Chapter 14
The doors of the van swung open as they pulled up to the building. Simon quickly scooped the injured man up in his arms and jumped out. His feet carried him across the gravel faster than they'd ever done before, as he willed the man in his arms to live.
Bernie jumped out behind him, immediately regretting her decision as her vision swam momentarily. Pain stabbed at her head, just like before, as a wave of dizziness took her. Swaying violently on her feet, she reached a hand out to steady herself against the door of the van.
Hands grabbed at her to get her moving, jerking her body in such way that she had no other option but to physically bend over as coloured liquid projected from her mouth.
Breathing heavily, a wave of drowsiness washed over her as the pain in her head fizzled out.
"Alright?" came a rough, yet oddly sympathetic, voice beside her.
Drawing the back of her uninjured hand up to wipe her mouth, she slowly nodded as the night air cooled her suddenly feverish skin.
She once again felt herself being walked towards the building she'd been trapped in for so long and opened her eyes. Her brows furrowed then. This wasn't the clinic. Before her was a shack with little more than a tin roof full of holes and a door hanging off its hinges.
Bernie looked around her. Sand. There was nothing around them but a wasteland of sand. Furrowing her brow, she closed her eyes against the sinking realisation that even if someone did find her message, they'd never find them.
Bracing herself once more, she opened her eyes. Bernie stopped once again as dizziness overtook her and her vision doubled. With another swift jerk from the men holding her, her vision shot back to a singular image like a stretched elastic being released.
Bernie physically jumped with momentary fear as the doubled image of the shack, combined rather abruptly to once again form the abandoned ruins of Hope Wing Clinic.
Bile rose in her throat once more as her confused mind took in her surroundings. She physically clenched her fists to fight back the rising nausea. "What the fuck!" yelled Bernie in frustration as she shook her head.
"Ok that's enough" said the man beside her, his voice no longer carrying its undertones of sympathy "Let's just get her inside".
Serena tapped her foot impatiently as she rung her hands. 'Dear god' she thought "what if it is Bernie?' she bit her lip 'what if I can't save her?' Serena stopped tapping as an altogether new concept came at her 'what if it's not her? What if she got left behind and is lying somewhere injured and alone?'
Serena's dark thoughts are halted by the sound of clapping feet in the corridor outside the room. With bated breath, she waited beside the operating table, frozen to the spot. The clapping grew louder and louder, echoing the thumping of her heart in her ears. 'Please don't be Bernie. Please don't be Bernie' she repeated in her head.
At the first sight of Simon and his entirely male casualty, she let out a sigh of relief, which was quickly followed by dread, as she found no sign of Bernie following.
The sound of Simon placing the man in his arms down onto the table snapped her out of her momentary state of frozen dread and she turned to Simon "Wh-Where's Bernie?" she asked, unable to ground the trembling in her voice.
Simon turned around, for the first time noticing that the Blonde wasn't behind him "She was…"
"Stand at EASE!" Came the booming voice of the Army Major, cutting Simon off mid-sentence as her tones echoed off the walls of the corridor.
Serena jumped into action at the sight of Bernie walking past the glass wall and into the room. "Bernie, you're alive! Are you ok?!" she couldn't help blurting out when she took in the sight of blood drying on her clothes and in the cuts on the Blonde's face.
The blonde merely smiled and nodded. It was then that Serena took in just how tired the woman looked. Dark rings under her eyes and paper white skin that made her cuts and bruises seem all the more angry. How did she not notice this in the time they'd been holed up in that room?
"I am… now I know you're safe" she replied, a softness to her voice that Serena had never heard before.
"Excuse me!" yelled Simon in desperation "Man dying here! You don't have time to screw this up!" Serena immediately jumped into action but Bernie stood still "Excuse me, Major, was there something you didn't understand about you don't have time?"
"I have to get scrubbed in" she replied.
"Fuck that! Just save him! What? Did you have to get scrubbed in every time you operated on the battle field too? Just get that fucking thing out of his chest"
Bernie growled and grabbed a fresh pair of gloves as she moved to stand over the body. She needed to bide her time. She needed to hold out hope for Serena's sake that someone was coming to save them.
Serena looked over as she watched Bernie struggle to pull on one of the gloves. "Your hand" she gasped "what happened to your hand".
"I do believe you have more pressing issues, don't you Ms Campbell?" said the man with the broken nose.
Bernie hastily pulled the glove on over her stitches to hide them from Serena's view. With any luck, the restraint from the glove would help hold the stitches closed and maybe Serena would be able to focus more without being able to see them.
"How'd it go?" asked Atkins, the nasally tones of his voice not quite masking the anger in his question. He was obviously still bitter that the woman who'd broken his nose was still alive.
Simon took one last glance at the body on the table before taking Atkins over to the corner to speak to him more privately.
"Bernie" Serena whispered as she felt at the man's neck. She looked up to find Bernie subtly shaking her head at her with widened eyes. A warning not to say anything. She already knew it was a dead body they were operating on.
"I mean, we lost everyone but Lucas and Ali, at least we saved him though. I dread to think what those bastards put him through when they took him. He was bound and locked in a store cupboard when we found him." Said Simon with a grimace "He was free for all of 3 minutes before he put himself between me and a knife" at this, Simon covered his face with his hand.
"Its ok, Simon. He's here now. He can be saved. That bitch saved Tom, right?" Simon nodded as he thought back to meeting 'The Major' just days ago in the hospital "then she can save dad"
Simon lowered his hand as he watched the two surgeons conversing over the body, doing magic he couldn't even hope to understand. He then looked to the pale features of the man lying on the table as they hooked him up to the bag of blood they'd stolen. In that moment, he prayed to a god he no longer believed in that he'd be ok. After all this was said and done, he'd sell the drugs, shut up shop and move him, his brother and their dad somewhere new where no one knew them. Start a fresh with the money they'd make. Life would be better from here on out.
It was as Bernie lifted the scalpel from the tray that his mind ran back to the police being called. He still had the niggling feeling that it had been the Major that had done it but how? He watched the blade come down to his father's stomach and waited with bated breath for her to finally slice him open.
But she didn't.
It was then that his brows furrowed together as he watched her companion glance up at her with barely concealed tears in her eyes. The Major seemed to communicate with her somehow with nothing but a nod, her eyes returning to the figure below them.
Bernie poised the blade over the man's stomach once more before freezing at the sudden intrusion of Simons voice "Where's Lucas and Ali?"
Bernie's eyes unfocused for a moment as a wave of heat washed over her, momentarily causing her a brief spell of dizziness as she fought to stem the shaking of her hand caused by panic.
Simon stepped a little closer to her "I do believe I asked you a question, Major" he spat.
Serena watched as Bernie took in a deep breath "If you mean the two lucky survivors of your kamikaze mission, how should I know? They're your men. They're probably unloading the oh-so precious Cargo you deem more important than the lives of mere boys who probably trusted you" she growled.
Simon swiftly nodded to Atkins. Bernie raised her eyes as she watched him run out the door, his clapping footsteps disappearing down the empty corridor. Simon then turned his harsh gaze to Serena, who Bernie noticed was beginning to shake under such scrutiny.
"Can we proceed or do we just let this man die?" spat Bernie, hoping to take the attention off Serena.
"What do you need to do to save him?" he bit out at Serena.
Serena blinked furiously to stop the tears from falling as her entire body convulsed of its own accord "w-w-w-w-well…" her mouth then fell slack as nerves over took her and she shut her eyes tight.
Letting out a panicked breath he quickly drew his gun out of its holster and held it shakily against Bernie's head. Bernie flinched, not at the gun, but at the breathless yelp from the woman across from her.
'Serena' Bernie thought as she tried her best to communicate telepathically with her 'It's going to be ok, Serena, it's going to be ok.' Not even she believed the words she was silently trying to communicate.
"Tell me you can save him" he said with a shaking breath as the barrel of the gun trembled against her temple.
"Simon…" she began.
"TELL ME YOU CAN SAVE HIM!" he screamed as his rough voice tore from his throat painfully.
He pushed the gun harder against her head and she momentarily closed her eyes. As his voice stopped reverberating off the wall, all that was left in its wake was the gasping sobs from the woman she so desperately wanted to hold in her arms just one last time.
'I love you and I'm sorry' she thought once more, hoping that if just one miracle happened tonight, it would be her comfort to Serena. She'd already failed her for the miracle to be that they'd live.
Dizziness took her once more and she tightened her fist around the scalpel in her hand. After a brief moment, she opened her eyes to meet Serena's. She flashed her eyes in the hopes that Serena would recognise it as some form of signal, but she was wrong. Instead, Serena gasped at how blown the woman's pupils were, momentarily drawing Simons gaze away from Bernie.
A small smile fell onto Bernie's lips, unconsciousness taking over her brain, as she swiftly turned on her ankle, grasped Simon's wrist to point the gun away from herself and drew the scalpel blade across his cheek. The single second it took for her to do this seemed to hang suspended in the air. Serena could practically see the muscle inside Simon's cheek as his skin ripped open before the blood realised it was supposed to flow out.
In a flash, or the clatter of a gun hitting the floor, time seemed to speed up once more as Simon's now vacant hand flew up to press hard against his gaping cheek. At his anguished cry, Serena's eyes darted to Bernie who seemed to be clutching her head and looking around as if she didn't realise she'd just attacked a person.
Bernie fought the flash of pain lancing through her cranium before taking in the scene before her. 'What just happened?' she thought, before quickly turning to Serena "RUN SERENA!" she screamed.
Serena froze momentarily before bolting from the room faster than she'd ever thought possible.
Simon recovered quickly and made to bend down to pick up his gun. Bernie, quickly channelling her hand to hand combat training, kicked the gun under the table before grabbing the front of his hoodie and pulling his head down hard against the metal worktop. Simon stumbled back before falling to the floor, spitting out blood and teeth as he went. Bernie made to move past him to retrieve the gun when he reached out and grabbed her left ankle. Startled, Bernie drew her right leg back and forced all her energy into the swift kick to his head that rendered him unconscious and her free.
At the sound of Serena's terrified scream in the corridor outside, all thoughts of the gun left Bernie's brain and she rushed out into the corridor, Serena's name leaving her lips in a strangled cry. Her legs moved faster as she saw Serena wrestle with Atkins at the end of the corridor. He had a knife to her throat, but was struggling to complete his act of murder as Serena pushed the blade away from herself with her bare hands.
Feeling her strength beginning to fail, she leaned her head down and sunk her teeth into the man's hand until she tasted blood. His roar of pain immediately filled the corridor. He pulled Serena around and threw her at the wall, her body immediately crumpling to the floor after a loud thud echoed through her skull. As her world turned black she watched the man approached her, knife poise justly. 'This is it' she thought 'This is where I die' and with that, her world ceased to exist. There. A crumpled heap. At the end of a corridor of glass.