The emergency buzzer broke the relative still of the hospital's admissions unit at three in the morning.
Hunk's heart rate skyrocketed as he - like everyone else working there - ran to the room indicated with mounting trepidation. He'd been briefed about this room - and its unusual occupant.
A high security prisoner.
God knew what Hunk was going to find.
Inside the room, a slender man in a prison guard's uniform was vomiting noisily onto the floor whilst being held by an identically dressed woman.
"Can you get him into a chair?" Shay asked, unfazed by the scene. She was the nurse in charge for the shift, and very little could rattle her.
"Give me a sec," the uniformed woman replied tersely, as her colleague threw up again. Something was stopping the unwell guard from moving freely. Hunk realised it was the handcuff on his wrist, binding him to the prisoner on the bed via slim silver chain. His colleague fumbled with keys, inelegantly uncuffing him. She then carefully resecured the vacant handcuff to the bed.
Once the male guard was detached, his colleague shoved him at the health care professionals. "Help him!" she barked. "I need to talk to the prison. She pulled out her phone and started to speak urgently into it. "This is Nadia Rizavi, calling from North Gate Hospital. We have a situation. It's Griffin. Stomach bug..."
Hunk turned his attention back to the vomiting man. Shay calmly sidestepped the worst of the sick and guided the unfortunate warden into a chair. She felt his pulse with a frown. "Let's check his blood pressure and temperature," she directed. "Then can someone get a line into him? We'll get a drip up and get him to Emergency."
Someone hastily tore open a cannulation kit, clumsily spilling the contents over the bed, before obtaining IV access and running a drip into the unwell warden's vein. Another person sprinted to find a wheelchair, and then bundled their newest patient into it.
Just as they were all about to leave, Rizavi hung up her phone and flicked her eyes at the bed. "Someone will have to help me watch him in the meantime."
In the drama, Hunk had failed to notice the slim, dark haired figure manacled for the hospital bed's railings.
"One of the health care assistants," Shay mused, quickly reviewing her staff still in the room. "Hunk?" she asked. "Can you help her? You watch patients sometimes, right?"
Hunk jolted and stared. "That sounds like a really bad idea," he protested. "I stop delirious old ladies climbing out of their beds.It's a little different to supervising high security prisoners."
"Seriously though," Shay took him by the arm and used that reassuring voice that always worked so well with their most nervous patients. "It's three am. If he hasn't stirred through all this uproar, he'll probably sleep through anything. And he's cuffed to the bed. You'll be fine."
Hunk appraised the prisoner with more concentration. So far he had not lived up to his forbidding reputation. His facial features were entirely hidden beneath a head of unkempt black hair. A slim, clear plastic tube connected him to a bag of saline, suspended from a metal drip stand.There was no sign the patient was remotely aware of the drama unfolding around him. And yet he, unwittingly, was in the middle of it all.
"Fine," Hunk acquiesced. Shay smiled in thanks, her tired features becoming radiantly beautiful. She left with the rest of the medical team, leaving Hunk, the female warden and their charge alone.
"Well this is a total shitshow!" Rizavi shook her head in disbelief. "I've spoken to the prison. They're going to call the police to take over from us. In the mean time," her eyes flicked towards Hunk, "You're watching him with me until they get here?"
Hunk nodded. "Is there anything I need to know?" he asked, trying not to sound frantic.
"Not really," the warden answered with a shrug. "He's been okay really. Kicked off a bit when they took his blood, but he's been calm ever since. You saw how docile he was with all the disruption earlier."
"What's he in for?" Hunk asked curiously.
"Oh. He's suicidal. He's on hunger strike," Rizavi replied, lowly. "We just brought him in to check his blood tests, while our shrink treats his depression, but it's at the point he needs urgent fluids and nasogastric tube feeding. We can't do that in prison."
"No," Hunk clarified. "I meant what's he in for?"
Her expression shuttered closed. "You don't want to know. And I'm not going to tell you."
"Great. Just great," Hunk muttered to himself, sitting down on the footstool. "Well buddy," he said to the lump on the bed. "I guess it's just the three of us now."
"Don't engage with the prisoner," Rizavi warned without bite.
The lump on the bed seemed to shudder in response.
Hunk empathised. "You okay bud?" he tried, ignoring his new colleague's glare, "You awake?"
Nothing. "Huh," Hunk muttered, "Guess not."
Hunk sat twiddling his thumbs in silence before looking at his fob watch. Ten minutes had elapsed without a peep. Hunk sneakily got his phone out and brought up the day's football results. Rizavi didn't comment. Hunk scooted closer to the light above the bed to read them better.
Smash!
Hunk stared. The prisoner was standing, blood dripping from the IV torn from his arm. He brandished the heavy, metal IV drip stand like a weapon. Hunk stared over the bed. Rizavi lay unmoving on the floor, a bruise already visible on her forehead.
She had never had a chance to scream.
"Make a sound," the prisoner rasped, holding the drip stand like a club, "And I will kill you both!"
Hunk noticed with a sinking heart the prisoner was between him and the exit.
"Come round here," the prisoner ordered. Hunk realised the prisoner was still manacled to the bed, by way of a short chain.
Hunk gulped but forced himself not to panic. Think he told himself.
The emergency buzzer was on the wall by the head of the bed. If Hunk could set it off, all the ward would run in.
He lunged to press it.
The drip stand connected sharply with his shoulder, hard enough to throw him off balance but not to floor him.
"Press it and she dies!" The prisoner rested a threatening foot on Rizavi's neck.
The prisoner stared at him, eyes unreadable in the gloom.
Hunk sighed in surrender and moved away from the buzzer. "Drop your phone," the convict commanded. Hunk obeyed. "Come round here. Search her pockets. I need the keys to the cuffs." Hunk acquiesced, kneeling on the floor next to Rivazi's motionless body. She seemed to be breathing at least, her chest moving up and down. She didn't stir as Hunk rifled through her pockets. From the dim light in the room, Hunk could see the convict's menacing silhouette. His hands found something cool and metallic.
Trembling, Hunk held out the small, silver keys, glinting in the low light.
Even in the shadows, Hunk could see thin lips twist into a triumphant smile. "Undo them for me."
Hunk obliged as best he could, fingers trembling.
The cuffs sprang free with a click and clattered to the floor. "Now," the prisoner continued, voice low and sinister, "I'm going to wrap myself in blankets and we're going to your staff changing room. If you scream or run I will kill you." Hunk believed him. "Do you have car keys?"
"Yes," Hunk choked out.
The prisoner's mouth curled up in the the ghost of a smile. "Good. But try anything," the prisoner warned. "And it will be the last thing you ever do." He still hadn't let go of the drip stand, and he gripped it for emphasis. "The. Last. Thing."
Hunk nodded, taking in his assailant for the first time. The first surprise was that he was smaller than Hunk. All lean, wiry muscle with a shock of badly cut dark hair that fell into his eyes. He was perhaps at most a few years older than Hunk. Old enough to have the engineering masters Hunk was subjecting himself to this shit for in order to fund.
"Pass me the blankets," the prisoner commanded, slipping his shoes on with the hospital issue pyjamas he was wearing. Hunk acquiesced. The prisoner then draped one over his head and wrapped it around himself, anonymising himself in the fabric. He then turned the drip stand the right way up, and held it tightly.
"Let's go."
Hunk led them down the hall to the male staff changing room. They were almost there when...
"Hunk?"
Hunk inwardly cursed. "Shay?" He'd never been less pleased to see her.
"I didn't expect you to be free yet," Shay remarked casually. "Ithought you were staying with the convict until the police arrived."
The knuckles around the drip stand turned white.
"What? Oh yeah," Hunk laughed and hoped he didn't sound as terrified as he felt. "They showed up about five minutes ago. So I'm just escorting Mr uh Flack here to the toilet. Then, I am all yours," he finished, the last words a prayer.
"Well," she gave him a very cute smile. "Don't let me stop you."
"Aye aye captain!" He mock saluted her.
They made their way to the deserted staff changing room without further interruption. "Turn and face the wall," his assailant commanded once they were inside. "Hands up."
Hunk did as he was ordered. He heard rustling, no doubt as his former detainee helped himself to Hunk's colleagues' clothing. "Turn around. Get your car keys. And your wallet." Hunk did a double take. The other man had changed from a regulation hospital gown into tight black jeans and a warm red hoodie. It was astonishing how ordinary he looked, Hunk thought as hereluctantly handed over his valuables.
The criminal continued, "If you're challenged, you say you've just had some bad diarrhoea and you need to go home. They won't ask any questions about that." Hunk was beginning to doubt the whole suicidal, hunger strike thing. In fact, this whole thing seemed suspiciously well planned.
"Now we're going to walk normally out of the ward to your car," the prisoner continued, still holding onto the dripstand, as they exited the ward into the hospital atrium. "Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Just keep going. That's it big guy."
"My name," Hunk spat angrily, "Is Hunk." The tension roserapidly within him, then dissipated twice as quickly, leaving only fear.
The prisoner blinked once in surprise. "Keith," he offered in return.
As they exited the hospital into the moonless night, Keith started to take deep breathes, inhaling the crisp, cold air.
"How long have you been inside?" Hunk asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"Too long," Keith answered, expression unreadable. "Far too long."
Hunk led him to where his car was parked two streets away from the hospital. "It's this one." The other man made short work opening the boot, and quickly pulling Hunk's prized toolkit from it. Keith then looked at it significantly. "Get in," he commanded.
"I'm sorry, what!?" Hunk asked, incredulous.
"In there," Keith explained, impatiently gesturing at the boot.
"You want me to come with you?" Hunk wanted to cry. That or shit himself. "But, um, you can just let me go?"
The prisoner shook his head. "Can't have you raising the alarm."
"I uh. You should probably know," Hunk shuddered, "I'll be sick."
The other guy didn't even blink.
Hunk gulped and climbed into the boot of his own car.
He felt the engine roar into life as he was thrown against the boot's back wall from the force of the acceleration.
Hunk Garrett. Engineering student. Amateur chef. Healthcare assistant.
And now, hostage and probable future murder victim.
Hunk struggled not to cry. If he did survive this, he told himself, it would certainly be a memorable night shift.