Boom! That's probably the fastest chapter update I've ever done, but I really couldn't leave things hanging where they were. Fair warning though, this chapter is angsty AF.
We've finally moved onto episode 1x08, but Nicole isn't out of the woods yet. Ahem. No pun intended.
*Trigger warning* - one brief reference to sexual assault.
As always, thank you for your kind comments - your feedback has been lovely!
The air was warm and cosy. Nicole breathed in a deep lungful. She blinked and looked up. She was curled up on her sofa, buried under a pile of blankets. Had she fallen asleep?
Calamity Jane was curled up on the sill, the tip of her tail flicking gently back and forth as she watched Nicole with lazy eyes. The room was silent. She couldn't hear the sound of the neighbourhood outside, or her rusty boiler firing up every few minutes as usual. It was like someone had hit the mute button on the world. Something was definitely off, but still… she felt relaxed. Calm.
"Thinking of staying here?" asked a voice behind her.
She looked round. Waverly Earp was leaning on the kitchen doorframe, watching her with a familiar smile.
Nicole smiled back, taking in the warmth, the comfort. "I was considering it."
Waverly nodded understandingly and made her way around the end of the sofa. She sat down beside Nicole, pulling the blankets up over her knees.
"I guess I can understand why you might think that's the best option," Waverly shrugged, the gentle smile never leaving her face.
"Isn't it?" Nicole asked. She looked around at the room. It was warm and soft, she was comfortable and Waverly was here. It sure seemed like a good place to be.
Waverly's smile broadened warmly. "C'mon Nicole. Are you really trying to convince yourself you're done?"
"Done?"
"There's work to do Nicole. It's not over."
Nicole blinked. She was standing by her car at the Earp homestead, her stetson on her head, her notepad in her hand. Waverly was stood on the porch, wrapped in the same blanket from the sofa. The landscape was covered in snow and Nicole knew it ought to have been cold, but the air still felt warm and comfortable like it had done back at her house.
"You're not done, Nicole," Waverly said, and Nicole could hear her like she was stood right beside her. "You've got work to do." And she smiled that same smile. "Time to wake up."
And suddenly there was pain. Suddenly there was cold and pain, wind and rocks. She blinked and the comfort of the dream was gone. Her eyes darted around wildly, adjusting to the light and pulling into focus the trees surrounding her on all sides.
The woods. She was in the woods. What had happened? She tried to move her head and screwed up her face as the world span in response. She racked her brain, trying to conjure some recollection of… anything. It was all she could do just to remember her own name.
Waverly. She blinked again. She remembered Waverly. Standing on her porch - the Earp's porch. Nicole had been at the Earp homestead, because there had been an attack. Bodies. Stephanie Jones. The information came flooding back in irregular clusters. Patchy and confusing. She'd been with Wynonna, at the station, right? They'd been drinking. Nicole swallowed a wave of nausea. She certainly felt drunk. She managed to lift a filthy, blood-soaked hand up and felt an excruciating stab of pain down her arm as she did so.
And as she flinched from that pain, she shifted her body and caused an all-new ripple of agony across her ribs. Her vision swam with tears and she tried not to panic, her heart rate rising. This was not good. She needed to get help. She needed-
She heard a car approach. She managed to crane her neck far enough to just see a pickup truck passing by on the other side of the treeline to her right. She was by the road. Was she near town?
Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment and when she opened them again it looked like the shadows had moved. Had she blacked out? She managed to look down at herself and tried to subdue the instant alarm when she saw how much blood she was covered in. Her right hand was cut open but it didn't seem a big enough cut to be the source. She took a deep breath and lifted her head enough to see her clothes again - they were bloodied and disheveled, but otherwise intact. She shuddered with more tears as she permitted herself the brief feeling of relief at the evidence that she probably hadn't been sexually assaulted. It was only a partial consolation as the cold bit into her body and she felt the pull once again towards unconsciousness.
She probably didn't have much time left. If this blood was all her own then she'd slip into shock pretty soon. She'd only get one chance to do this.
She took a deep breath and managed to roll herself over. It was agony. It was like a thousand knives driving into her lungs, her liver, her heart. She dragged herself through the dirt and snow, trying not to think about how she couldn't really feel her fingers anymore. Her vision was blurring and swimming, like she was seeing the world through the bottom of a bottle. The distance to the road seemed a million miles and she had to stop half way to catch her rough, shallow breath.
She felt her heart beat irregularly, like it was slowing down, and a vignette started to shroud her sight. She looked up urgently searching for the roadside. It was just a few feet away, but it was on the other side of a ditch. She probably didn't have the energy or consciousness left to climb up to the road itself. Through the fog and the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears, she made out the sound of another approaching vehicle.
One shot left Haught. Make it count.
She groaned and cried out in pain, and propelled herself forwards as the car came to drive past. Her sudden motion did the trick: the driver spotted her. His alarmed expression was the last thing she saw as she tumbled forwards into the ditch. She was unconscious before she reached the bottom.
"We got her."
The next thing she knew was opening her eyes to the sight of three or four people leaning over her, the white sky and bare trees visible over their shoulders.
"Officer Haught, can you hear me?" one of them asked, shining a light into her eyes.
She tried to nod. She didn't know if she actually managed it or if it was just motion sickness that made her feel like she had. One of the people put an oxygen mask over her face and another was setting aside some equipment that Nicole recognised from first-aid training as a defib. They were paramedics, then. And she had been... They were saying something to each other that she didn't quite catch. Something about lifting on three.
And then they lifted her and her own agonised scream was the sound that rang through her ears as she disappeared into unconsciousness once again.
When she opened her eyes again she was in a hospital room. She blinked a few times. She honestly hadn't been expecting to wake up again.
"Officer Haught," said a voice to her side.
She turned, grateful to find that it didn't cause an immediate wave of nausea and spinning. Nedley was at her side, and over his shoulder another officer hovered in the doorway, possibly Tate.
"Sir…"
Nedley looked conflicted, clearly halfway between relief and professional restraint. He fiddled with his hat in his hands.
"How you doin' there Haught?" he asked, his brow furrowed.
Nicole swallowed and blinked, her eyelids heavy. She felt drunk, but in a kind of warm, fuzzy way. She was on some kind of painkiller, probably.
"I'm doin' ok," she murmured drowsily. This was a lie. Despite the painkillers her body still felt like an all-over bruise. Her right hand was bandaged heavily, the blood partially soaked through. Her ribs felt like they'd gone several rounds with a baseball bat. Her ears were ringing and her head felt like it was in a vice. She frowned and felt a sharp pull above her left eye. She reached up gingerly towards the pain, but Nedley reached out quickly and stopped her hand in its tracks.
"Woah now," he said. "Careful or you'll open up those steri strips. You've lost enough blood already."
"I hit my head?"
Nedley huffed an anxious sigh. "What do you remember?"
"Not a lot," she admitted. "I was… I was at the Earp homestead."
"Do you remember getting into the car with Wynonna?" Nedley asked gently.
Images and memory fragments flashed across Nicole's mind. Wynonna, offering her a bottle of whiskey at her desk in the precinct. The pair of them stood beside Nicole's cruiser outside Wynonna's house, talking about pancakes. The sound of Wynonna calling her name out in alarm, followed by a gunshot.
"Sir… what happened?"
Nedley sighed again, fidgeting from foot to foot. "Your car was found on the highway, doors open, engine running… blood…" He paused as he watched the alarm creep onto Nicole's face. "Wynonna's missing."
Nicole felt the wound on her head throb as her pulse started to race. Wynonna was missing. She screwed up her face willing the memories to come, but it was a fog. She felt her chest burn as the pace of her breathing started to increase.
"Woah, woah, take it easy now," Nedley said, stepping forward and resting a firm hand on her shoulder. She flinched reflexively, not really knowing why, and he withdrew his hand. "Hey, sorry." he muttered, not unkindly.
Nicole's mind was racing again. She'd been at the Earp homestead. There'd been an attack on the house. She and Wynonna had gone to see a body in the morgue. She clenched her teeth in frustration, pushing past the pain it sent shooting across her brow. The memories were coming in the wrong order and it seemed that the vital ones were missing.
"I uh, I called your next of kin." Nicole whirled to look at him, her eyes wide. "She's getting on the next flight," he continued.
Nicole was already shaking her head before she even realised it. "Sir, please you have to call her back. I don't need-"
"You nearly died, Nicole," Nedley said flatly. "Y'think someone that cares about you won't want to come make sure you're ok?"
"Please, sir," Nicole said weakly, a whole new kind of panic setting in at the thought of the complications of Shae turning up in Purgatory. "Please, I'll call her just… can you get me a phone…"
Nedley clearly wasn't a willing participant to this plan, but he huffed another sigh and nodded. "I'll call the station and get Phelps to send over the number." He gave her a reassuring nod and headed out into the hallway. Tate swapped places with him, taking a step towards the hospital bed.
With a pin in that particular source of panic, Nicole's attention returned to the more pressing matter at hand.
"Wynonna's missing?" she asked.
Tate nodded. "They reckon they saw some tracks in the woods near where they found you, but the lost the trail. Not too far from the Earp place."
"And Waverly?" Nicole asked urgently. The question was out before she'd really considered what her concern might look like. Not that she cared. Wynonna was missing. It sounded like she'd been taken from Nicole's car. Nicole was alive. They had no such assurance for Wynonna. If they weren't far from the homestead when the attack happened, then did that mean the attacker had paid a visit to the younger Earp too?
"She's fine, as far as I know," Tate replied. "I think her and that Dolls fella from Black Badge are gonna probably want to come talk to you."
Nicole nodded. She looked down at herself. She'd been cleaned up since her arrival, the blood washed off her hands and her ruined uniform shirt removed. It was disorienting to wake up somewhere different, dressed in different clothes, the evidence of the… 'incident' taken away. But she could still see it - the blood on her hands and her shirt. She could still feel the icy cold of waking up in the woods. Waking up without knowing how she got there, or what had been done to her.
"Hey now, it's OK. You're gonna be ok," Tate was saying warmly and she realised she was crying.
It started out as a few stray tears and turned into great gasping sobs. The reality was starting to set in. She'd been attacked. Wynonna had been abducted. She'd been revived at the roadside by EMTs. She should be dead.
Tate, to his credit, handled this breakdown well. He put a gentle hand on Nicole's forearm, evidently conscious of not pushing any further into her personal space than that. It's not like they were really friends, after all. Nicole reached over with her unbandaged hand and gripped at his sleeve, like it was an anchor, stopping her from slipping away into a total hysterical meltdown.
"You're gonna be ok Haught," he repeated. "You're tough as hell, remember. And you're safe now. We got you."
She looked at him as he gave her an encouraging smile, and couldn't begin to articulate how not OK she was. How not OK any of this was. It was like a bad dream, where nothing makes sense but you can't escape the underpinning sense of dread. Wynonna was missing and whoever had taken her had left Nicole for dead in the woods. What might they have done to Wynonna? What might they have done to Nicole? What had they done?
The questions came one after the other in rapid succession, followed by more waves of disorientation and fractured memories.
"What happened Tate?" Nicole asked eventually, finally regaining control of her breathing. "What happened to me?"
"You were beat up pretty bad," Tate replied honestly. "Couple of broken ribs. Lots of bruising. Took a pretty hefty blow to the head. Doc reckons you'll have concussion something awful." He paused and a slight smirk appeared on his face. "They reckoned you fought back though. Hard. Bruises on your knuckles and elbows, match defensive wounds."
Nicole looked down at her left hand and saw the purple and blue shadows that were emerging around her knuckles and her wrist. So she'd fought back. Who had she fought?
"Why…" she asked vaguely, her head starting to fog over a little. "Why were we… who…"
"Don't exactly know why you were targeted," Tate said, the smile on his face swapping for a much more serious expression. "Seemed like a fool move to try and take out a cop but… We reckon we know who."
Nicole tried to pick apart the grave intensity of Tate's frown. He dropped his gaze, avoiding eye-contact. "Sheriff reckons it might be the same psycho that murdered those three girls."
Nicole's pulse started to race all over again and she felt like her airway was closing up.
The serial killer. The serial killer that carved up Joyce Arbour and the other two victims like they were some sadistic version of Operation had attacked them, left Nicole in the dirt and taken Wynonna. Her head swam at the thought of it and she remembered how she herself had commented on how much Wynonna had resembled Joyce Arbour.
The pressure in her head seemed to increase and she felt nauseous and dizzy. Her grip on Tate's sleeve tightened as the room around her started to spin.
"I'm gonna be sick," she managed to say, before she lurched forward, vomiting into the sick bowl that Tate just about grabbed for her in time.
"You can't be serious."
"I'm fine, really. You don't need to come."
"They told me you had to be resuscitated at the scene. You'd stopped breathing."
"Well I'm breathing now and I'm awake." Nicole held the phone awkwardly to her ear, struggling to hear Shae's voice over the persistent ringing that hadn't faded, but trying not to push the phone close enough to catch the steri-stripped gash on her head.
"Look Nicole, the last thing I want to do is intrude on your life and go where I'm not wanted, but-"
"It's not like that," Nicole assured her. "I appreciate the concern. I do. But I'm telling you that I'm… ok. Or I will be." She paused, glancing over at Nedley and Tate stood just outside, doing their best to pretend that they couldn't hear her conversation. "Doctors did some scans of my head and there's no serious damage. And… I've got people here. I'm not alone. There's no point in coming out all this way."
Shae sighed heavily. "Ok," she conceded. She didn't sound at all convinced.
"I promise to keep you posted."
"Be sure you do. And if you change your mind-"
"I'll call. I promise."
"Right. Well. You'd better put that phone down and start resting. And be sure you actually do rest."
"I will."
"Sure."
"Thanks Shae."
"Please… please take care of yourself Nicole."
"I will. I promise."
"Bye."
"Bye."
Nicole ended the call and let her arm drop down to her side. She couldn't quite believe how exhausting the short conversation had been. Nedley plodded slowly back into the room. He didn't ask how the call had gone. Nicole was somewhat grateful for that.
"Sir, any news about Wynonna?" she asked hazily, hearing the slow drawl of her own voice. She felt another bout of pressure in her head and slight giddiness and wondered if she looked and sounded as coherent as she felt.
Nedley shook his head grimly. "The team is combing the site where we found you and I've got eyes and ears on look out across town. You'll be first to know if… when we find something."
No I won't, Nicole thought. Waverly will. And if they don't find something soon then chances are Wynonna's going to be the fourth victim. Waverly will never forgive me.
It was selfish, she knew, to be thinking like that. To be even the slightest bit concerned for herself when Wynonna could be being slaughtered as they spoke. She shuddered and took a deep breath. She felt helpless. Useless. She felt like she must have been useless. They think she fought back. So what? If she'd fought harder then maybe Wynonna would be safe right now. Maybe she could have brought this psychopath to justice. Maybe it was her fighting that made this monster leave her behind in the dirt. Maybe she could have cooperated and surrendered, and maybe Wynonna wouldn't have been alone at least.
It was impossibly frustrating, just laying there unable to do anything to help, but it was nothing compared with the torture of not remembering. She had been there. She must have seen the killer - fought the killer. She must have seen which direction he took Wynonna. And what use was she now? None. She'd clearly been no help to Wynonna during the attack and she was no help to her now, her memory of the event a fragmented jumble of confusing images through a thick and hazy fog.
Clearly she was telegraphing her tormented thoughts more than she meant to, because Nedley's brow furrowed with concern and he sighed sadly.
"Why don't you get some rest, Nicole."
Nicole nodded, lacking the energy to object. She rested her head back on the pillow and gazed up at the ceiling. Nedley shuffled out of the room, muttering something to Tate in the hallway, but she wasn't listening. She was staring at the ceiling tiles, absorbing every detail she could about the size, the shape, the shadows, praying that if she closed her eyes and let herself sleep she'd still be in the hospital room when she woke up.
She dreamt of the woods. Spinning and swirling. Leaves and twigs snapping underfoot, but it wasn't her foot. She was floating - no, she was being carried. Somehow she could see the woods but at the same time she couldn't see anything. She cried out, trying to push away from the person that carried her, but her arms and legs wouldn't move.
And then there was a face, a horrifying monster of a face, eyes burning with fire. She woke up.
It took a moment to blink away the blurriness from her eyes, but she tried to calm her pulse as she realised she was in the hospital room still. The ringing in her ears was still there, but she could hear the gentle thrum of the hospital just outside the door, as well as familiar voices locked in a heated discussion. She eased herself more upright on her pillow, cursing under her breath as it sent a shockwave of pain across her ribs and her chest. She looked to the doorway where Nedley was standing guard and blocking someone from entering. It looked like Deputy Marshall Dolls.
I guess he's back from his disappearing act, she thought. She blinked and remembered standing beside her car outside the Earp house, talking to Wynonna. "My boss isn't here," she had said. Wynonna was going to tell her about the BBD, about the weird cases in Purgatory. Had she dreamt that? Was it real?
"I know Deputy Earp is still out there, and we'll continue the search, but we agreed my Officer…"
"Is our only witness. I need to question her before her memory becomes more clouded than it is." Nicole was unsurprised to hear Dolls' straight-to-the-point attitude towards the situation, but for once it was a welcome approach. She didn't want people leaving her out of the loop. Not if there was even the faintest chance she could help.
"I'd feel more comfortable with a greenlight from her doctor," Nedley grumbled.
She called out, her voice still weaker and hazier than she wanted it to be. "Sheriff." He turned to face her and she saw Dolls and John Henry stood in the hall behind him… and someone else? She couldn't quite see. "I'm good. OK? I want to help."
He sighed his usual disapproving sigh and stepped back into the room, fidgeting with his hat the way he so often did when he was bothered by something. "Well, I'll swing by and make sure that cat of yours is fed," he said. She half smiled, grateful that he hadn't insisted she stay out of it any further.
"She doesn't really like men" she said, imagining the clawing that Calamity Jane was likely to give him if he got too close.
"Well, who does?" Nedley replied. Nicole huffed an almost-laugh as he left the room.
Dolls stepped forward, notepad in hand. She took a deep breath.
"OK. So what was the last thing you saw?"
"Waverly Earp, smiling at me from her front porch." It was true and it was vivid, one of the only memories that was. She could still pick out almost every tiny detail from that moment, but she was suddenly aware of the look Dolls was giving her and the fact that the third person lingering in the doorway was Waverly herself. Nicole swallowed hurriedly, feeling a rush of blood to her cheeks and quickly cast her eyes away and added, "And, uh, a man stepping out on the highway. Flagging us down."
She had been trying to remember him in more detail. Tried to recall what he had been wearing, or if she got a closer look, but it was a fog. It was like trying to remember a dream that was rapidly disappearing out of reach. She was left with random images and disconnected facts that didn't match up with particular moments. She remembered being in the car with Wynonna and remembered that there had been a man at the roadside up ahead, but she had no picture to go with it.
"Description?"
"No," she sighed. "Just a blank space after that."
Dolls sighed frustratedly and lowered his notepad. She knew it was useless information. She knew it was no help. They already knew that someone had attacked the car and abducted Wynonna and nothing Nicole had offered provided any further insight.
She gazed ahead vacantly as the images from her dream came back into her mind. Not a dream. A memory. She remembered the woods.
"Until the woods," she murmured.
"What happened?"
She remembered the sensation of movement, the cracking of the twigs under someone's feet. She remembered the shadowy darkness and the pressure against her eyes. "Somebody was carrying me. I was blindfolded, I think." No, that didn't seem right. She remembered the sickening swirl of the shadows. "...Or just really drugged."
She swallowed, pushing through the pressure she felt in her head and the tears that the memories were triggering. What had happened after that? She didn't know. It was like someone had skipped to the next chapter. "Next thing I know I'm freezing cold, covered in dirt in a ditch the side of the road."
In a ditch. Dying. Resuscitated because she'd stopped breathing. Dead.
"What about Wynonna?" Dolls pressed on. "Do you remember anything about Wynonna?"
"No. I couldn't see anything." She scowled in frustration, despite the pain in her forehead.
"Sight ain't your only sense, Ms. Haught."
She looked up at John Henry as Dolls stepped aside to let him approach the bed. Behind him Nicole could see Waverly listening at the doorway, concern etched across her face. Her arm was in a sling. Was that from the attack at the house? Was she badly injured? Nicole felt the sting of guilt for getting distracted for even a second from the subject at hand: Wynonna's abduction. Of course Waverly was concerned. Her big sister had been taken by a serial killer and she, like Dolls, had likely been banking on getting something useful from the witness to the attack. Nicole took a deep breath, determined to remember something useful.
"What did he smell like?" Henry asked. Nicole blinked and tried to conjure anything in her mind. "Close your eyes," Henry said softly. "Take a deep breath in, let the memories come."
Nicole did as instructed. She let her eyelids close gently and took herself back to her dream, her memory of being carried through the woods. The woods that smelled like leaves and dirt, where the cold air cut into her lungs as she breathed. And then there it was, the sensation of a warm breath on her face - not at all comforting, but sickening and terrifying. She was too close to the attacker and - yes, she could smell him.
"Sour," she said distantly, opening her eyes again "Musty."
"Like death?" Dolls offered.
She thought of it compared to the smell in the morgue. "No. Spoiled fruit. And gasoline."
She blinked again, new images, new memories flashing across her eyes. Pain. Pain in her chest. She was falling or she had been thrown down. A sharp spike of pain across her sternum.
"He kicked me," she murmured.
"What?"
She remembered more, remembered being cast aside and kicked - she remembered the agony of the boot on her chest, knocking the wind from her entirely. The killer had said something. Something about why he left her behind.
"See, I couldn't figure out why my chest was hurting. He threw me down and he said "You're the wrong kind"."
Dolls began pacing the room anxiously, chanting the words like a mantra. "You're the wrong kind. You're the wrong kind. You're the wrong kind. Uh…" he tapped his pen against his notepad, hesitating only momentarily before continuing with his theory. "Serial killers, they, um, often have a type of victim that they prefer."
Nicole thought of Joyce Arbour. She thought of the other two victims, who she was pretty sure were both young female brunettes. This bastard had a type alright. Nicole clearly wasn't it. She'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just in the way. An unfortunate bystander that this asshole hadn't even cared enough to finish off.
"And Wynonna?" Waverly asked from the doorway, her voice laced with panic.
"Must be exactly what Jack's looking for," Dolls replied darkly.
Wynonna had been the target and Nicole had failed to protect her. She felt sick, her heavy heart beat making the wounds across her body throb painfully. She looked to Waverly and to the horror emerging on the young Earp's face.
"Waverly, I'm so sorry," she tried, swallowing the tearful lump in her throat.
"No, it's fine," Waverly insisted unconvincingly as her own tears started to fall. "I'm just glad you're OK." With that she sped out of sight down the hall.
Dolls followed her out and Henry sighed and shot Nicole a pitying look. She wasn't sure she deserved his pity. Wynonna was at the mercy of a sadistic serial killer. She could well be dead already. Nicole had been the only one with the chance to stop this maniac and she'd managed to do nothing except take a beating and then forget all about it. She clenched her teeth and sighed again as Henry tipped his hat and left.
She couldn't hold back the sobs any longer. She wept openly to the empty room. Whether Waverly was genuinely glad or not that Nicole was ok was almost irrelevant. Nicole didn't feel ok, nor did she feel like she deserved to be. What if she'd followed procedures properly last night? There would have been more officers on scene and maybe she and Wynonna would have never been alone in the car together out on the highway. What if she'd fought harder during the attack? Would she have been killed outright, or would they be celebrating the fact that they were both safe?
And worst of all it was impossible to know what she could have or should have done differently, because she couldn't remember what she actually had done. It was a useless, foggy blur and the result was that she was alive and Wynonna was gone. How could Waverly possibly be glad that she was ok? Nicole wasn't even glad that she was ok. She wasn't even sure that 'ok' was the word. She was alive and safe, but she was sure that Waverly would have much preferred that her sister had been the one found in the woods, rather than missing, possibly dead.
Over her own sobs she could hear Waverly crying down the hallway, every agonised wail cutting through Nicole's heart like a knife.
Nicole tried to sleep. She was only managing an hour or two at a time, before the same flashes of the woods and monstrous, fiery faces woke her up.
The doctors had ordered more brain scans to check her over and reported again and again that there was no serious injury. She wished she felt like it was good news. Somehow it felt like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach.
Tate came back in to keep her company for a while, offering to pick her up something to read from the visitor's shop and saying that he'd be sure to fetch her phone from her squad car when he got the chance. She wanted to feel grateful for the kindness, but mostly she just felt numb.
The doctors explained their theory that her head injury had come from some kind of solid weapon, like a bat or a stick. They told her she was lucky that she hadn't broken her hand when she had punched the attacker. She found the word 'lucky' more offensive than comforting.
Phelps and Stevens dropped by at one point, bringing a bunch of flowers. Nobody mentioned Wynonna. Nicole didn't ask. If there had been any good news then someone would have told her.
The nurse increased her medication when the pain in her side felt like it was getting worse. She fell into a slightly deeper sleep and couldn't remember any dreams when she woke up a few hours later. She wasn't sure if that was worse than the nightmares.
She didn't know what time it was when there was a gentle knock at her door. She turned, startled, to see John Henry stood there, politely removing the hat from his head.
"My apologies, Ms Haught. I did not mean to frighten you," he said sincerely. "I assumed you would appreciate being informed immediately that Wynonna has been found."
Nicole sat bolt upright, her ribs not thanking her for it, but she didn't care. The pause lasted a lifetime.
"She is alive and, physically at least, she is ok."
Nicole's heart was racing. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She didn't quite know what she was feeling.
"Did he hurt her? Did they catch him?" She asked urgently.
"Jack of Knives won't be hurting anyone else ever again," Henry said firmly, an edge to his tone suggesting that for him, the victory was personal.
Nicole closed her eyes, tears flowing freely. She didn't know how sick she'd felt until the weight on her stomach lifted. The killer had been caught. Wynonna was safe and the bastard that had attacked them both would never do it again. Henry let her cry, standing by without any hint of irritation or impatience. She was grateful for that.
"Jack of Knives?" she asked eventually.
Henry sighed. "He has been conducting his evil affairs longer than bears thinking about. In his earlier days he felt inclined to make his presence better known in certain parts and choose a name for himself. Seems to me the best thing we can all do now is to forget it. Bury the name in the ground with him."
"Did you lose someone to him?" Nicole asked carefully.
Henry placed his hat wordlessly back on his head with a sad smile.
"Never again, Ms Haught," he said finally. He tipped his hat politely and left.