by Raquel Lyon
Barbie gunned his engine impatient for the off, and the sound of his whooping laughter passed across the open windows. Kendrick’s foot hit the pedal to match him. That dickwad wasn’t the only one who could make some noise, but his amusement would be short-lived. In a few seconds, he would have to admit defeat.
Kendrick’s eyes focused on the flagger, and he pushed into first. As soon as he detected a glimmer of movement, his foot lifted from the clutch and he sped into motion.
Barbie was quick to respond.
Side by side, each car jostled to gain the edge over the other.
Damn, Barbie was still good.
A full tyre ahead, Kendrick thought he had him, but he came back, drawing level.
Kendrick looked across and found the bastard grinning from ear to ear, with one finger held aloft.
Then, without warning, Barbie's car jerked and clipped Sprout’s wing, before flipping and spinning through the air.
Shit, shit, shit! Debris flew at Kendrick from all angles, as Barbie’s car landed, rolled, and took flight again. Slamming his foot on the brake, Kendrick yanked the steering wheel to the side to avoid the destruction.
The factory wall was the last thing he saw.
Chapter Thirty
Molly
Arriving at the train station, Molly sprinted away from the platform, energised by her excitement. She couldn’t wait to share her news. Of course, she could pop round to Yvonne’s. Her party with the olds had probably ended ages ago, but Yvonne wasn’t the person she wanted to tell.
Kendrick had been all she could think about the whole journey home. It had been a very lonely week without him, and it had taken every ounce of strength she had to dismiss him from the store, when all she wanted to do was throw her arms around his neck and kiss him into submission. She had hoped to wear him down, thinking he would call off the race and promise to stay off the strip, if she made him sweat, but she hadn’t banked on his stubbornness. It was time for someone to swallow their pride, and it might as well be her. What was the point in being optimistic about the future if it was one you spent alone?
It was at times like these she really missed not being able to pull her phone from her pocket and instantly speak to someone. She really should buy a new charger. The agent had said he would contact her when he had any news, and having to give him her friend’s number was not very professional. As soon as she’d paid off her train fare debt to Yvonne. She was going straight to the phone shop.
Outside the station, she summoned a taxi to Kendrick’s house. Her meeting had turned into an evening meal, and it was now almost midnight. His race would be long over, but hopefully he’d stayed up to celebrate, or commiserate. She didn’t care which, as long as he was awake. When he flaked out, he was dead to the world until morning.
Pulling up at the kerb, she found his house in darkness. Was she too late and he was already asleep? Well, if he was, he would damn well have to wake up. If she didn’t tell him soon, she was going to burst.
After asking the taxi driver to wait, she strode up to the porch, knocked on the door, and waited. Hearing no sound of movement, she knocked again. Why wasn’t anybody answering? Feeling frustrated, she signalled one minute to the taxi driver and ran to the back of the house. Kendrick’s bedroom curtains were open, but there was no sign of life. Maybe the meet had gone on longer than usual? There was only one way to find out.
A few minutes later, the taxi slowed on the edge of the industrial estate, and a strange sense of foreboding ran through her. Something wasn’t right. Even when everyone moved on to the after-race festivities, there were usually a few who remained, clearing up the area to leave no trace of the action, but strangely, there wasn’t a single sign of life.
The taxi driver looked at her through the rear-view mirror. “Doesn’t look like somewhere a young girl should be, this time of night. You sure you’ve got the right place, Miss?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure. My boyfriend’s a mechanic at the garage, through there.” She pointed along a small side road to where a soft, yellow light glowed. “He must be working late. You can drop me off here,” she said, handing him the fare.
Rounding the corner, she wondered whether the meet had been called off altogether, or whether the police had found out about it and stopped it? It had been known to happen. But then, Kendrick would have missed his chance to race and wouldn’t be in the best of moods. At least, if that were the case, she brought good news to cheer him up. Eager for answers, she entered the workshop.
Liam was on the phone. His eyes widened at her arrival, and he replaced the handset back into its base, without a word.
“Hi, Liam. Have you seen Rick? He wasn’t at home, so I thought he might still be here.” Her last few words slowed, as she watched worry lines form on Liam’s forehead as he rubbed his temple.
“Um…” His eyes flicked to a tarpaulin covered car.
Molly tensed, and a flutter of fear stole her breath as she caught a glimpse of green beneath the sheet. “What’s that?” she asked.
Liam cleared his throat. “Why don’t we go into the office and sit down?”
“I don’t want to sit down,” she said, taking a step towards the car.
He blocked her way. “Molly…”
Her breathing quickened as she pushed past him and tore away the tarpaulin. Her hand shot to her mouth, and she took a step back, as the sight stole her breath.
Kendrick’s car looked like a dead mechanical spider, with mangled metal jutting out at all angles, but it was the blood splattered, shattered glass that sent a chill down her spine.
“What happened? Is he all right?”
“We don’t know. Molly, it was bad.” Liam wrapped his arms around her as she started to shake and the world spun around her. “Barbie had a blowout. Any driver worth his salt would have been able to control it, but… I don’t know. He mustn’t have been concentrating, or maybe he’d smoked too much weed? Who knows?”
“Chris d-did this?” she stuttered.
“Rick tried to avoid him,” Liam said, “but he couldn’t avoid the wall.”
“Where is he?”
“At the hospital.”
“Did anyone go with him, in the ambulance?”
“There was no ambulance.”
“What? Why not?”
“We couldn’t involve the authorities. The police would have been all over us.”
“So you risked his life instead?”
“Listen, Moll. Rick’s a new driver. If they find out he was racing, they’ll do him for dangerous driving, crush his car, revoke his licence, and he might even get a stretch. You don’t want that, do you?”
Her head shook. No, she didn’t want that. She didn’t want any of this. Her worst fear had come to life, and there was nothing she could have done to stop it. Her news paled into insignificance when faced with Kendrick’s life on the line. All that mattered was his safety. “Take me to him.”
“They won’t let you see him.”
“I don’t care. I need to be there.”
“Okay, I’ll drive you,” he said, grabbing his keys, “but I can’t go in. I was the one who dropped him off. I said I’d found his wreck at the side of the road and thought it quicker to bring him in myself. They can’t discover I actually know him.”
Molly waited for Liam to secure the workshop, and then jumped into his car, impatient to reach the hospital. The sight of that pile of mangled steel had her brain conjuring images of Kendrick that made her want to throw up. He had to be okay. The thought of losing him was too much to bear. Why did people have to do such stupid things for stupid reasons? Just because Chris… Chris. “What about Chris?” she asked.
“His car rolled. Trapped his legs. He was still being cut out, when I left.”
“But he’s alive?”
Liam turned onto the main road leading to the hospital. “I’m sure I would have heard if he wasn’t.”
Molly let out a relieved sigh. As much as she detested the guy, she’d never wis
h anyone dead.
It took a matter of minutes before they pulled up in front of the emergency department. Molly thanked Liam, and with her heart beating wildly, she ran through the hospital entrance and up to the reception desk. “Excuse me,” she said to the young nurse, sitting behind it. Without acknowledging her presence, the nurse continued to tap on her computer keyboard. “I’m looking for my boyfriend.”
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” the nurse said, briefly glancing at her monitor, as her fingers moved over the keys like a concert pianist.
“He was in an accident.”
“One minute.”
Molly surveyed her surroundings irritated by the nurse’s attitude. This was supposed to be an emergency department, and yet, there wasn’t a single sign of urgency. Even the scattering of patients, on the hard plastic chairs looked as if they’d been sitting there for hours. One guy had already fallen asleep, and another, with his towel-wrapped arm seeping blood, let out a huge sigh. Someone could seriously bleed to death waiting for attention, around here.
With her patience slowly deserting her, Molly drummed her fingers on the Formica surface. What was up with the girl? Couldn’t she see this was a life-and-death situation?
The nurse shuffled a pile of papers together, placed them in a folder, and finally met Molly’s eye. “Love the job, hate the paperwork,” she said. “Now, who did you say you were looking for?”
“My boyfriend, Kendrick Eden. He was brought in tonight.”
“It’s after midnight. A lot of people have passed through here.”
“I appreciate that. I just want to know where he is and if he’s okay.”
“Kendrick Eden, you said?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see.” The tapping resumed, and Molly had a sudden urge to chop the girl’s fingers off. “Ah, here we are,” the nurse said, finally. “There was an RTA admitted earlier, but we’re awaiting confirmation of details.”
“Can I see him?”
“I’m afraid not. Visiting hours are over,” she said through a sickly sweet smile. “And then, it would be family only.”
“I’m the only family he’s got, apart from his brother.”
“Whose name would be…?”
“Johnny.”
“Would you happen to have a phone number for him? We need to log him as next of kin.”
Why the hell would Kendrick need a next of kin? Just how bad was he? “No. Sorry. I don’t. All I know is he lives at twenty-three Parkside Avenue, but I went there, earlier, and there was nobody at home. Please, I have to see Rick.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head with hollow sympathy. “It’s impossible. The best thing you can do is go home and get some rest. You could try phoning tomorrow. There might be more news, then.”
“Who should I call?”
“Hmm, let’s see… Ward fifteen is extension… 237. He’s under… Mr Atherstone.”
“Thank you.”
Outside the building, Molly was pleased to find Liam had waited for her. He’d pulled into a parking space, and was leaning on the steering wheel, smiling, when she approached. “Told you they wouldn’t let you see him,” he said.
“Maybe not officially, but I’m not giving up, yet.”
“What have you got in mind?”
“Ever broken into a hospital?”
Liam raised an enquiring eyebrow. “Are you crazy?”
“Probably,” she said, scanning the car park. “Don’t these places normally have maps?”
“Hop in. I think I saw one at the entrance.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Molly
Ward fifteen was on the other side of the grounds in a newly built wing. Molly had half expected the entrance to be locked up for the night, and for her to have to find an unsecured window or cleaner’s access, so she was surprised to find she could walk straight through the front door.
The small hallway held nothing but a stairway, an elevator, and a sign entitled Unit E General Surgery and Surgical Assessment. The nurse hadn’t mentioned any operation, so why was Kendrick here? The sign located ward fifteen on the second floor. Glancing between the elevator and the stairs, she chose the stairs, and slowly crept up them to a door. A dispenser on the wall instructed all visitors to clean their hands with the anti-bacterial gel inside it. Molly quickly rubbed a splodge onto her hands as she looked through the door’s glass panel.
The ward consisted of a dimly lit corridor with rooms located down each side, and it appeared to be deserted. She pulled up the hood of her jacket and tucked her hair beneath it, as she entered. Raising her eyes to scan the ceiling, she wondered if there were cameras. Too late now. If there were, she’d already been seen. Passing by the first couple of doors, she headed further along the corridor to where she could see beds behind glassed sections of the walls. Kendrick wasn’t in the first room, or the second, and, as she walked to the third, a nurse emerged from it. Crap.
“Can I help you?” the nurse said in a hushed tone.
“I’m looking for Kendrick Eden.”
“Shh. Please keep your voice down,” she said in an angry whisper. “The patients are trying to sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” Molly whispered. “Can you show me where he is, please?”
“And you are…?”
“His sister,” she lied.
“Well, I’m afraid he needs to rest. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow. That’s all anyone seems to say, around here.” Molly’s voice rose. “I am not leaving without seeing his face.”
“Calm down, please, or I’ll be forced to call security.”
“Nurse? Nurse!” A voice called from the room.
She sighed heavily. “Now see what you’ve done. I’d only just settled him down.”
“Nurse!”
“If you’re still here when I come out, I’m making that call,” she said, turning to enter the room, once more.
Yeah. Whatever. Molly waited until the nurse was out of sight, before continuing her search. Seconds later, she found what she was looking for, and her breath caught.
He was here.
Before the nurse could re-emerge to stop her, Molly entered his room with her heart in her throat, but what faced her wasn’t the Kendrick she knew. That guy—the fearless, optimistic, spirited guy—had been replaced by one with a rigid, virtually lifeless body. Maybe it was the moon illuminating his side of the room which made him look worse than he was, but his wan complexion, mottled with tiny cuts, almost matched the bandage around his head for paleness, and a cast enclosed his right arm. Only the beep beep of the heart machine denoted her Kendrick lay inside his broken body, somewhere.
Stepping towards his bedside, she thought of how the last thing she’d said to him was to tell him to go, and wished more than anything she could take the words back. She wasn’t ready for him to go anywhere. Without him, everything else was pointless. He’d been her rock. He’d made her a stronger person. She’d still be living under her father’s thumb, if Kendrick hadn’t come into her life. He had to stay in it.
She perched on the edge of his bed and leaned in to stroke his face. “Rick?” she said softly. “Can you hear me?”
His cheek twitched.
“Rick? I’m here. I’ve come back to you. Please come back to me.”
His eyes fluttered. She bent to lay a kiss on his lips—just as warm and soft as she remembered—but as she started to pull back, the beeping picked up the pace, and his uninjured arm reached up to her neck to hold her to him, a moment longer. A low moan vibrated in his throat, and Molly feared their kiss was hurting him, but after an intense moment, he relaxed and his eyes opened.
“I never went anywhere, Moll. I’ve always been right here,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, tonight,” Molly said.
“I’m sorry I made you feel trapped.”
“It wa
sn’t your fault. I had a lot going on.”
He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “All better now?”
“I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about. Look at you. When I first saw you, you were so still. It frightened me.”
His mouth curved with amusement. “It’ll take more than a bang on the head to get rid of me, babe. I was asleep, not dead.”
“Don’t even joke about that.” She nudged him playfully in the shoulder, and he winced. “Oh, god. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I think I can handle a girl punch.”
“But could you handle me every day?”
“You’re going to punch me every day?”
“Only if you don’t pull your weight with the housework. I’m not being anyone’s slave again.”
“Molly, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, if you need a place to stay, you can move in.”
His grin spread wide. “Come here,” he said, pulling her in for another kiss.
“Rather inappropriate sisterly love, I’d say.” Startled by the sound of the nurse’s voice, their eyes shot to the doorway. She stared at Molly through narrowed eyes. “I thought I told you to leave?”
“If she leaves, I leave,” Kendrick said.
“You will be free to go as soon as the doctor deems you fit to. Your sister needs to go now.”
He pushed to sitting. “I don’t care what you, or any doctor says,” he said, yanking the monitor clip from his finger, “if she goes, I’m out of here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr Eden. Put the clip back on and lie down. We need to monitor that head injury.”
“Does Molly stay?”
“Absolutely not. You need to rest.”
“Then, no dice.” Kendrick swung his legs from the bed and opened a small cupboard at its side. “My head’s fine.”
Molly watched him retrieve a pile of clothes and shake out his jeans. Then not wishing to be the cause of him getting a blood clot, she said, “Perhaps you should stay, Rick. I can come back in the morning.”
“Where you go, I go. I’m not giving you the chance to leave me again,” he said, fastening his jeans with one hand, before leaning over the bed to kiss her one more time. “Help me on with my shirt, babe.”