Page 95 of Drift

Chapter 28

REFLECTIONS

“The cuff too tight?” Craig sat at the kitchen table with Jack, occasionally flicking a look up from the blood pressure monitor he held, then to the clock on the wall that called out 8:00 a.m. to Gray. As Simon and Raif started work intel on the location where the phone lay, the debate into the early hours with Jack over what had gone down with Martin had taken its toll on them all, but Jack, he’d still made the call to Halliday and Craig to get them here this morning.

The aggressive in-out switching, that was something else… new, but Gray stood back by the kitchen door, easing a touch with how Jack could still make that call despite the upheaval over what had gone down between him and Martin.

“S’all good.” Jack sat back in his chair, resting his arm down to get a good reading of the blood pressure monitor, but his body language still looked off to Gray. Jack didn’t look Craig’s way as he took the usual health checks. His attention stayed solely with Halliday, who sat to his left, and all that tenseness in Jack’s body as Gray had forced him into the corner was back. That drop of feeling and unwillingness to listen to anything but his own head and push anyone’s offer of control away. Halliday himself hadn’t spoken a word beyond the usual light conversation over morning well-wishes and politeness. He seemed to pick up on the change,because he didn’t press forward with serious conversation either.

And there lay one serious problem if Halliday saw talk wouldn’t lead to a solution yet.

From over by the unit where Jack’s photo lay untouched, Jan frowned Gray’s way.

Go back a month with Jack’s meeting with Halliday over going down memory lane to trigger Martin, Gray hadn’t sat in on that meeting, nor Jan, and being asked to now… it wasn’t good. He knew Jack had previously spoken about everything but putting Chris in hospital. Withholding information would always come with a sting in its tail: it kept Jack safe, away from court and a cell, but it denied Halliday full access to all of Jack’s head. Halliday’s long look at Jack called that out: that he was missing something despite being told about Jude.

“Okay,” said Craig, taking off the cuff. “Everything’s normal here.” He looked at Jack. “The reading you took last night after the nosebleeds. Was it an accurate reading?”

Jack narrowed his eyes Craig’s way. “You think I’m into lying over keeping medical records as well now?”

“At the moment, if it benefitted your end goal, yes.” Craig’s tone lost any of its usually light-heartedness. “Over the past six months, you’ve hidden facts from my team and tried to trigger Martin in ways that have prevented us from working with a correct diagnosis and medication, so you remember: I’m your named nurse here, Jack. I’m not your friend. If I ask you if the reading is accurate, remember I can and will take the reading card from your machine and check it out if I feel you’re deliberately giving incorrect details. But I haven’t, not yet. Thefact I’m asking and not taking it shows I still trust you to be honest with me when I ask you. So this is me asking you.”

Jack held his look for a moment, then shook his head and looked away as he pulled his shirt sleeve down. “The reading was accurate: one-fifty over ninety-five.”

“Any blurred vision? Headaches?”

“Headaches.”

Craig flicked him a look. “Before or after the switch?”

“After.”

“Any pain now?”

Jack shook his head. “I took some pain meds last night.”

“How long did the nose bleeds last?”

“Three, maybe five minutes. Just light.”

“Was that the same for Martin?” Craig directed the question to Gray.

“Martin’s lasted a little longer. About ten minutes, but just light too.” It was Jan who replied, and Craig passed him a smile.

“Thank you.” He nodded and folded the cuff away, then looked at Halliday. “Along with the headaches, Martin’s BP was recorded at one-forty over ninety on switching, but with no nosebleed. Jack’s have been a steady one-twenty over eighty after switching back. No previous recorded headaches or nosebleeds.”

Halliday didn’t write anything down, but then he never had needed to. He watched Jack for a moment, almost as if he hadn’t heard Craig. But it was there in Jan’s uneasy shift against the unit, also in Gray’s own inner restlessness.

Blood pressure had crept up on Jack switching back from Martin, which meant Jack’s anxiety levels spiked, or he found a way to push for a spike, showing some kind of awareness that Martin was in control, and that Jack wanted to take it back. And with the switches coming so fast, that meant Martin’s anxiety over fighting back against Jack to retain control spiked his BP too, in part causing Martin’s nosebleeds. Maybe, Gray couldn’t really be sure on the effect of high blood pressure on the blood vessels in the nose, but itwasa new occurrence for both of them.

So too was acknowledging each other and aphysicalpush back from Jack. But mental struggles sometimes manifested in physical hurt as well as the psychological and emotional.

Halliday was hard to read, but his silence wasn’t. He was… concerned. He shifted, just slightly and tilted his head. “I know there was no need to continue prescribing BP meds after displacement with Martin, but if I prescribed them now, would you take them?”

Gray frowned. The question was odd, more so in the fact it was framedasa question. Halliday usually prescribed, and Jack, he’d follow the course of medication to the T, barely any questions asked beyond how it would affect him at work and beyond, or if it would conflict with anything he was already taking, but now…?

Jack shook his head, and Jan shot Gray a look.

“Can you tell me why you refuse?” Halliday said quietly.

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