10. Emergency Room 101
ten
Archer
Raul’s fine. Really, he is. His symptoms are all very normal after being killed, possessed by a ghost, then resurrected.
But I can hardly tell Liam that. Therefore, here we are, at Liam’s insistence, waiting in the emergency room at an enormous and overcrowded hospital.
I did offer for them both to stay over at mine, to keep an eye on him, but for whatever reason, Liam wasn’t into that idea.
Probably the ghosts.
A nurse took Raul through a while ago, and somehow it’s made Liam even more anxious than the long wait with him here snoozing on the bench.
Liam’s made about twenty attempted phone calls to his boss, only one of which seems to have gone through, and now his knee is tapping in a way that makes me want to reach out and grab it to steady him.
I feel like we should go through the day’s events, but I don’t know where to begin. With tea, I suppose, maybe the sixth, which I bought several minutes ago and which I press into his hand now for the second time. His eyes shift briefly from frightened to thankful, then back again.
“How are you holding up?” I ask.
His laugh sounds slightly manic. “I’m not great.” His eyes dart to the doorway that Raul disappeared through, then linger there.
“He’ll be fine,” I assure him. “You saw him afterwards. Not a scratch on him.”
“But so much blood.” His jumping knee bumps into mine when he shifts towards me. “Why did he have so much blood, and not a scratch?”
“Well, um…” Not because I resurrected him, obviously. We very much don’t want the hot ghost catcher to think that I, too, am associated with the spirit world. “Maybe he did have some scratches. Under the blood. But he was walking around fine, talking…”
“Maybe it’s some kind of nasty injury we couldn’t see,” Liam worries aloud. “Maybe it was under his clothes. And… and…”
My hand does drop then, partly to calm that shaking knee, but mostly to calm him. “He’s going to be all right.”
Liam’s eyes fall to my hand, so I take it back fast, wrapping it around my little cardboard cup. It’s too hot, and it burns my skin, but I hold on to it anyway.
I’m not coming onto him. I’m not. And I very much don’t want him to think I am. Because maybe if I wait, play my cards right, maybe when this is all over…
Ugh, who am I kidding? I can’t date anyone. And this is all my fault anyway. I should have sent them away at the door as soon as I realised how inexperienced Liam is. I should never have let him go through any of this. And when he finds out I’m responsible for the lot of it…
He slides his hands together, knotting his fingers, then leans forward, elbows on his thighs. A long sigh makes his shoulders stoop. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
He says it so quietly, like a confession.
I lean forward to match his pose, that hot cup making my fingers ache. “I’m sorry.”
He laughs, just a little. “For what? It’s not your fault you’ve got a ghost.”
A ghost. If only he knew. That thought twists in my stomach. If he had any inkling of the real problem… If he’d met the thing…
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” he mutters. “I was useless today.”
“Liam, you weren’t at all.”
“I spent the whole time hiding in your sitting room,” he argues.
“I locked you in there,” I argue back. “It’s not like I gave you a choice.”
“What did you do that for?” His eyes are more than accusatory when they meet mine. Definitely quite accusatory. Guarded. But there’s also a shade of… hurt?
“I just…” I don’t know what to say to him. “I wanted you to be safe.” And to not see my powers. “And it’s my ghost, so it’s my responsibility. If he’d been hurt, really hurt… I suppose I just didn’t want you to see that. On your first day. And have that memory.”
He watches me a little longer, and I can only hope he sees the truth of it in my expression.
Because that is true. I’m only realising it now as I say it.
There’s something about this man that makes me want to take him under my wing, or…
protect him. Which is weird, I guess. Since we’ve only just met.
But there’s something about him. Some kind of pleasant energy, almost like a familiarity.
Though I’m sure I’d remember if I’d ever met him before.
He unwittingly makes the intensity of the urge double when he looks away again and says, “I need this job. I’m… I don’t have anything else. And my mum, she… we—”
“Liam!” a voice calls from across the room.
Liam’s up like a shot. “Gerald!”
Gerald, huh? So that’s the boss. The head of ExorSquad himself. The man I paid to send me this poor guy who’s been put through the ghostly wringer today and spat out the other side.
Gerald looks like the kind of guy who’s just spent his final penny betting on the dogs.
His ancient suede coat appears thrifted at best, maybe a hand-me-down from his probably equally shifty-looking grandfather.
A gold tooth gleams when he grins at Liam, when he places a tobacco-yellowed hand on his shoulder.
Then he lowers his head in a show of listening to Liam, but his quick brown eyes never stop darting back to me.
Judging by the look of him, and by today’s disaster, I’m not convinced this guy has any idea how to run a team of ‘Spirit Extraction Specialists.’
In fact, the only thing that’s being extracted right now, as far as I can see, is my money.
I push myself to standing and make my way over to them, Liam’s hushed but frenzied words growing clear on approach.
“A real ghost. I’m not even kidding. I saw it.
A whole man, not some mist or-or-or a light or something.
And then it was like… it did something. The ghost. And a whole chandelier fell on him, but then it was back in the ceiling.
And I can’t explain how it got there. And—”
“Shhh.” Gerald’s hand squeezes into Liam’s shoulder, and there’s something about the way Liam responds to it that sparks that same protectiveness in me.
The way he looks at this man with some unguarded mixture of hope and trust, when I’d have run a mile from him if I’d seen him in the flesh before I hired him.
Gerald says, “Everything’s okay now. I told you it wouldn’t be easy. ”
“I know you did, but…” Liam’s cheeks flush. “I just… I didn’t expect that.”
He was totally unprepared. And it’s this guy’s fault. So I drop my name curtly. “Archer Gravely. I drove Raul here today after he got hurt.”
Gerald’s eyes double in size. “Gravely? That you?”
He takes in my clothes, more crumpled and blood-stained than I’d like, and as he does it, I notice a wily look in his eyes. Like he’s adding up how much I’m worth. Maybe trying to figure out if I’m good to keep paying him what I see now is an exorbitant price.
And he’s not getting away with it.
“Raul almost died today,” I hiss at him. “I asked you for proper, experienced, knowledgeable ghostbus—”
“Spirit Extraction Specialists,” he cuts in, the scent of stale tobacco wafting across with his words.
“Yes. That. And what I got is two brand-new guys with zero real-world training or experience.”
“Raul’s one of our most experienced employees!” Gerald throws back, some dance of amusement and irritation in his brow, as if I have no idea what I’m talking about. “He’s been there three full months!”
“Three?” I repeat. “Three!” This is absurd. “Raul went in there totally unprepared, pissed off a ghost, and died-di-di-almost died because of it! And this one…”
It’s the way Liam’s head drops that stops me mid-speech. The hunch of his shoulders. The paling of his cheeks. The way Gerald’s eyes shoot across to him, dig into him. The way Liam flinches away from it all.
It’s only a fraction of a second, but I know that look on Liam’s face. His job is on the line, first day, and I’m the asshole customer who’s about to get him fired.
My anger reforms itself into a shielding instinct, some urge to stamp out the injustice of every prick who treated me like shit back when I was waiting tables. “And this one…” I shove a finger towards Liam. “Thank god he was there today.”
Those big brown eyes grow large on me, pink flooding back into his cheeks instantly.
“He… he is the only one who bothered to speak to me, to try to understand the situation. He’s the one who showed caution when Raul took his gun out after I’d expressly asked him not to.
Liam is… He’s wonderful. Ten out of ten. No notes.”
A full smile illuminates Liam’s handsome face, and Gerald lets out a full belly laugh in response, like his heist just paid off and he got away with the full contents of the bank vault. But I’m still pissed. And I need to make sure he knows it.
“Liam almost died because of Raul—we all almost died because of Raul. It’s honestly appalling that you should send men into such a dangerous situation wholly unprepared. I’m truly disgusted. I’m—”
“I hear what you’re saying,” Gerald says, and those yellow-stained fingers move to my shoulder, his head dipping in just the same way it did for Liam, as if he’s about to share a hot tip on a horse. “How about…” The dark little eyes fix on mine. “Ten percent off your next haunting?”
“My next…” My brain scrambles to keep up with the ridiculousness of this man. “I’m not planning on being haunted again.”
“You just never know, though, do you?”
“Yes… no… I mean… I’m not… No! No, I don’t accept ten percent off my next haunting!”
His eyes roll and his head drops back, then to the side. “I see. I see what you’re angling for. All right. Let’s say… Ten-te-te-fiiii-two! Two percent off the current haunting? Can’t ask for much better than that, can you?”
“Two percent?” I huff out in perfect disbelief.
“Glad we have a deal!”
“We don’t have a—”
“And don’t forget the nondisclosure agreements you signed, either of you.” He steps back and away from the discussion.
Liam and I share a fast look, then, “I don’t remember signing a nondisclosure agreement,” I tell them.
“It was in the fine print,” Gerald says, retreating, retreating. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some release papers that need signing.”