My jolted brain retraced the last two days to the uncomfortable encounter I’d shared with my apparently would-be killer. The house, the path, the tiny fucking gate...she’d walked straight past him. Hadn’t talked to him, smiled at him, or so much as glanced his way. I was sure of it, but there were holes in my recollection of just about everything right now, and thinking too hard made me too dizzy to be taken seriously. I had to get out of here.
Like she’d heard my thoughts, Rebecca laid a cool hand on my arm. “Luke, I know you’re upset, and worried about Mia, but there’s really nothing you can do while you’re in this state. We’ll find her, I promise.”
I didn’t believe her. Didn’t believe the doctors who said the jackhammer in my skull was a mild concussion when it felt like my brain had fallen out the back of my head. Or Fran when she took Rebecca’s place and bemusedly told me everything was okay. Because it wasn’t okay. And it wouldn’t be until I had Mia safe in my arms.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mia
I put my foot down on the A road and zoomed out of town towards the hospital.
Beside me, Gus gripped the dashboard. “Jesus. We’re not going to be any good to him if you kill us before we get there.”
I ignored him and drove faster, closing my ears to Gus’s complaints and my struggling one-litre engine. All I could see was Luke lying bloodied on a hospital bed, or worse, a fucking morgue, and my world narrowed to getting to him as quickly as possible.
“You know, if it’s really bad, he won’t even be at Stoke Mandeville. They’ll have airlifted him to London or some shit.”
Words beyond me, I growled and clenched the steering wheel. Gus rubbed my arm, but his attempts at comfort fell by the wayside as I fixated on the implications of what he’d said. Matched it with Fran’s neighbour’s ominous words. “Luke’s been in a terrible accident.”
Terrible. What did that even mean? Was he already dead?
I changed lanes, undertaking a boy racer in a souped-up Golf as my car shuddered and shook.
“Mia.”
“Shut up,” I snapped. “I just need to get there.”
“I know, but—”
“Just fuck off!” My voice rang out in the cramped car, bouncing off the stained interior. “Unless you want to talk about how Billy still has your number after your non-hook-up all those years ago.”
“I’ve had the same number for fifteen years. It’s not relevant to the fact that you’re going to get us both killed.”
It really wasn’t. But my mind was racing so hard, nonsense was merging with terror. I had no control over anything, except how fast I drove the goddamn car. I ignored Gus and pressed my foot to the floor.
“Mia!” Gus’s voice dropped an octave, authority he’d never had over me seeping into every syllable. “Listen to me, you need to slow down, pull over, and stop the car, okay?”
“No.”
“Just do it. There’s a police car behind you, and it’s flashing you to pull over. If you don’t do it, they’ll make you, and you’ll be even further away from finding Luke.”
It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. My gaze flickered from the clear road ahead of me to the blinding blue lights in the rearview mirror, and my foot slipped from the accelerator of its own accord. The car slowed, veering sideways until Gus steadied the wheel. “Fuck.”
He sighed. “Yup.”
Somehow I managed to pull onto the lorry park at the side of the road. The police car blocked me in, and two officers got out.
Cringing, I tried not to think about the bazillion speed cameras I’d zoomed through. Did they arrest people for speeding? Take their license away on the spot?
The hysterical idiot in me had no idea, and the thought of Gus’s terminally slow driving had my teeth chattering as an officer approached my window.
“Be cool, Mia,” Gus murmured. “Do not lose your shit.”
At any other point in my life, I might’ve lamped him one, but apparently there was a tiny part of me clinging doggedly to common sense. A part of me that knew if I was to stand any chance of getting to Luke I had to swallow whatever the police officer had to say.
I painted a calm expression on my face and opened the window. The officer bent down, glancing quickly between me and Gus.
“Mia Amour?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Get out of the car. We’ve been looking for you.”
* * *
I could’ve screamed when the friendly officer suggested I follow him sensibly to the hospital, but the remainder of the journey passed in a flash. I ditched the car at the main entrance, sprinting away, door wide open, leaving Gus to park it and deal with the police.
Inside, an A&E receptionist directed me to a corridor at the back of the department. Even though it was a different hospital, it was so much like the route I’d taken with my mother’s body to the mortuary. Same grubby white walls, blue floors. Same pictures on the walls. It even smelled the same.
My heart, seized by fear since the moment I’d realised Luke wasn’t safe, thudded like a spiked bowling ball. Pain lanced my chest with each slap of my tatty Vans on the vinyl floor and the damaged teenager I’d once been turned and ran all the way home.
But the masochist in me kept going. If the worst had happened, I needed to see it.
Another reception desk came into view, but I barrelled into the back of someone before I reached it.
“Rebecca!” Somehow, she was the last person I expected to see.
She caught me as I stumbled, saving us both from crashing to the floor. “You’re here,” she said. “I was just coming out front to meet you.”
“Why?” I gasped out. “Is he dead?”
“Who?”
“Luke. Is he dead?”
“God, no. He’s okay, Mia. Didn’t they tell you in the police car?”
He’s okay. Relief washed over me like a drug, and I swayed on my feet, even though the words didn’t truly sink in. “I haven’t been in a police car.”
My voice sounded far away. Rebecca stared like she wasn’t sure whether to shake me or hug me. “How did you get here, love?”
“I drove.”
She muttered something under her breath and tightened her grip on my arm. “I told them to bring you in, get you off the road so we could ensure you were safe, but that doesn’t matter now. Let me take you to Luke, then we’ll have a chat, okay?”