"You're behind schedule."
Inside his Orb, Lee heard the cold voice speak to him, sending chills through him. What was with that? He was a spirit, as in not solid, he shouldn't be getting chills but still this voice caused them.
"Well that's not my fault," Lee remarked. "You're the one who made sure she ran him over, now she won't go anywhere until she's sure he's okay."
"He's fine," the voice told him harshly. "Get her back on the road now."
Lee gave a sigh. "Lily, we need to keep moving."
"Not yet," her voice answered him from outside the Orb. "Not until he's better."
"Take him to a hospital then, let him get checked out and then we need to move."
"I can't do that!" She sounded scared, almost horrified.
"Why not?"
"Because it's my fault he got ran over and this time I'm going to do what I can to help him live."
"So take him to a hospital," Lee said. "They'll do everything they can, which is more than you."
"Not yet."
Lee could sense the fear in her voice at his suggestions. 'Why is she so afraid?' he wondered.
"She's not budging," Lee told the man's disembodied voice.
"I want her on that road in two hours, with or without the boy. He's important, but he's not vital."
"Alright," Lee said wearily, not sure he could manage it, his doubt sounding in his tone.
"I mean it, it's bad enough we had to wait this long, if we wait much longer the opportunity will pass."
"I'm trying," Lee said. "But maybe if you hadn't made her run him over we wouldn't be in this mess."
"Don't blame it on me," the voice commanded sharply. "You're the one who let her take the day trip to the library, which you owe us big for. Planting that article wasn't easy. It's because of that we missed the first opportunity, we can't mess this one up too."
"Alright," Lee said with another sigh, fed up with the voice's rants. "Let me do it then. Two hours?"
Lee sensed the figure attached the voice nodding as he spoke, "With or without the boy."
Lee echoed his words quietly, more chills spreading through him.
- - - - - - - -
The rest of that night was a bit of a blur for Lily. She remembered getting out of the car and realising with horror that she had knocked over a man, a real human. She remembered thinking she should check if he was breathing, if he was all right, but she didn't remember actually checking. Nor did she remember putting the man into her car or driving it to a nearby Travelodge but she supposed she must have done otherwise they wouldn't both be in a room at that minute would they?
It was four thirty in the morning and Lily, who had been sat on the bed with her face buried in her hands, suddenly realised that she needed to stop pitying herself and actually help the man she'd just nearly killed, if she hadn't actually killed him, which she suspected she might. She turned around and saw him lying on the bed. He was so still; it didn't even look like he was breathing.
'Oh no…' Was her panicked thought when she realised this and rushed to his side.
She put her ear down on his chest, trying to hear a heartbeat. She strained to hear, just a tiny noise, anything, just some sign it was still beating…There! Was it? She concentrated on a small patch on the left-hand side of the man's chest. Yes. Definitely. A relieved look crossed her face but quickly faded. It was only faint; she needed to do something, but what?
"Lily, we need to keep moving." Lee's voice sounded in her head.
"Not yet," she told him, refusing to until she knew the man would be safe. "Not until he's better."
"Take him to a hospital then, let him get checked out and then we need to move."
His suggestion hit her and she froze for a moment. "I can't do that!"
"Why not?" Lee's persistent voice questioned.
"Because it's my fault he got ran over and this time I'm going to do what I can to help him live."
"So take him to a hospital," Lee told her. "They'll do everything they can, which is more than you."
Of course Lily knew she should, the thought had occurred to her maybe fifty times already, but something was holding her back. Fear, she knew. What if they couldn't do anything? She would already be arrested for running him over in the first place, if they couldn't do anything to help the man then she'd be looking at a death charge too, maybe even manslaughter. She couldn't handle that. No, she had to try and save him herself first, and then he'd be so grateful that he wouldn't press charges and Lily would be all right. That was the plan anyway; of course, it never worked out like that, did it? But Lily tried to stay optimistic. And if something did go wrong, which Lily prayed it didn't…Well she'd have to deal with that if, and when, it happened.
"Not yet," Lily told Lee boldly. There was no response so she assumed he had given up and was letting her do this.
She studied the man lying before of her, if you could call him that, he didn't look much older than Lily, he was twenty-one at the most. He had a considerable amount of messy black hair, not that Lily was surprised by its state, he had gone flying into the air, landed with great force, been dragged to her car, driven wildly around and then dragged into this room, she'd have been more surprised if his hair hadn't been a mess. He was tall, well taller than Lily, who was just above average height for her gender and age. Maybe ¾ of a head taller. He was thin too, but in an athletic sort of way, not a lanky one. She couldn't see his eyes but she could see a small pool of dried blood beneath one of them. He looked oddly familiar but Lily couldn't quite place him. What she noticed was that there was lots of dried blood on him, more than she realised.
She quickly hurried into the bathroom, returning with the toothbrush holder/cup full of water and clean towels. Lots of them. She dipped a corner into water and began gently wiping the blood from the man's face. She did this across all his uncovered flesh, carefully cleaning his cuts and then magically sealing them so that he didn't lose much more blood. This done, she debated what to do about his covered flesh. Should she clean them and stop their bleeding? Or leave him to bleed so that if he did wake up he didn't think she was up to anything. In the end she decided on a combination. She would clean his top half and hope he woke up soon to do his bottom half. She undid his shirt, ignoring the amount of blood on it. She hoped it was just spread and he hadn't actually bled that much. As she took off his shirt she knew that was too much to ask.
Across his stomach was a large gash with what was a surprisingly small piece of glass for the length and depth of the cut, embedded inside. It must have hit a vein or something because it was bleeding profusely. Lily held back her desire to run out of the room there and then. She'd done this; she would fix it, that's what she told herself.
She got a brand new towel, about to dip it in the cup when she realised it wasn't enough. She went back into the bathroom, put he plug in the sink, ran some water and soaked the towel in it. Dripping wet, she took the towel back to the man and began tending to his wounds once more. She winced dramatically whenever she got close to the offending piece of glass. What was she meant to do with that?
"Lee, I need your help."
"Don't ask me," Lee said as unhelpfully as he possibly could have been. "I don't know anything about that."
Lily let out a hysterical groan before taking a deep breath. She didn't know what to do, all she could do was guess and hope for the best. With the towel ready to apply pressure, Lily slowly winched the glass out, trying not to break, fracture or splinter the glass in anyway. Less than a moment after it was out Lily was applying pressure once more. The pristine white towel soon began turning red from blood.
'Oh God…Please don't die.' She thought frantically, fear spreading through her as she realised the blood wasn't stopping.
She had to do something. She couldn't sit by and watch someone die again but the spell she'd used to heal the other wounds was a simple spell and was only supposed to be used for small cuts. This wasn't a small cut. She was too unpractised with magic to attempt anything bigger. She was lucky the night before with the Orb, but that was all it was. Luck. Now she needed something more, she needed knowledge, she needed confidence but mostly, she needed someone to do this for her.
The towel was now completely soaked in blood. Her fear at the realization that if she didn't do something he definitely would die gave her an odd sense of confidence. She removed the towel and gripped her wand tightly as a word came to her.
"S…s…san…sanose." She said quietly, her nerves getting the better of her as a small wisp of smoke emitted from the end of her wand.
She let out a small whimper.
'What are you so upset about?' she thought to herself harshly. 'You're not the one dying from blood loss.'
It's funny how cruel words can give you the strength to do something that you wouldn't normally, as though you want to prove them wrong. What's funnier is how when those words come from yourself you try that little bit harder to prove them wrong. This is what happened to Lily at that exact moment. There's no peer has a greater effect than that of yourself. Taking a deep breath she spoke clearly, loudly and carefully.
"Sanose."
A wispy stream of a silvery light blue came out her wand, wrapping itself around the man's stomach, going inside the wound, shimmering as it healed the cut. Lily watched in awe, she'd never done that before and though it looked like it worked, she couldn't be sure until the man made some kind of movement. After ten minutes he still hadn't moved. Lily gave a weary sigh before tears began streaming down her face.
"There's nothing more you can do," Lee told her gently and suddenly making her jump.
"There has to be," she whispered hoarsely.
There was a pause before Lee spoke again. "You need to rest," he told her soothingly. "Go take a shower, I'll let you know if there's any change."
"There won't be," Lily wailed. "He'll die and I'll be arrested for his death. I'm so stupid! I should have taken him to the hospital. Anyone with a half a brain would have done. This is all my fault!"
"Don't think like that," Lee said patiently, speaking soothingly to her. "You weren't to know. I should have given you warning instead of keeping you talking and unfocussed but what's done is done. What matters now is that you've tried to help him. It'll all work out good in the end."
Lily couldn't see how, all that was in her head was that she'd killed this man. She was a killer now, pure and simple, but something in his words soothed her slightly.
"Promise?"
"I promise, now shower."
Lily did as she was told, her body racked with sobs as she turned on the hot water and undressed, not noticing until that moment that she was covered in blood. She spent a long time in the shower, thankful it wasn't her flat where she had to be careful about the amount of water she used. Ten minutes and then out, ready or not, or the water would freeze you. But here she and didn't have to, so she showered washed and then sat on the base of the shower, not really feeling the water as it ran down her back and face, washing away the tears. Forty minutes later, with no tears left, she got out, wrapped a towel around her body, not bothering with her hair, and went back into the room.
"Any change?" she asked Lee but looked at the man as he lay.
"No," Lee answered sadly. "Do you feel better?"
"Not really," Lily answered truthfully. "But…" She debated whether to say more.
"Go on," Lee urged her.
"But…" Again Lily trailed off, this time for a different reason.
Her eyes, which had been trained intently on the man lying on the only bed in the room, watched as the man's hand twitched. She was immediately by his side.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" she asked gently but loudly.
His hand twitched a little more and he made a small groan.
"My name's Lily," she said, louder this time, excitement and relief spreading through her.
His eyes began fluttering, slowly at first, then a little more until they were eventually open. He had deep blue eyes, scared and confused at this minute.
- - - - - - - -
James didn't remember much when he started to feel consciousness returning to him. Well actually, that's not true, he remembered a lot, especially about the events following that night, but he didn't really remember what had happened to make him be lying here, on such a comfortable bed, while his whole body was in agony. Realising how much pain he was in, he wondered how he hadn't woken sooner from it. He moved his hand a little bit, seeing if he could. Then he heard a voice.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" It was such a sweet voice; he wanted to see who it belonged to.
He moved his hand again and opened his mouth to speak. All that came out was a small groan.
"My name's Lily," she sounded eager for him to respond, as though she had been waiting for a long time.
He tried to open his eyes. They were heavy. He struggled to open them. He felt weak. As his eyes fluttered slowly he could see shapes and colours, a white square, a yellow triangle, a red curve. As he tried to open them a bit more, his eyes stayed open longer. He could now make out what these shapes and colours were. The white was from a tiled ceiling about him; the yellow part of the decoration on the wallpaper opposite and the red was a wild curl, one of many that fell raggedly around a tear-stained, puffy-eyed young woman. His eyes were open fully now.
He opened his mouth to speak again, his throat croaked at the effort. The woman vanished from his sight before she returned a minute later with a glass in her hand.
"Drink this," she told him, helping him to sit up and placing the glass at his lips.
He parted them, allowing the cold liquid to fill his mouth and trickle down his throat. Its effect was almost instant.
"Thank you," he said, his voice still hoarse but at least you could make out words now.
She shook her head dutifully. "I should be thanking you."
"Why?" he asked, his frown turned into a wince as he tried to look confused.
"For waking up."
He was going to say something but stopped when she carried on.
"I was beginning to think you never would. That you would die. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do it, it was an accident."
"What was?"
She looked at him in shock. "You don't remember? Oh great, I've probably caused you brain damage on top of everything else. Given you amnesia or something. Figures, I was beginning to think my day couldn't get any worse."
"What?" He didn't understand a word this woman was saying. He was beginning to think maybe she was a little disturbed mentally.
"I ran you over!" She cried, quickly pulling him away from any ideas he was having about her mental state.
"What?" he repeated. This time he sounded less confused but more shocked.
"I ran you over. I didn't mean to, I just wasn't paying attention and then there was something in the road…I swear it looked like a deer…But before I could stop I'd hit it and when I got out to see if it was okay, it wasn't a deer, it was a man. You."
Sudden thoughts hit James, memories of what had happened. She had hit a deer, a stag at least, it just happened to be him, too.
"So I'm in hospital?" It didn't look like any hospital he knew, especially with the woman undressed with only a towel to cover herself, but it might be.
"No," she admitted, sounding shamed.
"Where am I then?"
"Uh…A Travelodge in Cardiff."
"Huh?"