My own personal guard paces the waiting room, clearly unhappy with this turn of events, but prisoners are entitled to the same level of care as anyone else, no matter what they’ve done in the past.
‘Where’s Jen?’ Doctor Dickson looks around for the nurse who assisted us earlier. ‘I need forceps. There appears to be a piece of metal still inside the wound.’
Doctor Dickson sticks his head out from between the curtains and in that same brief second, the prisoner lurches from the hospital trolley and wraps his huge bulging bicep around my shoulders, pulling my neck up in a vice-like grip.
The tightness around my throat is suffocating. I manage to choke out a gasp, and Doctor Dickson’s head whips around.
Something sharp and cold presses against my clavicle. A scalpel.
‘Don’t make a sound, or I’ll kill her,’ he hisses with a broad Scottish twang, pressing the scalpel further into my skin.
I can’t see if I’m bleeding. I can’t feel anything past the crushing of my windpipe. My life flashes before me.
My sisters.
Huxley Castle.
The car accident that shaped my entire life.
Archie. He’ll never forgive himself.
‘We don’t want any trouble.’ Doctor Dickson raises his hands, his whispered words cracking with fear. ‘We can help you. What do you need?’
‘Get me out of here. And give me your wallets, watches and phones.’ He tightens his hold on my neck. ‘Or she gets it.’
Starved of oxygen, my vision blurs. I can’t breathe. I can’t hang on like this much longer.
‘Let her go,’ Archie’s deep masculine voice demands from behind us. The choke hold on my neck releases. My knees buckle and I hit the lino, my palms splayed out across the floor.
Archie wears an expression I’ve never seen before. Nor ever want to see again. His jaw is set so tight it could pop, but it’s his eyes that stand out the most. A storm swirls in those steely pupils, promising death and destruction to anyone who crosses its path.
He looks every bit the trained killer.
The prisoner’s face contorts in agony, his arm twisted so far up his back his wrist must be broken.
‘Guards,’ Archie calls.
They charge into the cubicle and cuff the prisoner’s wrists to the bed.
A minute later, and they’d have been too late. My fingers go to my neck, massaging the skin that’s surely bruised. I glance down. Blood drips from a cut on my clavicle, fusing with my dark scrubs.
Archie sweeps me up off the floor, straight into his arms. His heart races furiously beneath his chest, thudding against my own.
‘Are you okay?’ Archie’s wild eyes sweep over me before he presses a kiss to my temple.
Doctor Dickson glances between us, his mouth hanging open in shock.
I nod, unable to find the right words to express my relief. Or gratitude. If it wasn’t for him… Fuck, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Doctor Dickson ushers us out of the cubicle, leaving the prisoner to bleed where he’s firmly cuffed to the bed, a guard on either side of him. ‘Let me take a look at you.’ His slim smooth fingers take me by the wrist.
‘I’m fine. It’s fine. Nothing a few stitches won’t heal.’ Blood pounds in my ears and my legs feel like jelly.
‘We’ll get you fixed up. You’ll have to make a statement, but then I want you to take the rest of the week off to recover.’
‘I’m fine, really.’ My protest sounds feeble, even to me.
But my trembling hands don’t lie.
