Page 113 of The Unfinished Line

The man’s lips curled. “Plucky bint, are you? You put that sharp tongue to good use?” He brought his fingers to his lips in the form of a V, making a vulgar gesture.

“Why don’t you ring up your girlfriend and ask her?”

The retort brought a laugh from the third man, who instantly fell silent at his mate’s darkening glare.

“You think you’re funny, you little slag?” He took a step forward and Dillon was quick to catch Sam’s arm, preventing her from answering his challenge.

“Leave it,” she hissed, digging her fingers into her elbow. She didn’t want any part of this. It was too cold, too late, and Sam was far too drunk. “Let’s wait back inside the pub.”

Sam shook her off. “Want to find out how funny I am, you fucking chav?”

Without time for Dillon to process a way to stop it, the man—twice Sam’s weight, despite sharing a similar stature—lunged forward, taking a wild, off-target swing in her direction. Sam, too drunk to make a proper parry, took an awkward deflection off her forearm, and returned a glancing blow to his stubbled chin.

For a second, Dillon fostered a fleeting hope the altercation was over, but before she’d drawn a second breath, the bloke—who’d feigned to turn away—suddenly spun back toward Sam and slammed his fist into her face.

“No cunt calls me a chav!” he hurled, as Sam crumpled to the pavement. At once Dillon was between them, even as the bastard’s two mates were at his side, cussing him for a fool and trying to restrain his flailing arms. But the man was feral, his temper entirely undone. Something in the skirmish caught Dillon’s temple—an elbow, a fist, she couldn’t have guessed—and nearly sent her to the ground, but she’d gotten a hold of the prick’s scarf and saved her balance, clawing her way back between them as he plunged his loafer into Sam’s side.

“Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you, Jerry?” the man who’d first approached them shouted, finally securing a hold on his mate’s shoulder and hauling him backward. “You bloody idiot!”

The second man stood momentarily dazed, his eyes wide on Sam, who was groaning on her side, before turning to his comrades. “We need to go!” he hissed, shoving at the pair. “We need to get out of here!”

There was another cursed whisper, followed by the sound of feet retreating down the street, but Dillon didn’t notice. She’d dropped to her knees to check on Sam, who was still barely moving.

Seconds passed, or maybe minutes—it felt impossible to tell—before Dillon was vaguely aware of a car pulling up to the curb. It was their Uber.

“You all right there?” said the driver, poking his head out the window, and then “oh, holy hell!” he continued, seeing Sam on the ground. A car door slammed and a moment later a silver-haired man joined her on the pavement. “I’ll call an ambulance!”

Sam moaned a refusal, but when she wasn’t able to keep a sitting position for more than a few seconds, Dillon took him up on the offer.

An hour later, Dillon found herself sitting in the waiting room of St. Thomas’ Hospital emergency department, listening to a physician explain that while Sam had suffered a concussion, the CT came back negative, and other than a couple of bruised ribs, she was no worse for wear. They’d hooked her up to an IV to treat her inebriation and recommended she remain under watch for a few more hours until her nausea was under control.

“You could use a few stitches yourself,” the physician commented, gesturing to Dillon’s brow.

Dillon ran a hand across her tender temple. She’d known she was bleeding—evidenced by the scarlet splatter down her lapel—but hadn’t thought much of it. Beginning to decline, she took a glance at her reflection in a stainless steel clipboard hanging on the wall, and changed her mind. Thirty minutes later she was back in the waiting room, five sutures tidier, still waiting on Sam.

A vibration from her phone dragged her from her contemplations of the hundred different ways she was going to kill her friend as soon as she could stand.

Of course it was Kam.

“Hey!” Kam sounded cheerful, if not a little tipsy herself. There was music in the background, an upbeat tempo jarringly contradictory to the cold, sterile atmosphere of the hospital waiting room. “You finally answered! I was worried you’d maybe run off with Kate Winslet and kicked me to the curb.”

Dillon didn’t realize she’d missed a call. Three of them, apparently, according to her notifications.

She tried to laugh, but it hurt more than was worth the effort. “Sorry. I—I guess I didn’t hear my phone.”

“Is everything all right?” Kam’s gaiety dropped a peg.

Dillon hesitated. Somewhere close to Kam, there was laughter. She was still at the party and Dillon didn’t want to dampen her night.

“All’s good. I’m out with Sam.” Again she paused. She didn’t want to lie to her. “She—got in a little scuffle. We’re at the hospital, but everything’s okay.”

“The hospital? What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing, honestly. Sam got into it with a couple lads at a pub. An ambulance was called as a precaution—”

“She went byambulance!? Dillon, what hospital?”

Dillon took a sweeping inventory of the brightly lit waiting room with its plastic chairs and buffed floors and curt triage staff assessing feverish babies and sniffling toddlers as anxious mothers picked at their cuticles. It wasn’t a place for Kam. Notafter tonight. She couldn’t waltz in there and sit beside her, waiting for Sam to be discharged. Not as silent footage covering theSand Seekerspremiere played on the flat screen hanging above the sign indicating toilets were only for patients.

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