Page 82 of No Saint

Amelia doesn’t respond, not that I expect her to. Her eyes are closed but her lashes flutter softly on the apples of her cheeks, skin too pale and a white gauze across the gash on her brow. The machine beside her beeps steadily, hooked up by wires that disappear beneath the blue blankets on her bed.

I’d seen my fair share of hospitals, walked these halls, witnessed death but this was the first time I truly felt uneasy in this place.

The sky bleeds from blue to pink and then to black, the city lights illuminating the skyline beyond the windows.

I don’t know how long I sit there in silence but a knock on the door snaps my head around. Devon walks in, clicking it closed behind him.

“Where the fuck have you been?” I’m out of my chair before I can think, gripping the collar of his shirt and shoving him back until his spine thuds on the wall. He glares up at me, “You did this?” I question.

“What!?” He growls.

“You don’t think it odd how she was knocked out cold seconds before you ran from the fucking house!?”

“I was called in to the hospital!” He shouts back, “remember!? I am an actual fucking doctor here, not just yours!”

I shove him again, “She almost fucking died!”

“Gabriel!” Devon yells, “I’m not your fucking enemy! If I had known, I wouldn’t have fucking left!”

Deep down I knew it wasn’t him. I trusted Devon more than my own brothers and slowly, I release him. He straightens his jacket before shooting me one final glare and crosses the room to her bed, plucking her chart from the folder hooked to the end.

He flicks through the pages, reading each one before going round and checking her wires, her pulse and blood pressure.

“I installed locks.” I slump down into the chair, “Like she asked. Because Lincoln can’t swim but neither can she.”

“How do you know?”

“A hunch.”

“So someone unlocked the door, and what? Threw the boy in.”

“It wouldn’t take much to coax a kid into the pool room.”

Devon nods, contemplating.

“I’m not leaving here without her,” I pin Devon with my stare, “I need you to stay at the house.”

A jerk of his chin shows his agreement, “She was lucky.”

“Never again, Devon.” I curl my hand around Amelia’s much smaller one, covering it fully, “And when I find out who did this to her, to her son, I will tear out their heart.”

32

Everything feels tight, like my skin is two sizes too small and my bones too large. There’s an ache across the side of my face and a scratchiness to my throat that wasn’t there yesterday. I try to move but it feels as if a whole body of weight is pressing into mine.

And then the memories hit. Like violent waves in a storm, they flash inside my mind like a horror movie. Lincoln in the pool, me jumping in after him, saving him…

Then the man, the one who I yelled for to help me, but he didn’t help me, did he? He hit me.

It was foggy. I wasn’t sure. It felt like he hit me or maybe I just went under? Or I hit my head on the edge of the pool in my feeble attempt to get out.

I couldn’t remember but one memory swamps the rest. Me sinking, eyes open, staring up at the surface of the water, a dark shape looming just out of reach.

Was I dead? Was this hell?

My attempt at moving this time goes better but there were things attached to me. I force my eyes to open, my lids heavy, eyes sore and when they finally do, my vision blurs, shapes moving and blurring all the same. Beside me the beep of a machine increases.

“Amelia?”

---