She leaned away from the teacher and didn't respond, but continued to kick at the gravel. The lazy tracing of her toes during the story had turned into full on thrusts of her foot, spraying the tiny pebbles everywhere with each motion.
Another crash came from the cottage. It was followed by Claudia shouting, and then Mallory shouting.
"Don't you think we should go inside and help?" Dawn ground out the last bit as she made two steps towards the front door.
As Elisabeth's hand shot out to grasp Dawn's wrist and tug her back, the front door opened and shut with a slam.
Claudia stood on the outside, her arms splayed as if she could contain a wild bear inside. Her lip was bleeding, and it looked like she had taken quite the hit. Despite that, the curvy, short brunette laughed.
"What in the worl-" Elisabeth began to walk towards the door, but Claudia shooed her back towards the SUV.
"Do you have any idea how long I've waited to have a sincere reason to knock at that woman? I found it rather enjoyable," she shrugged, and winced at her lip.
Dawn scoffed, crossing her arms at the sight before her. "Who won?”
The medic ran a hand through her hair and fixed her ponytail before meeting Elisabeth's eyes, and then Dawn's. "I'd say you could call it a stalemate at this point. The good news is that she remembers me," she chuckled while pointing to her fat lip. "The bad news is... I'm sorry, you two. That's a whole lot of mess in there. She won't get into a cool shower, or let me give her a shot of Ofirmev. I can't handle it alone, so I – "
"She remembers you?" Dawn interrupted, her voice small and pained.
Claudia's expression was apologetic as she reached a hand out tentatively. It fell short when Dawn skittered away, just out of reach. "Oh, honey. She remembers that she hates me, that's all. And by the end of the day, I can assure you that she'll hate me even more."
Elisabeth's brows furrowed as she shoved off the side of the SUV to hug Claudia. "Even if that were possible," she frowned, "Why? I could always get her to calm down before..."
The wail of an ambulance siren cresting over the hill had all three of them covering their ears in quick succession. It drove down the highway, only pausing at the entrance of the property to converse with an irate DS John Reid. He was making quite a scene of his importance by blocking the drive.
Dawn spun around and jabbed an accusatory finger in Claudia's direction. "You called them! She said she didn't want to go to the hospital!"
The paramedic put both of her hands on her hips and glared in response. "Dawn Rose, sometimes you have to do what is best for the people you love. You called us for help, and help is here," she yelled over the racket.
Before Dawn could protest, two male medics had a stretcher rumbling down the gravel driveway. They entered the house, with Claudia following.
"Don't I have a say in this?" Dawn screamed, tugging at her hair. The emotions she had managed to keep in check all morning burst forth. "Don't her wishes matter?"
Elisabeth's powerful hands gripped at her forearms, pulling her into a hug. Dawn fought it mightily for a few moments, but where she was small, the physical education teacher was decidedly not. Balling up her fists, she hit ineffectually at the woman's chest, while her ears registered a smattering of Norwegian and English words meant to calm her.
Finally, Dawn gave into the hug when her pummeling did nothing to move the arms that tugged and squeezed with each word. She cried bitterly into the shoulder nearest her face.
The front door to the cottage banged open, and Dawn's face turned to look.
Turning her body to block the sight, Elisabeth's hands tangled in Dawn's hair and yanked her head back down.
"Ikke se, lille. Don't look. Shh, now," she hushed her. "You know what Mallie would want. She would not want you to see this."
"I don't care!" Dawn wept as she heard the medics rolling the gurney past. "Stop! Let me go!"
Even Elisabeth startled at the profound howl of anguish that echoed through their surroundings.
Dawn knew the sound well, and clammed up with a hiccoughing sob. Her mind whirled back to the day when that very same pain had escaped her own lips.
Rage, fear, and powerlessness taunted her.
A fresh stream of tears dripped from her stinging eyes.
As reality hit, and the feeling of the loss she would now suffer struck her,
a wail of grief escaped from the depths of her being.
_____________________________________
Dawn stared stubbornly at the sterile hospital floor, and tried to ignore what was going on around her. She stifled a yawn behind her palm, and sat in what was probably the most uncomfortable chair known to mankind.
After tearing away from Elisabeth's grasp and accosting DS Reid to follow the ambulance, time had moved in slow motion. The man's serious scowl hadn't even deterred her from her mission, and he eventually relented.
To her, it was imperative to stay with Mallory. She feared that if she let the white and blue medical transport out of her sight, that her lover might disappear with it too.
Of course, Elisabeth and Claudia had followed in their SUV. They had tried to get her to drink some awful vending machine coffee after waiting for six hours for an update, but Dawn's glare had said all she meant to without words.
They stood off to the side of the waiting room now, whispering between themselves while gesturing at Dawn every so often. It made her seethe; their plaintive, sorry faces. She wasn't some wilting flower, or a baby that needed coddling.
A staff nurse entered the waiting room, recognizable instantly by her pale blue scrubs. Her hand swiped at the tablet in her hand as her eyes scanned the crowd. "Miss Elisabeth Sørensen... For Mallory Moore?" she called out.
Elisabeth pulled away from Claudia then, just as Dawn shot up from her seat to scurry over.
The nurse guided Elisabeth into a small consultation room, and shut the door with a pointed look at both Dawn and Claudia. "Excuse us," she requested professionally.
A strangled noise caught in Dawn's throat as she stepped back from the door. She looked to Claudia for guidance, not understanding why she wasn't allowed in the room.
"Welcome to my life," Claudia drawled sarcastically. "Don't let it bother you."
"Elisabeth is Mallory's health care proxy..." Dawn mumbled, rubbing at her forehead in irritation. "I don't know why I didn't see that one coming."
Claudia slung an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her back to the seats to wait some more.
As they sat down, she slid her hand into Dawn's. “Hey, it's not all that bad," she soothed, aware that she'd upset Dawn with her snark. "They just have to let her know what's going on."
"She said Mallory always acts like this when she's sick," Dawn sighed, at a loss of what else to say. “Like a stork.”
Chuckling softly, Claudia rubbed a finger over Dawn's palm. "Not a stork. Storlom – Elisabeth means she gets a little... crazy. I've seen Mallie sick before. She can get confused, but not that pissed off. Of course, I've never seen her under so much stress, either. For all I know, between Elisabeth and I checking in with phone calls and dropping off soup, she could have been."
Dawn hid behind a veil of her golden blonde hair, embarrassment creeping up her cheeks in a warm blush. "I did this, you mean."
The finger caressing her hand pulled away, and she felt the sharp sting of a pinch. "Oww!" she yelped, turning to face Elisabeth's fiancée.
"You stop that right now," Claudia glowered, testier than Dawn had ever seen her. "Don't you dare blame yourself for that woman starving herself and not sleeping. You didn't do this; your father did this. She's killing herself to protect you from him. I have no idea how you tamed that harridan but... Everything she does is for you, Dawn."
The door to the consultation room jerked open, with Elisabeth and the nurse motioning for them to follow.
The remainder of their conversation would have to wait, but all Dawn could think about on the way down the winding hallways to
Observatory Care was how Claudia was wrong. She didn't feel worth all of this trouble, and the guilt that had plagued her in London was back with a vengeance. So engrossed in her thoughts, Dawn didn't fully comprehend when the rest of the group had come to a stop in front of a room.
Only Elisabeth's gentle tug had stopped her from continuing on down the brightly lit corridor. The bright smile that was on the teacher's face seemed all wrong, and Dawn looked quizzically at her.
"She's awake now. They put her down with a bit of Versed for a few hours until they got the fever under control, but she's... how do you English say it – right as rain? Or she will be, once she stops asking for you," Elisabeth informed her as she guided Dawn through the door.
Dawn hurried to the bedside. Without thinking, her hands pulled back at the covers tucked underneath Mallory's sleeping face to make sure that the woman wasn't a mirage. Her mouth contorting with barely contained rage, she removed the velcro restraints that bound her Mallory's wrists to the bedside. "What did they do to you?" she mumbled incoherently, tears making her vision blurry.
"Ahh – Miss Rose? Please, if you could stop that?" The nurse was upset. “She's not ready for that yet. Miss Rose!”
Mallory's eyes opened at the sound of Dawn's name, and her hands lifted from the mattress to grasp at whatever she could.
They found Dawn's wrist, and she nearly pulled her into the bed. "Dawn?" she coughed, eyes fluttering like she hoped that this wasn't just another hallucination. “You're really here. Oh, Dawn!”
Dawn folded her hand into Mallory's. She kissed at the bandage that separated their palms, and then leaned down to kiss the lips that had so lovingly requested her.
_____________________________________
"And then what happened?" Dr. Sheehan crossed her legs elegantly, and leaned away from her notes.
Mallory froze. "I'm not quite sure I understand what this has to do with the case."
Margaret had invited her back to the station to discuss more details before the Crown went after Steven Rose formally. They had put out an All Points Warning to the commonwealth police bureaus, but that was no guarantee that they could nail him down in time. The duty prosecutor wasn't happy with her testimony thus far, and they both knew it.
"Mallory…" Margaret began in her tender, motherly voice she knew often broke her walls down.
At her terse nod from across the table, the doctor continued.
"We need to be prepared for what the defense is going to utilize against you during cross examination. You were brought to Cook Hospital five days ago for delirium, and from the records we were able to obtain, it poses a question of credibility. They will use this against you. I need to know."
The more they talked about this, the more agitated Mallory became. She reached down to her purse to bring out a pack of cigarettes, and tapped them loudly on the table. "You want to know if I've gone down the rabbit hole," she muttered.
Picking up her pen once more, Margaret leaned forward with the most understanding look she could muster. "Have you?"
Not answering the question directly, Mallory neglected the signs requesting 'No Smoking' in the interview room, and lit a cigarette. "Do you want to know what I thought when I came to, Dr. Sheehan? Surrounded by an angry friend, her nosy fiancée, and the light of my heart, all while half naked and bound to a damned hospital bed?"
She tsked under her breath, more so for finding herself in the situation at all. Ashing her cigarette onto the floor, she took another puff and blew it out harshly. "I've always prided myself on being the strong one. Sure, I had some wild days in my youth," she glided over the terrible first year that she and Elisabeth had lived together, surprised at how it came to mind so clearly. "You'll not find any craziness on my part ever since I came back to teach at St. Augusta's. But as I woke up that day, all I could focus on was Dawn's eyes. Those beautiful eyes."
Mallory took two more drags of her cigarette in quick succession, testing to see if the doctor would interject. Satisfied when the older woman simply waited with a knowing smile, she went on. "I knew that I had gotten sick. It happens when I get feverish."
Nodding to herself, Dr. Sheehan scribbled some into her file. "That's not unusual in your situation, I can assure you.”
Irritated at being pigeon holed into a statistic, Mallory shook her head. "That may be, but for the first time, I actually cared. I thought to myself; how shattered am I? How can I protect her like this?"
The cold, gray room seemed to make each of her sharp breaths louder than the last. Dr. Sheehan continued to make notations, but peered up every so often to see if Mallory would continue to speak.
After a few minutes of silence to gather themselves, Margaret broke the quiet first. "You know what you have to do, Mallory," she encouraged.
"No," Mallory declared coldly, gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles whitened.
Dr. Sheehan tilted her head, and sighed. She slid a laptop over, moving her files to do so. Opening the computer screen up, she typed for a few minutes before peering over the top edge in challenge. "Last week won't be all they use against you, Mallory. They'll request everything from your past, and use it brutally and without care during cross examination. You will need to be able to defend yourself."
Mallory pondered this, her eyebrow raising as she stared at the back of the laptop. "And what would frighten me so badly that I'd go falling apart on the stand?" she retorted. "What barrel of snakes do you have there, Dr. Sheehan?"
Margaret clicked play on the video evidence, and spun the laptop to face Mallory. Picking up her pen once more, she waited patiently for her reaction.
Her fingernails tapped on her leg in a calming rhythm as she watched. Every few seconds, Mallory would look back up at the doctor to see if she would stop the video.
Dr. Sheehan sat firm, her face determined.
A disembodied voice off screen recorded the time and date. "19:30, 20th January 1999. Patient Name: Lilith Mallory LaFey. Hello there, Lilith. I'm Dr. Thorne..." the man carried on before moving in front of the screen to sit next to a girl curled up against the farthest edge of a hospital bed. "Do you remember me?"
The closer the doctor moved on screen, the more tightly the girl with knotted blonde hair clasped her arms around knobby knees.
"Now, now... There's no need to be afraid," he soothed, motioning for a nurse to unfold the girl's arms.
The nurse succeeded in doing just that. She pushed down on the knees of the girl, and tucked them under a sheet with a reassuring pat. The fourteen year old's eyes stared off at the wall, refusing to look at either person in the room.
Dr. Thorne moved back into view, clicking on a small light in his hand before shining it between both green eyes. The girl's hand flew up to slap at the light, and it flew from the doctor's hand with a clank.
"Good! That's a girl... Tell me how you really feel, hmm?" he prodded. Met only with silence, he spoke to the nurse. "Pupillary response normal. I think we can narrow out any damage from the asphyxia. No, this is good old disassociation; watch now."
The nurse turned towards the doctor, who crouched just out of reach of the girl. "I know why you won't talk," he chuckled jovially. "I forgot, silly me! You kept telling the doctors at the Kent A&E that your name is Mallie. But that's not what your parents call you, is it?"
Awareness came to the teenager's eyes as she turned her face towards the doctor. "I don't know," she whispered.
"Stop it," Mallory ordered, pushing the laptop back at Margaret forcefully. "This is ridiculous. They'd have to be crueler than the devil himself to use this!" she hissed, pulling out another cigarette and lighting it.
She brushed an errant tear from her cheek and looked at the clock. "Are we nearly done for today? I'd like to go home."
Margaret nodded once in defeat, pulling the laptop aside. She didn't stop the video evidence just yet. "They'll be even more cruel in any attempt to discredit your testimony, I can assure you. You can go for now, but I'll need you back h
ere tomorrow; 11:00?"
"Duly noted," Mallory snipped back, standing up to crush her barely smoked cigarette onto the floor until it was a mess of shredded paper and tobacco. As she walked towards the interview room door, Dr. Thorne's voice made her pause.
"Where is Lilith, Mallie? I'd sure like to talk to her."
"Safe," Mallory intoned over the girl's timid response, her shoulders hunching slightly.
The recall earned a double-take from Margaret.
With a crisp inclination of her head at the surprised psychologist, Mallory strode out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
It wasn't until her heels had clicked rapidly to the car and she had slid inside that her hands flew to her face, muffling the sounds of her crying. Whimpers slid past lips in full disobedience of she who controlled them, and one of her hands came away from her face to slap at the steering wheel over and over.
Peccatum in Carne: Sins of the Flesh (The Three Sins of Mallory Moore Book 1) Page 25