She seemed surprised. “Your girlfriend’s pretty eager.”
Shit! He couldn’t deal with Alle right now. Wasn’t up to processing all that had happened. Flynn had called him using her phone, and maybe there was an explanation for that, but not one he wanted to ferret out yet.
“No one but the guy who came in with me.” It hurt like hell to say that much.
“Scary guy with the long hair?”
“Xane.” He nodded.
She left only to return a moment later. “You know, she’s really quite insistent.”
“No!” Christ, how plain did he have to make it? It was like they strapped you to a bed and you lost every scrap of autonomy.
The nurse came over to the bed, quietening the alarmbing, bing, bongingon the drip monitor. “You need to unclench your fist.” She watched him until he straightened out his fingers. They’d fed the cannula into the back of his hand. She unpaused the drip flow and it stayed mercifully silent. “Look, she asked me to give you this.”
The card hadn’t even landed on the top sheet before Spook jerked sideways, almost tipping the damn drip stand.
“Whatever she’s told you is a fucking lie. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a fucking lunatic. Xane!” He attempted to yell, but what emerged was more croak than bellow. “Call security.”
“Okay, I’ll take it.” The nurse snatched it up. “Such a fuss over a such a pretty thing.” She smiled like the card was a ray of goddamned sunshine. “I’ll leave it over here with the flowers.” She set it upright on the table. “Maybe you can look at it later when you’re less agitated. It’s obviously had a lot of thought put into it.”
He could have been belligerent about it, but some people were just too fucking dumb to waste your breath on, and pain had a way of clarifying things, reducing them down to their cores. In that moment, he realised what he had to do with perfect clarity. Step one, get the nurse to leave him alone. To that end he settled against the pillows and sat placid as you like while she took his vitals. No monitor bleeps, nothing to make her pout. She jotted down his sats, then she was off, ready to assault some other poor bugger with a blood pressure cuff and a crocodile clip.
The moment the door closed Spook flicked open the card with one fingertip. Cards were Siv’s speciality, and he’d seen enough of them to recognise her work. She favoured a distinctive scrapbook style that always made him think of blackmail notes composed from newspaper, only in pastel pinks and gold. It was a work of art if you liked that sort of thing. He didn’t want to read what she’d put inside, but he also had to know.
There wasn’t a signature, nor anything so sickly as a love note, only a phrase scrawled in metallic gold ink:There’s beauty in compliance.
Spook ripped the cannula out of the back of his hand and silenced the machine’s objection by turning it off at the wall. No way was he sticking around for any more of this shit. The bitch was in the fucking building. And, if there was one thing he’d learned in almost three decades of life, it was when to cut and run.
-4-
Xane
Spook: I think it’s in everyone’s best interests that I’m no longer associated with Black Halo. Please consider this my official resignation. I wish you all the best in taking Black Halo to new heights in the future, and I’m gutted I can’t be part of it. Love you guys. It’s been a blast! Spook.
Xane stared at the message that had just popped up on his phone for a good minute after he first read it, before tackling it again syllable by nauseating syllable to see if it made any more sense. What in hell was this crap? No. Just, no. Today was a shit show already without this festering heap of nonsense.
Spook could button up and shove his resignation.
Shitting hell, he’d already nearly lost him once today. The image of his friend’s blood-soaked and matted hair, and his swollen face was still imprinted on the inside of his eyelids. So, no—no, he was not going to let him bow out over some shitpost that even a half-competent amateur could debunk inside an hour complete with legal citations.
If he got his hands on Ms Leigh or Mr Hutton it’d take more than the twelve staples they’d put in Spook’s scalp to put them back together, and he really wasn’t a violent man. Likewise, he really hoped the dock security footage had caught whichever fuckwit had gone vigilante on Spook’s arse, so he could add that bastard’s name to his shit list too.
Xane barrelled back into Spook’s room. “No, I don’t fucking accept your resignation.”
The bed was empty.
His jacket missing from the back of the chair.
“Spook? Shit!” He nudged open the door to the adjoining bathroom, already certain he’d find it empty. Sure enough…
“Don’t do this to me? Don’t fucking do this…”
Too late. He’d already split. Run, as he’d been on the verge of doing three days ago.
Xane slammed his fist into the nearest wall, which precipitated the instant arrival of the ward sister.
“Is there a problem here?”
