Thank you for all your lovely reviews! Here's the next chapter- I hope you like it! I will put the next chapter up tomorrow if I reach 328 reviews. Otherwise, it will go up on Sunday (wifi permitting, of course. Rural Italy I've discovered, is not exactly a wifi hotspot). Hugs x
25:
"Alexis? Alexis, can you hear me?" An unfamiliar voice asked. I mumbled incoherently; I preferred the quiet. The next thing I knew, someone was peeling open my eyelids and shining a torch at my pupils. I jerked away from their touch and opened my eyes.
"What?" I asked blearily, confused by this person, and my surroundings. I looked around me; I was sat on a stretcher in a confined, clinical space. We were moving. A siren was blaring. What was going on? The voice I'd heard was a guy in some sort of emergency services uniform, who was stood next to me looking very concerned.
"Alexis? It is Alexis, right?" I nodded. "I'm Bob. I'm a paramedic." My shoulder was twinging painfully, and my face was stinging. I raised my hand to touch it gingerly. "Careful, you've got a nasty case of road burn." He intercepted my hand gently before I could make contact with my face. "You were in an accident. I don't think you've broken anything, but we'll take you for an x-ray when we get to the hospital. Can you wiggle your toes for me?" I did as he asked, and he smiled. "Good. How's your head? Is anything else hurting? I couldn't see anything other than the road rash."
"My shoulder." I said, weakly. I couldn't move it.
"It's not dislocated, I've already checked. How's your head? Apparently you whacked it pretty hard. I'm pretty sure you've got a nasty concussion, but we'll get you properly checked out at the hospital- we're nearly there now." I tried to nod, but it hurt my head. I couldn't move much in the stretcher. All of a sudden, everything came back. The teashop, Sam, the car, Daisy. Daisy!
"Is Daisy okay?" I asked, panicked at the realisation that I couldn't see her. Oh God, what had happened to her?
"The little girl?" I nodded again, or at least I tried to. "Yeah, she's fine; not a scratch on her." I sighed in relief and shut my eyes. My shoulder was aching more painfully now, and my face and arms stung.
"Hey, keep those eyes open for me, Alexis; don't fall asleep on me! We need you to stay awake with your head injury, it's-" I couldn't hear the rest of what he said as darkness came swiftly. I was powerless against the void.
The events that followed were a blur; I kept falling in and out of consciousness. I vaguely remembered the van veering around a corner sharply, Bob urging me to stay awake, and me then leaning over the side of the stretcher and vomiting. I think I missed his shoes, but I wasn't sure. I'd have to find him and apologise, and maybe buy him another pair of shoes, or at least reimburse him for his troubles.
I finally came to to the sound of a machine bleeping. My throat felt dry and my head was banging. Blinking groggily, I looked around. I was in a bed in a room. Judging by its sterility and clinicity, I deduced that I was in a hospital room of some kind. Well, either that, or I was in a room belonging to someone who had a penchant for medicinal machinery and used bleach in place of an air freshener. Just as I was about to get out of bed to confirm my suspicions, a nurse breezed in through the door.
"Oh, good; you're awake. I was going to set up an IV for you if you were still out. How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine." I wasn't, but that popped out before I could tell her that my head really hurt, my shoulder throbbed, and my face and arm were stinging. I was typically British. "Where am I?"
"Derby RI." I nodded. That made sense- it was the nearest one to my flat, and was where Mum and Dad both worked. It was actually where I'd come only last week to have my ankle checked over. Twice in less than a week! I didn't want to make regular hospital trips a habit. "How's your head? You had quite a nasty knock. You've already been x-rayed; nothing's broken, but we want to send you for a CT to check out your head."
"It hurts." I admitted, and she nodded. "Can you tell me what day it is, Alexis?" She asked. I frowned at her. Why did she want to know that?
"It's Sunday; I've got school tomorrow."
"School?" She asked concerned.
"No, I'm a teacher. Don't worry- I don't think I'm a pupil again, don't worry. My memory's fine." I remembered reading a Sophie Kinsella novel once when the character lost five years of her memory after an accident, and couldn't remember that she was married and having an affair. I couldn't remember what happened in the end, but I think she left her husband. I'd have to re-read it at some point. Still, I was pretty sure I was in 2014; years of my life hadn't been forgotten- my memory was perfectly fine. "Well, at least I think it is." She smiled in relief.
"Good. I think you'll be just fine, Alexis. I'll be back in a bit to take you for your scan. In the meantime, help yourself to some water on the side." She pointed to the hospital table on my bedside with a jug of water resting on it, and a plastic cup beside it. "Oh, and take two of these every day for the next week. One in the morning, one at night. You'd best take one now" She said, producing a packet of pills from her pocket, and handing them to me. "They're just some big-standard antibiotics; we don't want your road rash to get infected." I looked down at my forearm to see it bandaged heavily.
"Right. Thanks."
"No problem. I'll just make a note of it now." She said, fishing out a clipboard from the end of my bed, and making a note of what she'd just told me.
"Alexis Anderson?" She asked, looking at me.
"Yes."
"You're not related to the Doctor Anderson's that work here, are you?"
"Yeah. They're my parents."
"Oh." She blushed to the roots of her hair. "Would you like me to fetch them? I think your father's in surgery at the minute, but your mother's just started doing her rounds on the ward."
"No, not yet, thanks. When will they be done, do you know?"
"A couple of hours, I imagine. I can page them to ask if you'd like?"
"No, don't bother; I don't want to panic them. Would you be able to get them when they're about to go home for me?"
"You sure? They might like to know you're here."
"No, honest. I'll be fine."
"Okay." She agreed. "I'll pop in and see you soon for your scan." She said, heading out. "Try to stay awake until I come and get you. We need you conscious with a head injury; falling asleep could make you worse." I nodded, and she smiled, closing the door quietly behind her. I leant over to grab the jug of water she mentioned, as I was desperate for a drink- my throat felt rough and raw. As I moved to grab it, I noticed that my handbag was also on the table. Distracted, I took it, rifling through it to try and find my phone to tell Sam what had happened. He was bound to be confused when I didn't show up, after texting him to tell him I would. Watching the screen flicker to life I saw that I had seventeen missed calls from Alice, seven missed calls from Sam, thirty missed calls from Will, and a text from Rach.
I ignored Sam's messages, and decided to ring Alice first, figuring that she had something urgent to tell me. I'd ring Will afterwards- I'd only seen him a few hours ago. I hoped she was okay; seventeen phonecalls was unusual for her. I should have picked up to her when I first left the flat. The phone hardly had time to ring before she picked up.
"Alexis?"
"Yeah. Are you okay, Alice?"
"Am I okay? Are you okay? I didn't see you were in trouble before it was too late. I'm so sorry." Having the gift of sight meant that Alice always felt accountable for anything that went wrong, even when she had nothing to do with it.
"Alice, I'm fine. They think I might be a bit concussed, but other than that all the damage is superficial."
"Thank God you're okay. I'm sorry I didn't get chance to warn you. I'll be more careful in future."
"Alice, it's not your fault. You can't see everything"
"But I should." I was about to tell her how harsh on herself she was being, but I could hear shouting outside my door.
"Alice, I'm going to have to go. Something's happening. I'll call you soon."
"Okay, sis. Take care. Mum will pop in in half an hour, I can tell." Bidding her good bye, I barely had time to put my phone away before the door to my room flew open and Will stormed in, flanked by the nurse that had called in on me earlier.
"Sir, you can't go in there. It's family only." He ignored her, and strode towards me.
"Are you okay?" He asked when he reached me, holding my hand in his, and framing my face with the other. He touched me gently, as if scared I wasn't actually there; instead, merely a figment of his imagination.
"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in London!"
"Don't be ridiculous. What happened? What hurts?"
"I'm fine; I've just got a mild concussion. A girl from school ran across the road to see me, straight into the path of a car. I got hit trying to move her out of the way."
"Just a 'mild concussion'? Jesus, Alexis; there's nothing mild about that!"
"Sir, I must ask you to leave." The nurse insisted, still stood by the door.
"It's okay." I replied. "He can stay." She frowned at me, but accepted my explanation, leaving us both alone. I was pretty sure the only reason he was allowed to stay was because she knew who my parents were, and the influence they had in the hospital. Hey, sometimes nepotism was a good thing!
"Will, look at me; I'm fine. They're taking me for a CT scan later, but I feel fine. How come you're here?" He sighed in frustration, and rubbed his hand over his face.
"Well, I'm glad you feel fine because I'm certainly not. I am so mad at you right now! What was the one thing I asked you not to do? The one thing you promised me not to do?"
"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't think I was in danger anymore; I changed my plans- I didn't go to Sam's, I was meeting him at a coffee shop instead. I rang you to check it was okay, but you didn't pick up." He clenched his fists into balls.
"Me not picking up doesn't mean you go anyway! I was on the phone to Tom. I would have rang you back afterwards- I was only on to him for five minutes while I was driving!" He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"My gift doesn't work like that anyway, Alexis. You changed your plans to stay at home all night; if you'd have done that then you would have been out of danger. That's why I said you were safe- I didn't mean anything but going to see Sam at his house was safe! But you didn't listen; you went out anyway, even though you promised you wouldn't. It was getting to Sam's that was the problem, not actually going to see him- that was what caused the danger." I understood what he meant now. I'd set off to the café at the same time I would have if I was going to Sam's. It was the journey that was the source of the danger- not Sam himself, as I'd thought Will meant. Staying at home would have meant I didn't make the journey in the first place.
"How do you think I felt driving down the M1, feeling a sudden pain through our bond, and then nothing; absolutely zilch. I thought you were dead. God knows how I didn't crash the car! The only reason I knew you weren't is because I rang Sam after ringing you hundreds of times to get no answer because I guessed, correctly as it turns out now, that you must have disobeyed my explicit instructions. He was the one that told me you were being scraped off the tarmac and into an ambulance. "
"Well, I'm sorry, I didn't know that that was how your gift worked. But I'm not going to be sorry for saving her life." I replied stubbornly. I felt like a naughty schoolchild. He countered my argument immediately.
"If you hadn't gone, she wouldn't have run across the road to you, would she?" I swallowed, upset. I hadn't looked at it like that. "So, by ignoring me you put her life in danger as well as your own. For God's sake, Alexis, why couldn't you just have listened to me for once?"
"I just wanted to meet Elinor." I explained quietly, looking down at my lap.
"And you could have, you still can- just not when I've told you that going to meet them puts you in mortal danger. What don't you understand about that?"
"But they were leaving to go to Edinburgh; they didn't have time any other night."
"They could have made time. You nearly didn't have any time left yourself after today! You could have died! Have you not realised that yet?"
"I'm sorry." I replied solemnly, looking into his eyes as he said it. And I was; I'd been stupid. The nurse popped her head around then, interrupting our moment.
"Alexis, your mother's on her way." She announced, glaring meaningfully at Will.
"Right I'll go then." He stood up to leave without giving me a second glance.
"Wait, why?" I asked, reluctant to let him go, even if he was mad at me.
"I'm guessing you don't want me to meet you mother for the first time like this? In fact, I bet they don't even know about me, do they?" I didn't answer.
"Wait, let me guess; they don't even know you've got a soulfinder." I stayed silent, not wanting to admit that he was right.
"I'm right, aren't I?" I didn't confirm his suspicions. He shook his head in disbelief.
"God, I should have known! If you don't want me, just tell me- don't keep stringing me along like this!" His face displayed all of his emotions for me to see; he was crushed.
"I'm not!" I tried to defend myself. " I-" But he cut me off.
"Save it. I've heard enough." And with that, he stormed out of the room past the nurse, who wisely didn't say anything, simply shutting the door so I was on my own once more. I swatted my tears away angrily.
I'd really messed up this time.
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