Part 9
Holly scrambled to her feet and flicked the light switch on. Even without her glasses she recognised that sat on her floor, leaning against the hallway wall was the figure of Gail Peck.
She had hit Gail Peck over the head with her baseball bat. It made her eyes widen as she stared down at the blonde and the blood on her hand.
Gail groaned at the sudden brightness and covered her eyes with her good hand, she thought she heard a gasp somewhere near her but the pounding of her heartbeat was so loud in her ears she couldn't be sure. And she wasn't sure how much she cared right now, honestly the ETF could be breaking down the door and making their way into the apartment right then and Gail wouldn't have moved an inch.
She whimpered and dropped to her side, turning her face into the wall to try and shield herself from the blinding pain the light was causing to her eyes.
Then something touched the sore spot on her head causing her to moan in agony, her head jerking away from the touch as she tried to swat the probing fingers away with her hand.
"Don't." She warned as the agonizing touches continued.
Holly swallowed down the impulse to leave the blonde alone on hearing the pain in her voice but the doctor in her forced her to continue her examination. Blows to the head could be life threatening and she needed to check Gail properly before deciding on what to do next.
Part of her of course had planned on calling Traci and Steve but the bigger voice in her head was telling her to make sure Gail wasn't hurt, and calling the police, even her brother was going to cause trouble for the blonde even if Holly had left her name out of her statement on the incident at the morgue.
As she checked for depressions and abnormalities around the split skin on Gail's head, Holly realised she wanted to understand the blonde and it made her frown at herself. She'd watched the ex-cop get arrested in front of her at The Black Penny just a few nights ago, heard all the stories of her criminal involvement and yet like an idiot, she still wasn't rushing to call the police.
This woman had broken into her house while she slept and had tied her to a chair in the morgue while the guy with Gail waved a gun at her!
There had to be something wrong with her. Holly shook her head and tried to focus on what she was doing, if she got this wrong the consequences could be devastating for the blonde.
"Oww!" Gail muttered as she felt a pinch to her scalp. "What the fuck?" Her nausea had subsided for the moment but that didn't make her eager to move or even open her eyes.
"Hold still." Holly said as kept the wound closed with one hand and checked the first aid kit with the other. She had grabbed it from the bathroom when she'd gone for her glasses. She had a suture kit and some glue as well as bandages and an antibiotic spray, what she didn't have was painkillers. Not that she would have given painkillers to Gail, head injuries needed careful monitoring and you couldn't do that if the patient was out of it.
Holly frowned as she saw the bleeding continue. "I'm going to have to stitch this."
Gail rolled her eyes under their lids. "And you're what, waiting for my opinion Doc?" She muttered.
Holly shook her head but pulled out everything she needed. "This is going to hurt." She warned the blonde.
Gail snorted. "Like it doesn't already, just get on with it." She growled as the pounding in her head increased again making her nausea return. "I think I'm going to puke."
Holly's eyes widened but there wasn't much she could about it, and what was a little sick considering the blood on her wall and on the carpet?
She sighed and got up from her crouched position, willing to leave Gail for a moment while she snatched the waste basket from the kitchen and placed it down in front of the blonde.
Gail pushed the waste basket away and leaned down to rest her head on the carpet. "Would you put that fucking light out!" She cried as tears stung and she couldn't hold them back as she did her best to concentrate on her breathing in an attempt not to throw up. She was pretty sure being sick right now wasn't going to make her headache any better.
The light went out.
She sighed at the darkness and moved to lay on her stomach where she was, her eyes staying firmly closed. With the hammering in her skull she just wanted to make it stop but she didn't know how. She felt another, softer touch to her head again and whined in protest.
"Sorry." Holly said as she carefully placed a dressing to the wound she'd tried her best to clean. It was still bleeding but head wounds tended to look worse than they were. She shifted closer to the blonde and picked up the blonde's wrist to check her heart rate.
"That's my one good arm, be kind." Gail mumbled as she gave up fighting and just let the pathologist do what she wanted.
Holly tried not to smile, the blonde certainly wasn't going to like the next few moments. Satisfied Gail was relatively stable Holly pulled the small flash light she had in her kit out and stuck it in her mouth as she picked up the needle and slowly began the process of closing over the wound.
She was surprised that Gail only made a few sounds of discomfort while she worked but then, she had seen the scar on Gail's face and knew the blonde had to have had some experience with pain without medication.
"Almost done." She told the blonde as she put the torch down and worked on the sixth and final stitch.
Gail just offered a grunt in reply, the throbbing in her head wasn't likely to stop just because Holly had made sure her brain wasn't going to drip out onto the floor. Besides, right now her arm was hurting just as much if not more so.
"Well good cause… broken arm." She reminded the doctor with a lift of said arm.
Holly smiled as she cut the last thread. "I'll get to that."
"Just saying." Gail answered back before turning her head into the carpet.
Holly shook her head and put everything back away in her kit. "Do you think you can stand up for me?" She asked as she put her hands under Gail's arms and helped her up ignoring the moans of protest at the change in position.
"Come on, just a few steps." Holly said encouragingly as she helped Gail over to the couch. "Sit."
Gail sighed and did as she was told, mainly because she wasn't sure she could keep standing given how much the room felt like it was spinning.
Carefully she relaxed into the cushions as Holly wandered away again.
The pain of having the stitches put in was minor compared to the continued pounding of her head but Gail tried to swallow it down and focus, she wasn't sure how much time she had before the police showed up.
She blinked when she felt Holly return and move her, slipping her arm through her leather jacket to take it off.
"Oww, ow, ow!" Gail muttered as Holly pulled her hurt arm through as well. She tried to scowl at the pathologist. "I'm not dead yet you know!" She reminded her. "Your bedside manner needs a shit load of work."
Holly pursed her lips to keep from smiling. Then she focused just on Gail's arm. From the light shining into the room she could already see a bruise appearing as well as swelling from tissue damage. It made her feel a little ill knowing this was damage she had inflicted.
She ran her hands gently over the limb, pausing to hold it by the elbow with one hand as the other moved down to support Gail's hand. "Wiggle your fingers for me."
Gail rolled her eyes. "Seeing as you asked so nicely." She replied before attempting the action. It hurt like hell but all her fingers moved. "That's good right?"
"Hmm." Holly frowned and turned the forearm so Gail's hand faced palm up.
"Oww!" Gail would have snatched her arm away from Holly if it wouldn't have hurt even more, instead she glared at the older woman.
"Wiggle them again." Holly instructed Gail without even glancing at her.
Gail was very tempted to slap Holly with her good hand just for asking her to do what she knew was going to be excruciatingly painful for her, but finally she relented and with a sigh, moved her fingers about quickly.
Holly grunted and then moved the limb as gently as she could up and across Gail's chest. "Try and keep it in this position." That would help with the swelling but the pain was something Gail would just have to deal with for now. "Nothing's broken, it's just bruised muscle. You got lucky."
It would have been so easy to break Gail's arm. Holly knew she could swing harder than most guys she used to play with. The leather jacket must have taken a lot of the blow.
Holly fought down bile as she lifted her glasses up to rub at her eyes. She wasn't sure what was worse, the fear she'd felt realising someone else was in her apartment with her, or knowing that her reaction to that could have killed the blonde in front of her.
If the swing to Gail's head had connected the way Holly had meant it to, Gail would likely have severe brain damage at the very least.
"You are so fucking lucky." She muttered again as she slumped down onto the floor next to the couch as tears stung her eyes. She wasn't a violent person, she'd rather hand over her purse to a mugger than try and resist.
She stared down at her hands and noticed how badly they were shaking.
"You wouldn't have stopped hitting me if you hadn't lost hold of the bat, huh?" Gail asked softly, already knowing the answer, she watched Holly's wide, tear filled eyes flick to hers. "It's amazing what a person is capable of when they have little choice." She told the other woman with a half-smile.
Holly licked her lips and shifted closer to the blonde. She stared at the woman, not understanding this person sat in front of her but finding that she very much wanted to. She wanted to know why she and the man with the gun had broken into the morgue, why they were stealing a body, and why she had almost been shot for getting in their way.
Gail was tired, she wasn't sure she could keep her eyes open for much longer. "Shouldn't the cops be here by now?" The brunette had had several opportunities to have called already, it was puzzling the blonde that no one had arrived yet.
Holly got onto her knee and placed her hand on Gail's thigh as she leaned over and opened an eyelid.
"God, what?" Gail moaned as Holly took liberties with her yet again. She groaned as Holly stared into one eye then did the same to her other one. "Happy now, can I get some sleep?" At least until the door was broken down and she was hauled away in cuffs. She pouted at the thought of her arm being pulled behind her back, that wasn't going to be any fun at all.
Holly sighed, it didn't seem like Gail's pupils were unresponsive but that didn't rule out brain injury. She would have liked to have taken the blonde to the emergency room just to be safe but she was sure the blonde would never allow that.
Knowing it wasn't worth arguing over Holly reached for a cushion and placed it under Gail's elevated arm to help keep it in place.
"Yeah, okay." She told the blonde quietly, her tone subdued.
Gail shifted into a more comfortable spot before eyeing Holly carefully. "You're not going to poke at me the minute I close my eyes again are you?"
Holly had shifted to sit at the other end of the couch and just watch the blonde sleep. "No." She replied, although the warning look she was getting from the blonde made it very tempting. Unlike stories on the internet, head injuries didn't require hourly checks, although close monitoring was advised. As the eye stayed on her she smiled and gave the blonde a helpless shrug before conceding, "Maybe."
Gail grunted and leaned her head back, careful of the stitches. "Shoulda just finished me off."
"Don't tempt me." Holly answered back.
"I could sue, you know, pretty sure this counts as attempted murder." Gail sassed at the doctor.
Holly snorted, if Gail wasn't as badly hurt as she was she would have thrown the cushion in her lap at her.
"I think you'll find the law on breaking and entering might trump my reaction to the intruder." Holly replied.
Gail grinned as she kept her eyes closed, she couldn't really refute that. "Well, it wasn't like you would have let me in if I'd knocked, would you?" She popped open an eye again, curious of the answer.
"You'll never know." Holly replied with a shrug.
Gail tried not to giggle, knowing it would do nothing for her headache. "Next time I might try that."
Gail sighed and felt herself start to drift off. It was strange, she'd never usually allow herself to fall asleep in front of a stranger but here she was doing just that.
She had no idea what was going to happen when she opened her eyes again, especially given the suitcases by the door, would Holly even still be there?
"We need to talk, so no running away." She muttered towards Holly.
Holly stayed still until she was sure the blonde was asleep. Only then did she get up and head into the kitchen, there was no way she'd be able to sleep after this. She switched on her coffee machine then wandered back out into the hall.
She went over to the front door and checked it but it was still locked, that surprised her, there was no sign of how Gail had got in. Actually that scared her to death, she usually felt safe being in her apartment alone it was why she hadn't accepted Traci's offer of staying over tonight.
Holly shook her head, reasoning that Gail had trained as a police officer so must know some tricks, like breaking and entering. She then walked down the hallway to where she had attacked Gail, there was no other way to explain how she had acted, she'd attacked the figure in the dark with every intention of inflicting as much harm as possible to make sure she wasn't a victim again.
She spotted the blood on the wall, she'd have to clean that up and the carpet.
She wandered back into the kitchen and made herself that coffee, cleaning could wait for now, it wasn't like she had anything else to do with her time.
Walking back over to Gail with her mug, she picked up her cell phone and scrolled to her flight reservation, she'd been due to leave at 6.30am, with a sigh she flicked into a few pages and then cancelled her booking, not caring about the penalty fee she would have to pay.
She sipped her drink and eyed the blonde drooling on her couch. Gail was right, they did need to talk. Holly didn't want to spend another night this afraid again.
And besides, she could always catch a later flight.