richard dumping the medical bag beside him and he moved the duvet so that it was only up to her waist, leaving her upper body clear so they could check her over. DJ wrapped his arms around Miles, trying to comfort her and himself at the same time and tears streamed down their faces out of pure fear. They all watched as Richard lifted Kath's shirt, exposing her bruised ribs but what caught their attention the most was the deep slice that the knife had made going from just below her left rib cage and it went in a horizontal line all the way to her back.

"They must have got her as she either fell or was trying to run away," Richard mumbled.

Miles and DJ didn't need a medical degree to be able to tell that the knife wound was very obviously badly infected.

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