Chapter Two
Security Sam brought the Harley to a stop at the very front of A somewhere else someone coughed, hacking like it had really taken hold of their lungs. A monitor beeped out of time, as if it couldn’t be bothered keeping the rhythm straight.
Next door, voices rose. Male. Too loud. Too sure of themselves.
“How, I’m tellin’ you, mate, I didn’t start it,” one of them slurred. “He threw the first punch. Ask anyone.”
A woman’s voice cut in, tired, clipped, already done with the night. “I don’t care who started it. Sit down before you fall over.”
“Don’t fucking talk to me like I’m a kid,” another bloke snapped. “We’ve been waitin’ three fucking hours. Three. You lot useless or what?”
The curtain twitched as someone shifted their weight hard against the bed next door. Metal clinked. A tray rattled.
“If you keep swearing, I will have security remove you,” the woman said, calm but thin, stretched to breaking. “Now let me see your hand.”
A sharp laugh followed. “You hear that, Kev? Big threat. Gonna call the bizzies on us.”
Something thumped. A fist on a trolley, maybe? And a nurse hissed, “Jesus Christ…”
Then a new voice, male, older. Doctor, by the sound of him. “Enough. You’re here because you broke your knuckle punching a wall. Either you let us treat you, or you leave.”
“Like hell I am,” the first bloke spat. “You touch me and I’ll…”
The rest was swallowed by the scrape of footsteps and the heavy presence of someone stepping in close. The volume dropped, but the tension didn’t. It pressed through the curtain, thick and sour, settling in my chest.
I sat on the edge of the bed, jaw locked, listening to them mouth off, all noise and bravado. Men who needed to be seen. To be heard.
I stayed quiet. Quiet had kept me alive longer than most. The nurse in the room with me glanced around nervously before her eyes settled on me again and her jaw growing tighter.
“Tough shift?” my voice rumbled ominously in the space, making her jump.
“Yeah. Football match. And a junior doctor strike. Couldn’t make it up. Can I see?” She beckoned to my side.
I nodded, shrugging out of my cut and peeling the leather motorcycle jacket off from under that. The movement made my skin scream silently.
“Oh,” the nurse breathed, and I glanced down at the blood-soaked t-shirt underneath.
I shouldn’t have worn white. That blood was never coming out, no matter what miracles Mamma Dot could perform.
The t-shirt was now only destined for the bin.
The gauze underneath was saturated, and already half hanging off where the blood had rendered the sticking plaster I’d attached it with almost useless.
Careful fingers teased it off, a rush of cold air hitting the site. She poked at the sides carefully and then leaned back, pulling off her gloves.
“When did this happen?”
“This morning.”
“And you waited all day to get it seen to?”
“Aye. First chance I had.”
She shook her head. “This’ll need the doctor.”
“Great. How long will that take?”
“Not sure. But that really needs closing up. I’ll see what I can do. Just stay here. I’ll not move you back to the waiting room. Hopefully won’t be too long.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, watching as she slipped out through the curtains.
Beside me the next cubicle had calmed down, just the low murmur of voices.
I settled onto the plastic-coated trolley-bed, leaning my head back and closing my eyes for just a moment.
I hadn’t slept last night. I’d been on stake out.
Club business. And now I had this fucking gash in my side as a result and was sitting in A&E while everyone else would be getting pissed back at the Dog.
The curtain rasped again, and I snapped up. Too quick. My insides pulsed like they might spill out through the slit now that the nurse had removed my gauze. Darkness pooled before my eyes. Just for a second. Clearing slowly.
“You are Reap?” the light voice I’d heard next door through the curtains spoke to me now.
Something in my brain shifted. The slightest hint of déjà vu.
But all I could see was green. Green trousers and a green tunic over the top.
My vision sharpened. A stethoscope hung around her neck.
Strands of hair fell round her face, curling as they hung.
Light brown, almost golden at the ends. The rest scooped up onto the top of her head, like she’d just got out of bed.
And those eyes. Grey.
Not soft grey. Not warm. The kind that didn’t invite anything from you.
Flat as slate, sharp at the edges, measuring without asking permission.
They flicked over me the way officers used to: quick, efficient, already filing me into a box before I’d opened my mouth.
Clinical. Controlled. Almost cruel in their distance. They reminded me of her father.
And that thought landed wrong, heavy and sudden, like I’d stepped somewhere I shouldn’t. I shifted on the bed, teeth grinding as the movement pulled at my side. She didn’t flinch. Just watched. Took it in. Pain registered, noted, set aside.
Those eyes didn’t linger. They assessed.
Cut through leather and blood and bulk like none of it mattered.
Like I was a problem to be solved, not a man sitting in front of her.
Slowly I nodded. Realising she’d spoken.
Realising that any words I’d had before she’d stepped in had been completely taken from me.
“Alright, Reap,” she said again, voice calm, level. No judgement. No warmth either. “Let’s have a look at you.”
Her gaze dropped then, to the mess I’d made of myself, and something loosened in my chest that I hadn’t realised was locked tight. Disappointment. Because if she’d kept looking at my face, if she’d stared one second longer, maybe, she might have recognised me.
She didn’t.
Her fingers were already gloved, movements quick and practised, snapping latex tight at her wrists. She stepped closer, eyes fixed on the gash at my side like it was the only thing worth seeing. Not my face. Not the lips she’d traced with her mouth, years ago. Just damage.
“Tell me if this hurts,” she said, not unkindly. Just professionally.
As if pain had ever been optional.
She cleaned the wound methodically, precisely.
The sting burned white-hot, and I sucked in a breath slowly, focussing on that sting of pain like I was chasing a high.
Her hand paused, just a fraction, and for a second, something flickered.
Not recognition. Instinct, maybe. Muscle memory she didn’t know she had.
Then it was gone.
“You on any medication, Reap?” she asked, already turning to the tray. “Allergies?”
Reap.
The name settled between us like a lie we were both accepting. I watched her face as she worked. The curve of her mouth when she concentrated. The faint crease between her brows. Every line burned into me, familiar as my own hands.
She didn’t look up again. Didn’t see the man she’d once loved sitting right in front of her.
And the worst part wasn’t that she didn’t know who I was. It was the realisation that I’d known the moment I saw her eyes, and that whatever we’d been back then was buried deeper than any wound I’d ever walked away from.
I stayed quiet, letting her stitch me up like I was a stranger.