Page 73 of Anxious Hearts
Finn followed obediently, completely trusting her. Completely reliant on her saving him again.
The bouncer undid the cordon and let them pass with a nod and a smile. There were booths up here; more intimate and refined than the swarming mass of humanity on the dance floor below. There were also VIP-only unisex toilets. Ashley led Finn in and closed the door behind them.
It was bright and Finn caught sight of himself in the mirror. His hair was plastered to his forehead, which was wrinkled with anxiety. His left eyelid twitched uncontrollably.
Ashley had put the toilet seat down and laid out four lines of cocaine. She took Finn’s hands.
‘Come. Two lines each. That’ll get you back on track.’ She knelt down, snorted the lines and sighed with ecstasy.
Finn didn’t need coaxing. Ashley was barely finished before he took the rolled-up twenty dollar note from her hand and placed it inside his nostril. He leaned down, snorted both lines and slumped to the floor, resting his back and head on the wall, waiting for the torture to end.
It took only seconds. The fear evaporated. The power returned. And the hunger devoured him once more. Ashley and Finn stood without saying a word. Eyes locked, silent communication clearer than any words. Finn checked the door was locked, drew Ashley against his body and groaned as she ran her hands down his sweat-soaked back.
***
One more nightclub, two more lines each, and they were back at Ashley’s at 5 a.m. Finn was still the king. Ten feet tall. Invincible. Irresistible. Insatiable. He started kissing Ashley before she’d even closed the door.
Ashley returned the kiss but then placed two hands on his chest and gently pushed him back. ‘Easy, soldier. We need to get some sleep.’
Sleep was utterly inconceivable. How could he sleep? How could anyone sleep? Why would anyone sleep when you could feel like this instead? ‘I’ll never sleep again,’ he said, deadly serious.
Ashley laughed. ‘Amateur.’ She walked to her bathroom and returned with two pills.
Finn couldn’t believe it. ‘Benzos? What do we need them for?’
‘To soften the crash.’ She filled a glass with water, took her pill and then held Finn’s up, just the way she had the first time.
Finn had been taking four of these a day for the past fortnight, so he wasn’t afraid of the drug – he was afraid of losing this feeling. He was afraid of returning to being himself.
‘Trust me,’ Ashley said. ‘Take this, have a cold shower and come to bed. When we wake up this afternoon, you’ll be ready to go again.’
Finn hesitated. But he did trust her. She knew what she was doing.
He took the pill from her fingers, placed it on his tongue and washed it down with the remaining water. Then he poured another glass and drained it without taking a breath.
‘Good boy,’ Ashley said. ‘I’ll run the shower.’
Chapter Thirty-two
Monday 22 May
It was nearly six weeks since Kelly had seen Finn. Six weeks since she’d had any contact from him. The longest time they’d not spoken since they’d met when they were eleven.
He was okay. She knew that much from his Instagram account. She’d reinstalled the app just so she could keep up with what he was doing. She logged in under a fake name, though, and didn’t use the profile Juliana had set up, so nobody bothered her. She just watched Finn, who actually seemed to be thriving in her absence. Picture after picture with Ashley on his arm. At parties, fashion shows, movie premieres. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. They were tailor made for Instagram. Young, beautiful, ruthless – all the qualities influencers needed to make the rest of the world feel like shit.
Finn was back on the set ofHenderson Springsand posting behind-the-scenes photos. He was always busy when shooting; his filming schedule rivalled Kelly’s roster at times. Fourteen-hour days, back on the job eight hours later. But at least if he made a mistake, they could just re-shoot the scene. Kelly didn’t have that luxury. If she made mistakes, kids died.
Not that she had that problem at the moment. Dr Lloyd had been stealthily examining patients day after day without raising any suspicion. Five weeks since she’d first put on the wig, scrub hat and glasses, Kelly had managed to remain anonymous and undetected. Slip in, examine, brush up on her skills and get out. Eli had been keeping an ear out in the Registrars’ Room and there had been no mention of the mysterious doctor. On the rare occasions they passed each other in the hallway, Eli was the consummate professional: eyes front, no winking or nodding of the head. Just another arrogant male doctor with his nose in the air, not deigning to notice the woman coming his way. The nurses believed Kelly’s story about being an Advanced Trainee candidate studying for her clinical exam. They were too busy to ask further questions and they had no reason to care as long as she didn’t get in their way.
The patient she was examining now was a young boy with hollow eyes rimmed by dark bags. His father sat by his bedside looking equally exhausted. He’d had no objection to Kelly examining his son and she’d concluded the boy was suffering from aplastic anaemia, which she confirmed by looking at his chart. She put the clipboard back into the holder at the end of the bed and thanked the boy and his father in a quiet voice. Neither responded.
She turned to leave just as a group of three men strode onto the ward.
Kelly’s eyes flew wide. This couldn’t be happening. Why was he here? Why on earth would Michael, the head of emergency at the Victorian Children’s, be at South East?
Kelly scanned the other faces. They were vaguely familiar from her training seminars. She was confident one was the head of emergency at South East and the other was, most likely, from the Northern region. They must have been on some inter-hospital jaunt.
She weighed her options. There was only one way out of the ward – directly past Michael. She could ask to see another patient but that would trap her at the bed and risk the men stopping to speak to her or at least paying her extra attention, given she was the only doctor currently on the ward. Same scenario if she stayed by the hollow-eyed boy’s bed. She could busy herself with medical equipment but that might raise the ire and therefore the attention of the nurses, three of whom were doing their rounds. They wouldn’t be happy about a Registrar who was here to study messing with their gear.
