Chapter 13

Shouting. She couldn't understand the words, but even so, she could hear them. Taking a deep breath, she shut her eyes tight as she applied pressure to an unconscious man's chest. She felt sick. She felt light headed. Lights were dancing behind her eyes. Oh god, she wanted to hold Serena in her arms and never let go.

Serena.

Bernie suddenly sat up straight "Shit" she whispered. 'Why did I write them a message? Why didn't I simply tell the police on the phone where Serena was?!' Bernie's face paled further as panic began to take over her 'How could I have been so stupid? What if they don't find the message! Fuck! I've killed us'

Simon seemed to notice the look on her face but quickly brushed it off as his eyes were momentarily blinded by the flashing lights of the police cars chasing them "Take the next right and go through the estate, there's a back way we can take. We should lose the cops through there!" he yelled frantically to the driver.

The van swung into the turn, both conscious occupants in the back of the van stumbling to the floor with the force.

Bernie forced her aching limbs to push herself up straight and looked down at the man before her with a knife sticking out of his chest "You weren't properly prepared for this" she said with a grimace as she reapplied pressure to the wound. She wasn't completely certain whether she was saying this to herself or Simon.

Another sharp turn. This time Bernie managed to stay upright though she could swear she felt one side of the van lift from the road.

"We got the drugs, all things considered, once we lose the cops this mission will have been a success"

"Success?" Bernie scoffed "You lost all but 2 of your men"

Simon's face suddenly fell as he looked down to the bleeding man below them "Are you telling me he's not saveable?"

"No. If we get back to Serena there's still a chance we can save him"

There was a loud bang from the front of the vehicle and Bernie braced herself. The van swerved once more, taking a fence with it as the blue lights continued to follow them into a playground area.

"Simon we're coming up to the back way, its gonna get bumpy!" came a shout from the front.

Bernie watched as Simon grabbed onto the seating in the back of the van. Following his lead, Bernie quickly took her hands away from the man in front of her and braced herself on whatever her hands could grab.

With a roar from the front of the van that Bernie couldn't understand, the van sped off an embankment. Bernie felt a sudden weightlessness take over her and her stomach lurched at the sensation. All too soon, there was weighted thud accompanied by the sound of smashing glass. Out of instinct, Bernie brought one arm up to shield her face from the falling glass. With the squeaking of a damaged suspension the van continued to speed off on the other side of the gully.

In a moment of disbelief, Bernie dropped her arm and her eyes darted to Simon's. He wasn't looking at her though. He was looking past her through the now shattered windows of the back doors. She too turned her head in the direction of his gaze to see the blue lights fading as they moved farther and farther away from police cars on the other side of the gap.

Breathless, Simons eyes once more returned to Bernie before looking down at the man lying prone on the floor of the van.

"Can't you do anything for him now?!" He yelled with a shaking voice. Bernie turned and once again threw her hands onto the man's chest to apply pressure "How about starting by taking this thing out of his chest" he said with a stronger voice as his hands closed around the handle of the knife.

"NO!" Bernie grabbed his hand and held it in place before he could pull "You pull that out of his chest and he'll bleed out. I don't have the equipment here to save him!"

Simon narrowed his eyes at her "You better not be lying to me. If he dies, so do you"

Bernie mirrored his harsh gaze for a moment before loosening her grip on his hand "put your hands where mine are and apply pressure"

He did so but furrowed his brow as she pulled her hands away and began rummaging in the medi bag "what are you doing?"

She pulled out some water and cotton buds and pulled the bloodied latex gloves from her hands "If I'm to save him, I have to tend to my own injuries first." She stated matter of factly as she began to wash the blood from her hand.

She did her best to pull the pickles of glass from her hand but she knew that without tweezers or a scan, she wouldn't find all of them. When she took out the sterile needle and began to suture her wounds, Simon turned away. He couldn't watch this.

Simon looked to the man lying on the floor in front of him and willed him to wake up. To crack a joke and make everything ok again. The woman in front of him was right. He'd gone in unprepared… and now he'd lost most of his friends and was about to loose…

"Simon what are we going to do about the cars we left there?" Simon flinched as though he were physically torn from his thoughts.

"There's nothing we can do. The police have them now." Simon brow furrowed once more "Actually… I want to know how the police knew where to find us. Those bastards wouldn't have called them with this kind of merchandise lying around"

"Don't know, boss, but someone called them" came a voice from the front of the van. Bernie froze momentarily as she finished stitching her hand.

"Should I call ahead and tell them we're coming back?" came another voice from the front of the van.

"Yeah" Simon narrowed his eyes once more at Bernie "weren't you wearing a coat earlier?" There was no way she'd have had the time or resources to call the police… so why did he have such a strong suspicion it was her?

Bernie blanched, her eyes never leaving her hand "Lost it during the gun fight, found it too restrictive".

Serena paced back and forth, just as she'd been doing since little after Bernie left. She had to. It was the only thing stopping her from falling into another panic attack. God, she hoped Bernie would be ok. She knew she'd lost her romantically, but she meant what she said, she'd rather the woman be alive and happy with someone else than dead.

Sighing, she finally sat down on the edge of the bed. Pacing wasn't going to get her anywhere, she had to believe that Bernie would be alright. "she will be" she said aloud "she's strong, brave… beautiful" Serena groaned and placed her head in her hands. "how could I have been so stupid"

Serena flinched as the door to the room burst open. She physically gripped the bed frame as a man with two black eyes and a plaster over his nose rushed into the room. "Wh-whats happening?" she asked as her voice shook.

The man, she now recognised as the man who's gotten his nose broken when they arrived, reached down and roughly grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. "They're on their way back, we have a casualty" he said with haste.

Almost tripping over her own feet at the speed with which she was being pulled down the corridor, Serena didn't even register the splinters left in her hand from having her grip forcibly removed from the bed frame. Her thoughts were too focussed on Bernie.

Was Bernie coming back with them? Was she alive?

Or worse… was she the casualty?

Blue lights refracted back off every surface as a burly man in a Duffle coat walked towards the tall building. 'God I could do with a coffee right now' he thought as he fought off a yawn and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Sir" he heard a voice say and raised his eyes to see an officer approach him.

"What have you got, Clark?"

"Sir, the team have searched the warehouse, there's no one here… no one living anyway. We've got 14 bodies, Anderson is on identifying them."

"Alright, then why don't you explain why you got me out of my bed at this ungodly hour for nothing more than 14 unidentified bodies. This is below my pay grade"

The other man looked nervous now "That's the thing, Sir, we've reviewed some CCTV footage from the control room out the back of the building. The gang that started the gun fight had a woman with them that very much matched the description of one Ms Berenice Wolfe"

Suddenly Coffee wasn't needed to make the man in the duffle coat more alert "go on"

"There were cars left on the premises as well when the men and the woman fled" he gestured to a team who were photographing and documenting the vehicles in question. A rather large jeep and a small sports car "The jeep is stolen but the Mazda's registered keeper is Berenice Wolfe"

"Right" he sighed as he ran a hand over his face "Were a team sent after them?"

"Yes, Sir, but they lost them out the back of the Mills housing estate"

"Shit" he whispered to himself "Right, take me to the control room! I want to see those tapes"

"Yes, sir, right this way, sir"

The moment they entered the building, the man in the duffle coat immediately scrunched his nose up at the sight of such a massacre, the forensics teams hovering over the bodies like blood sucking flies.

They'd taken no more than 6 steps into the building when the faint sound of a piano melody stopped them in their tracks.

"What is that?" he asked more to himself than the officer beside him.

"Can we get some quiet please!" he yelled, his voice immediately stopping the hub bub of chatters and camera clicks.

"I feel the shadows hanging over, they're waiting to come closer" echoed off the walls of the now silent warehouse "To come and take me away"

"Isn't that the music for the new Google phone ad?" He heard someone say somewhere down the back of the building.

"The question is, where is it coming from?" the man in the duffle coat growled. The melodic voice of the woman singing seemed to come from everywhere.

"And I can feel my heart skip. Every time that I slip. I wanna run away"

Suddenly the sound of drums and a brass instrument he couldn't quite place filled the space. "There he yelled" as he ran towards a stack of crates, the officer closely following behind him, but as they reached the wooden boxes the music stopped. The man in the duffle coat stepped around the stack "were these men part of your body count?" he asked as he gestured to the two unconscious figures lying in a pile at his feet.

"No, Sir, we didn't know they were here. That makes 16 bodies, sir"

"Didn't know they were here?" he replied with annoyance "how could you not…" His words died on his lips as he noticed the brown liquid still drying on the wall with a coat lying beneath it. As he stepped towards the coat he shot back a retort about the officers team not doing a good enough job if they didn't notice a huge wet brown stain on the wall, but that too died on his lips when the Holby city lanyard came into view.

"Sir" he heard another officer say as she approached.

"Not now, Readman"

"Save her" The man in the duffle coat said as he read the dried blood on the pale fabric of the coat. He suddenly reached into his pocket with frantic speed and drew out a tissue. Using the tissue, he lifted the Badge and rubbed some of the blood off its surface. "Serena Campbell" he said breathlessly as her name and smiling face was revealed to him.

Suddenly all three officers froze as the piano tune from earlier started again. The man in the duffle coat was first to react as he slowly peeled back the coat to reveal the vibrating phone. His eyes then darted to the words stained onto the concrete 'Hope Wing Clinic'. His face paled and his eyes widened.

"You" he said pointing at the female officer.

"Yes, sir?"

"Take a call from Mummy" he said with haste as he threw the phone at her "I want details"

"Y-Yes, Sir" she said as she frantically grabbed for the singing phone.

"And you" he said, motioning to the other officer "arrange for Backup to meet me on route to Hope Wing Clinic"

"That abandoned place we raided 3 years ago?"

He merely nodded in response "if anyone asks, tell them is an order from Robbie Medcalf!"