Chapter 12 #2
He looked down. He’d been unconsciously stroking Ben’s hair.
There was glass in it, and he carefully groomed it out.
Ben’s eye was blackening, and his lip swollen and split.
Nikolas’s hands were torn and bleeding, and his weak wrist—the one he’d broken a while back and had pinned—was sore again.
He supposed he ought to stop hitting people.
Injured people were still staggering in.
The place resembled a battle zone. Nikolas wondered idly where the men from the pub would be taken.
They hadn’t appeared in this hospital A he’d kept his head high; he’d breathed lightly and done what he had to do to survive.
His great moment of epiphany was halted though when he realised he was thinking exactly what this night had probably been designed to make him think.
Fuck that. He grunted, shifted to try and get more comfortable, which woke Ben properly, and he sat up, rubbing where the plastic chairs edges had dug into his kidney.
“What the fuck? What’s the time? What fucking day is it?
Fuck, Samuel, is he…?” He scrubbed at his face morosely. “What?”
“Are you fucking channelling fucking Michael?”
Ben seemed to think about this then coloured. “Sorry. I was having a good dream. Didn’t want to wake up.” He didn’t elaborate and peered around more cognizant. “Samuel?”
Nikolas was about to reply he didn’t know yet, when a very sheepish and strung-out young man appeared from the treatment area.
His wrist was in a cast. Nikolas knew how that felt and scratched at his own re-damaged wrist in unconscious sympathy.
Samuel sat down, waking the others when the plastic chair screeched on the sticky lino.
Samuel stared down at his feet for a moment.
“I’m really, really sorry, chaps. I’ll make this up to you, I promise. ”
Ben glanced warily at Nikolas, but to his evident astonishment, Nikolas only mock-cuffed the boy around the head. “Come, let’s get out of this place.”
John curled his lip faintly. “I think I prefer A&E to the course, to be honest.”
Nikolas was pleased with himself. “Who said anything about the course?”
He led them out to the entrance, where a couple of taxis were waiting for them.
Puzzled, they climbed in. Five miles later, they were deposited outside a luxury hotel, which resembled a castle and boasted an attached spa.
Bemused, the small ragtag group followed Nikolas into reception.
“You have a block booking in the name of Stannis?”
The girl nodded. “We have, sir. Three double suites. We’ll start breakfast now, sir, and that should be with you in about half an hour.”
Nikolas made a mental note to thank Kate, nodded, took one key for himself and Ben, and tossed the others to John. “Anyone for a couple of days in a luxury spa?”
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